16 May 22
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The shooter who killed 11 Jewish Americans at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 espoused the idea of the “great replacement.”
The hateful ideology is shamelessly promoted by Fox Cable News, the CEO of which is Lachlan Murdoch, with the worst offender being the Lord Haw-Haw of the twenty-first century, Tucker Carlson, who exposed his audience to the great replacement excrement 400 times in the past year.
Republican legislators across the US have been putting in laws against the teaching of critical race theory, which helps us understand the hold and the effect of ideas like the great replacement, and which hasn’t killed anyone. They don’t seem to be as eager to legislate against Nazi ideas. (It is a Nazi idea.)
The racist notion of the “great replacement” originated in Europe and had many exponents of various stripes. Contrary to what is sometimes alleged, however, the phrase itself was not coined by Maurice Barres in early twentieth-century France, though he certainly believed in the ideas behind it.
The phrase, and the most extensive elaboration of the theory, originated with the French Nazi Rene Binet (1913-1957), who served during WW II in The Waffen Grenadier Brigade of the SS Charlemagne, which consisted of French collaborators. You don’t get more fascist than that– the Charlemagne Brigade were the last troops to defend Hitler’s bunker before his suicide, and staged a failed, desperate fight against the Soviet army’s advance into Berlin.
Binet fulminated after the war against “the invasion of Europe by Negroes and Mongols,” by which he meant Americans and Soviets. He saw Americans as an impure mestizo “race” (he was a biological racist). He also launched diatribes against unbridled capitalism and the ways in which Jews were using it to abet the replacement of civilized white Europeans.
So this supposedly far right American nationalist idea actually originated in hatred for Americans and a denigration of their supposed “whiteness” by the European Right, which did not see Russians as “white” either.
It is worth noting that unlike cowardly boot-lickers like Benet, the true patriots were the multi-cultural French. The French Army and then De Gaulle’s Free French Army included thousands of riflemen (Tirailleurs) from Senegal. History.net explains: “During World War II the French recruited 179,000 Tirailleurs; some 40,000 were deployed to Western Europe. Many were sent to bolster the French Maginot Line along its border with Germany and Belgium during the German invasion in 1940—where many were killed or taken prisoner. After the fall of France, others served in the Free French army in Tunisia, Corsica, and Italy, and in the south of France during the liberation.”
I had two uncles who served in WW II, one at the Battle of the Bulge. In my family, we are not in any doubt that it was the Allies who were the good guys. And, yes, the Allies were multi-racial. They included the Tuskegee Airmen, who bombed Nazi targets, The Allies were the diverse American rainbow, and it was their diversity that gave them the strength to prevail.
People like Tucker Carlson are pitifully ignorant of history and so are wielding an anti-American, highly unpatriotic notion for the sake of their television ratings. Ironically, Tucker’s intellectual forebear, Binet, would have considered him a mongrel “Negro.” As defenders of illiberalism and implicitly of hatred of Jews, these useful idiots of the far right are symbolically still deployed around Hitler’s bunker, defending it from the approaching Allies.
A Ukrainian soldier at his front-line base a few miles from Russian forces. (photo: Nicole Tung/WP)
“You guys don’t have long before you get back out there,” a commander reminded the group. “Rest while you can.”
Almost three months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Moscow’s forces are stalled in eastern regions that President Vladimir Putin promised to “liberate.” In Donbas, which Russia no longer recognizes as part of Ukraine, Moscow’s gains have been limited. To the west near Kharkiv, it has lost territory. Here in the southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia, the front lines have almost completely frozen.
“The Russians aren’t winning and the Ukrainians aren’t winning, and we’re at a bit of a stalemate here,” the director of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, told the Senate last week.
From their bases in the region’s small villages, Ukrainian and Russian soldiers can barely see one another. They trade artillery fire for days on end in the hope that it will suppress advances. Beneath the arcs of that crossfire, the streets are eerily quiet.
On the firing range last week, fighters traded dreams of the comforts they craved.
“Did I tell you I haven’t tasted milk in five weeks?” one of them asked his commander.
“Well, don’t think about that now — we need you back for the fighting,” the officer barked back.
Undeterred, the soldier grinned.
“Sure, but I’m stopping at the grocery store on my way.”
Sitting on the Azov Sea between the Donetsk and Kherson regions, Zaporizhzhia is partly occupied by Russian forces, who are now trying to advance northward. But the front lines have hardened.
“Both sides are digging in, both sides are scrapping it out, both sides are shelling each other, and both sides are changing hands in terms of their control over towns and villages and areas every single day,” a senior U.S. defense official told reporters.
Analysts from the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said Thursday that Ukrainian artillery fire on Russian forces along the western border of the Donetsk region had halted their advances toward Zaporizhzhia city.
That urban center has become a sanctuary for those fleeing. In recent weeks, thousands of civilians from across the southeast have arrived in bullet-riddled cars and battered old buses at a nondescript parking lot where volunteers register them and provide a hot meal.
“It’s the first time they know they are safe,” said Oleksiy Servitsky, a local official who oversees the process. “This region is the gateway to Ukraine.”
Most arrive from farther south, including from the Russian-occupied cities of Mariupol, Melitopol and Kherson. But others are fleeing active fighting along the Zaporizhzhia front line.
As reporters made their way last week to Poltavka, a village several miles from that front line, a local farmer, Serhiy, was the only civilian to be seen driving. Slumped at the wheel after a terrifying journey through active shelling, the 42-year-old looked numb with exhaustion.
“We left Poltavka this morning,” he sighed as his wife, Olha, sat tense and quiet in the passenger seat. “We were the last to leave.”
When the artillery battle intensified in mid-April and most residents fled, Serhiy and Olha faced a dilemma: leave for safety and sacrifice the farm, or risk their lives and try to save it. In the end, they sent their children to Zaporizhzhia and tried to keep the business alive. But when artillery shells began peppering the village outskirts, every week spent in the ghost town felt more futile.
“We had to sell half our pigs to get by,” Serhiy said. “Soon we’d have had nothing left.”
As he spoke, only one other civilian passed, the creak of his battered bicycle one of the few sounds in the warm spring air.
“The thing is, we didn’t have war here before — this place was meant to be safe,” Serhiy said. “We didn’t expect it to reach us so fast.”
Along the potholed road, the perils grew clearer by the mile. Reporters saw plumes of smoke swirling upward from villages on both sides of the front line amid the slow, loud drumbeat of shelling.
In Poltavka, a black-and-copper-colored war memorial from the Soviet era lay in pieces. Several civilian homes had been shattered. In the backyards and doorways, Ukrainian soldiers were occasionally visible from the road.
In the neighborhood closest to the field that separated Ukrainian forces from the Russians, a half-dozen members of Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces milled around between two houses. Ilya, 21, said he had been a miniaturist before the war, painting toy soldiers. He was dressed in green fatigues now, with the national colors — blue and yellow — on his arm.
“There were children in this home, but they’re gone now,” he said, glancing over the crater where a mortar round had landed in the garden.
“Everyone’s gone now,” added his colleague, Victor.
They both fell silent for a minute. The sounds of artillery rumbled out in the distance, and on the horizon, another plume of smoke appeared.
“This was never the job I imagined having,” Ilya said, “but we’ll stay here as long as we need to.”
Pennsylvania state Rep. Summer Lee is competing in a Democratic primary for the state's 12th Congressional District. (photo: Courtesy of Summer Lee Campaign/Vox)
The state House representative could add to progressive gains this cycle.
Lee, one of six challengers backed by the Justice Democrats, a progressive PAC, is running to fill an open seat in Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District vacated by Rep. Mike Doyle. It’s a safe Democratic seat that includes Pittsburgh and the surrounding suburbs, and it’s poised to be a key pickup for progressives, should Lee win her race this week.
Lee is currently up against four other candidates in the race, including attorney Steve Irwin, who’s backed by Doyle and many establishment Democrats in the area. Lee, meanwhile, has the support of local progressives as well as national leaders like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
There’s little publicly available polling on the race, but a recent poll from Emily’s List, which endorsed Lee, has her leading the field (many voters in the survey, however, were still undecided). If Lee were to win, her victory would help progressive Democrats continue to build power in Congress: In 2020, candidates including Reps. Cori Bush (D-MO) and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) won their races, bolstering the party’s left flank.
Given Austin city council member Greg Casar’s primary win in Texas’ 35th Congressional District, a safe seat for Democrats, a Lee win would give House progressives at least two new members. And with increased numbers comes increased sway over policy, or, if the GOP retakes the House, greater ability to shape how Democrats respond to a Republican majority.
Gains in the progressives’ bloc in 2020 enabled the group to have more leverage over what policies to focus on and the timing of key votes this term. For example, progressives initially delayed a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill in order to push consideration of social spending legislation. In 2022, progressives are eyeing more victories in places like Pennsylvania, Texas, and New York — all of which could help them strengthen their hand even further.
Summer Lee has helped build a progressive movement in western Pennsylvania
Lee is a progressive in the mold of many Squad members: She backs more ambitious policies including Medicare-for-all, a Green New Deal, and packing the Supreme Court. She has emphasized, too, her own experiences with issues like air pollution, and the need for systemic change in order to promote environmental justice.
Irwin, Lee’s main competitor, has taken a more moderate stance and stressed his commitment to working with Democratic leadership and building broad coalitions to pass policy. The difference has been evident on subjects like climate: While Lee has focused on promoting a transition to renewable energy, for example, Irwin was the only candidate in a recent debate to talk about the ongoing role of natural gas.
“In a lot of ways, that race ends up reflecting many of the same clashes that are visible in the rest of the Democratic Party,” said Allegheny College political science professor Tarah Williams. “There’s a big conversation between the two campaigns about how much compromise needs to happen in order to get policy achieved.”
Recent tension in the race has centered on millions in outside spending on political ads, including those paid for by AIPAC’s super PAC, a pro-Israel group backing Irwin. The AIPAC- affiliated group has expressed concern that Lee wasn’t supportive enough of Israel, something she has pushed back on, while defending past remarks she’s made about the country’s treatment of Palestinians.
The ads, which have been widely criticized by local leaders as well as Sanders, question Lee’s backing of President Joe Biden. Notably, however, they leave out the fact that Lee campaigned for Biden in the general election.
In addition to being the only woman and elected official running in this primary, Lee would be the first Black woman to represent Pennsylvania in Congress if elected. Her candidacy builds on a burgeoning progressive movement that she has helped foster in western Pennsylvania.
“There is a movement there in Allegheny County to move on from the old guard of leadership that’s been there for decades,” says Justice Democrats’ spokesperson Usamah Andrabi.
Lee could help expand progressive power in Congress
A Lee victory would help grow progressive power in Congress, adding to recent wins in this cycle and last.
In addition to Casar’s win, progressive immigration attorney Jessica Cisneros was able to force Rep. Henry Cuellar into a runoff for Texas’ 28th Congressional District. Justice Democrats have also backed organizers Kina Collins in Illinois’ Seventh District, Rana Abdelhamid in New York’s 12th District, and Odessa Kelly in Tennessee’s Seventh District in upcoming primaries.
Six new staunch progressives could seriously strengthen progressives’ influence in Congress. This term, progressives were able to have more sway given Democrats’ narrow majority in the House. They’ve used that power to push for more expansive stimulus checks and to bargain for more aggressive prescription drug legislation.
If Republicans retake House control, as they’re widely expected to, progressive power would be somewhat diminished, as Democrats would no longer control the agenda. However, they’d likely play a key role in leading Democrats’ anti-GOP messaging, and helping to counter investigations of the Biden administration as well. In the past, progressives were among the first to begin pushing for Trump’s impeachment and among the most vocal opponents of policies like family separations.
With greater numbers, progressives would be able to mount even stronger rhetorical campaigns to push back against a GOP-controlled House. They’d also be able to put more pressure on party leaders to take these types of stances.
New progressives like Lee could also bolster the subgroup of more liberal members within the Progressive Caucus, known as the Squad. Currently, the Squad includes Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Jamaal Bowman, and Cori Bush. If all six Justice Democrat candidates win this cycle, its size could double, giving them more sway as a bloc within a bloc.
With the exception of Cisneros, the challengers are also in safe Democratic districts, meaning they could have a long-term impact on the ideology and priorities of the Democratic Party if reelected. “The bigger the bloc, the bigger the potential you have to have weight in the Democratic Party, the stronger your negotiating power,” says Leah Greenberg, a co-executive director of progressive advocacy group Indivisible.
In the past, members of the Squad have broken from the broader Progressive Caucus membership. When a vote was held on a bipartisan infrastructure bill last year that decoupled it from a vote on a larger social spending bill that included a tax cut for families with children and funding to fight climate change, for instance, all six lawmakers voted against it. Progressives hope that in similar situations in the future, those six lawmakers will have even more company.
“I think about all the communities in Pennsylvania that have not seen the type of representation that I’m looking to bring and to offer — folks who will value and really lift up poor working folks, and Black and brown folks, and I recognize there’s a cohort of people who’ve already been fighting for that,” Lee said in an MSNBC interview. “And it would be an honor to join that.”
Striking workers at a Wendy's fast-food restaurant in Weaverville, North Carolina, rally in April 2022. (photo: Myles Green/Guardian UK)
Workers who bore the brunt of the Covid pandemic at billion-dollar companies such as Dollar General, McDonald’s and Wendy’s are leading a surge in action
The Covid-19 pandemic has incited a resurgence of interest and support for the US labor movement and for low-wage workers who bore the brunt of Covid-19 risks.
The unrest also comes as corporations have often reported record profits and showered executives with pay increases, stock buybacks and bonuses, while workers received minimal pay increases. Workers at billion-dollar corporations from Dollar General to McDonald’s still make on average less than $15 an hour while often being forced to work in unsafe, grueling conditions.
On 2 May, Dollar General workers at a store in Marion, North Carolina, walked off the job over low wages.
Ashley Sierra has worked at Dollar General for two years and makes just $11 an hour, while only receiving part-time hours. A mother of three, she relies on family members to barely make ends meet. “My weekly paycheck is no more than $200, $260 at the max. I have three children, I cannot survive on $260 a week, it’s just not working. It needs to get upped to at least $15 an hour, the bottom is $15, because we work so hard for so little,” said Sierra.
Dollar General reported a profit of $3.2bn and their CEO was paid over $16.4m in 2021, 986 times the median pay of the company’s workers.
Sierra said the store was often understaffed and overstocked with items that block aisles, and that she feared for her safety over potential robberies and theft when she and just one other co-worker are working the entire store.
Dollar General did not comment on the company’s low wages. In regards to the walkout, a spokesperson said in an email: “We understand a small number of employees chose to express their personal opinions about the company earlier this week by walking off the job. We respect our employees’ right to engage in protected activities and as is our practice, we plan to listen, and are listening, to their feedback.”
Workers at a McDonald’s in Los Angeles began a strike on Monday, 2 May, in response to plumbing issues at the restaurant that recently worsened, emitting odors that have made workers sick.
“It gives me headaches, stomachaches and nausea, and it’s been happening to my co-workers also,” said Jasmina Alfaro, one of the striking workers at the McDonald’s location. “It has become a horrible smell all over the kitchen and store and we’ve noticed there’s water also leaking with disgusting debris.”
She explained for the past year a foul odor had been emanating from pipes near the drive thru window, but severely worsened over the past week throughout the entire restaurant. Despite the odor, workers were still expected to conduct business as usual. Alfaro said she had missed days of work due to getting sick from the odor and had not been compensated for that time missed from work.
Alfaro said the strike will continue until the problem is fixed, and the issue is an example of why fast-food workers in California need local proposed law AB 257 to pass, which would establish a statewide fast-food council with worker representation to set wage and other industry standards, including safety protections.
“This is the only way we’re going to have a voice that represents us, so we can be listened to and not be ignored. We shouldn’t have to risk our health to make a living,” Alfaro said.
A spokesperson for McDonald’s did not comment on the strike but claimed in an email: “This restaurant underwent a recent health inspection and was found to be in good standing. We have already begun repairing a plumbing issue that recently arose at the restaurant and expect it to be resolved shortly.”
At a Jack in the Box location in Sacramento, California, workers went on strike for three days at the end of April 2022 over faulty equipment and safety concerns, and short staffing.
Workers at a Wendy’s in Weaverville, North Carolina, went on strike on 23 April through 1 May over sexual harassment and abuse from the restaurant’s general manager toward employees that upper management had not addressed.
Charity Bradley, a Wendy’s manager at the restaurant, claimed she was retaliated against for reporting complaints about the general management to corporate, as she was taken off the schedule and locked out of the crew app used to communicate with co-workers. Bradley was reinstated by the end of the strike and returned to work on 2 May.
Bradley said the strike began the very next day after she was removed from the schedule and the app.
“When we reported it to upper management, they pretty much just blew it off, they really didn’t do anything. We called the corporate hotline several times and never received any response,” said Bradley.
She added: “Wendy’s could be a good place to work. They need to get it together and start taking care of their people and start doing what’s right, not sweeping it under the rug.”
The CEO of Tar Heel Capital Corp, which operates several Wendy’s franchises in North Carolina, said in a statement in regards to the strike: “We are aware of the allegations being made and are taking this very seriously, following our policy of conducting a thorough investigation into the matter. As an organization, we strive to create a safe and comfortable work environment free from harassment. If, at the conclusion of our investigation, we find that any of the accusations are true, we will take swift disciplinary action.”
Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts. (photo: Gwyneth Roberts/Lincoln Journal Star/AP)
Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts said he would pursue a total abortion ban in his state if Roe v. Wade is overturned
CNN’s State of the Union host Dana Bash asked the governor about a recent effort he supported to pass a “trigger” abortion ban that would go into effect immediately if the Supreme Court rules to overturn abortion rights, which appears to be imminent considering the recently leaked Supreme Court draft opinion.
“Nebraska, your state, does not have a so-called trigger law on the books. But there was an effort, as you know, to pass one,” Bash said in a Sunday interview with Ricketts. “It failed by only two votes last month. The abortion ban that you tried to pass did not include any exceptions for rape or incest.”
The host then asked, “Do you think that the state of Nebraska should require a young girl who was raped to carry that pregnancy to term?”
Ricketts replied, “So, Nebraska is a pro-life state. I believe life begins at conception. And those are babies too. So, if Roe vs. Wade, which was a horrible constitutional decision, gets overturned by the Supreme Court, which we’re hopeful of, here in Nebraska, we’re going to take further steps to protect those pre-born babies.”
“Including in the case of rape or incest?” Bash clarified.
“They’re still babies too. Yes, they’re still babies,” the Republican replied.
Bash next asked the governor if he would call a special session of the Nebraska legislature to impose an abortion ban following a Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe, Ricketts said, “That would certainly be my intention.”
Also on Sunday, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt endorsed his state’s law banning abortion that includes no exceptions for rape or incest.
“Now, your law as I understand, it has no exemptions for rape or incest. And the argument is a victim may not know at six weeks that she is pregnant,” host Shannon Bream said to Stitt when he appeared on Fox News Sunday. “So, what do you say to a woman who finds herself in that situation, lives in your state and feels like she’s got no options?”
“Well, first off, super compassionate about that. I have daughters, cannot even imagine what that would be like and that hardship,” Stitt responded. But despite his superficial compassion, Stitt would still force victims to have a baby.
“You have to choose,” Stitt continued. “That is a human being inside the womb. And we’re going to do everything we can to protect life and love both the mother and the child. And we don’t think that killing one to protect another is the right thing to do either.”
Bream followed-up by asking Stitt how he as governor will help these children conceived in trauma and born by force, considering Oklahoma’s abysmal track record in child wellbeing (it ranks 42nd in the nation). Stitt went on to blast the “socialist Democrat left” and said it is “just ridiculous to even kind of quote those types of stats.”
“We have a free market in Oklahoma,” Stitt said. “We believe that God has a special plan for every single life and every single child, and we want everybody to have the same opportunities in Oklahoma. And aborting a child is not the right answer.”
Ricketts and Stitt join fellow Republican Governor Tate Reeves of Mississippi in callously defending abortion laws without certain exemptions. Last week, Reeves defended Mississippi’s trigger law that would force victims of incest to have their assailant’s child if they become pregnant.
Even abortion bans with rape and incest exceptions are dangerous to pregnant people. Although a person may be eligible for an exception in a state where the law includes such allowances, it is still often extremely difficult or impossible for them to obtain an abortion because those laws can contain requirements, like mandating a rape victim file a police report in order to qualify.
“These exceptions don’t do the job that people think they’re going to do,” Elizabeth Nash, a policy analyst at the Guttmacher Institute, told The Atlantic.
Abortion bans without exceptions are becoming increasingly popular in the U.S. At least ten states — including Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, and Oklahoma — have passed abortion bans lacking exceptions for rape, incest, or both. While most of those laws have been blocked by courts, they could go into effect in the very likely event that Roe is overturned.
A mural in Gaza City of the Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot and killed. (photo: Adel Hana/AP)
The outcome of these investigations could help shape international opinion over who is responsible for Abu Akleh's death, particularly if an official Israeli military probe drags on. Israel and the Palestinians are locked in a war of narratives that already has put Israel on the defensive.
Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American and a 25-year veteran of the satellite channel, was killed last Wednesday while covering an Israeli military raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. She was a household name across the Arab world, known for documenting the hardship of Palestinian life under Israeli rule, now in its sixth decade.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday said he had spoken to Abu Akleh's family to express condolences and respect for her work "as well as the need to have an immediate and credible investigation" into her death.
Palestinian officials and witnesses, including journalists who were with her, say she was killed by army fire. The military, after initially saying Palestinian gunmen might have been responsible, later backtracked and now says she may also have been hit by errant Israeli fire.
Israel has called for a joint investigation with the Palestinians, saying the bullet must be analyzed by ballistics experts to reach firm conclusions. Palestinian officials have refused, saying they don't trust Israel. Human rights groups say Israel has a poor record of investigating wrongdoing by its security forces.
After earlier saying they would accept an outside partner, the Palestinians said late Sunday that they would handle the investigation alone and deliver results very soon.
"We also refused to have an international investigation because we trust our capabilities as a security institution," Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh announced. "We will not hand over any of the evidence to anyone because we know that these people are able to fasify the facts." He stood with Abu Akleh's brother, Anton, and Al Jazeera's local bureau chief, Walid Al-Omari.
With the two sides at loggerheads over the Abu Akleh probe, several research and human rights groups have launched their own investigations.
Over the weekend, Bellingcat, a Dutch-based international consortium of researchers, published an analysis of video and audio evidence gathered on social media. The material came from both Palestinian and Israeli military sources, and the analysis looked at such factors as time stamps, the locations of the videos, shadows and a forensic audio analysis of gunshots.
The group found that while gunmen and Israeli soldiers were both in the area, the evidence supported witness accounts that Israeli fire killed Abu Akleh.
"Based on what we were able to review, the IDF (Israeli soldiers) were in the closest position and had the clearest line of sight to Abu Akleh," said Giancarlo Fiorella, the lead researcher of the analysis.
Bellingcat is among a growing number of firms that use "open source" information, such as social media videos, security camera recordings and satellite imagery, to reconstruct events.
Fiorella acknowledged that the analysis cannot be 100% certain without such evidence as the bullet, weapons used by the army and GPS locations of Israeli forces. But he said the emergence of additional evidence typically bolsters preliminary conclusions and almost never overturns them.
"This is what we do when we don't have access to those things," he said.
The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said it too is conducting its own analysis. The group last week played a key role in the military's backtracking from its initial claims that Palestinian gunmen appeared to be responsible for her death.
The Israeli claim was based on a social media video in which a Palestinian gunman fires into a Jenin alleyway, and then other militants come running to claim they have shot a soldier. The army said that because no soldiers were hurt that day, the gunmen might have been referring to Abu Akleh, who was wearing a protective helmet and flak jacket.
A B'Tselem researcher went to the area and took a video showing that the Palestinian gunmen were some 300 meters (yards) away from where Abu Akleh was shot, separated by a series of walls and alleyways.
Dror Sadot, a spokeswoman for the group, said B'Tselem has begun gathering testimonies from witnesses and may attempt to reconstruct the shooting with videos from the scene. But she said at this point, it has not been able to come to a conclusion about who was behind the shooting.
Sadot said any bullet would need to be matched to the barrel of the gun. The Palestinians have refused to release the bullet, and it is unclear whether the military has confiscated the weapons used that day.
"The bullet on its own can't say a lot" because it could have been fired by either side, she said. "What can be done is to match a bullet to the barrel," she said.
The Israeli military did not respond to interview requests to discuss the status of its probe.
Jonathan Conricus, a former Israeli military spokesman and expert on military affairs, said reconstructing a gunfight in densely populated urban terrain is "very complex" and said forensic evidence, such as the bullet, is crucial to reach firm conclusions. He accused the Palestinian Authority of refusing to cooperate for propaganda purposes.
"Without the bullet, any investigation will only be able to reach partial and questionable conclusions," Conricus said. "One might assume that the strategy of the Palestinian Authority is exactly that: to deny Israel the ability to clear its name, while leveraging global sympathy for the Palestinian cause."
Meanwhile, Israeli police over the weekend launched an investigation into the conduct of the officers who attacked the mourners at Abu Akleh's funeral, causing the pallbearers to nearly drop her coffin.
Newspapers on Sunday were filled with criticism of the police and what was portrayed as a public relations debacle.
"The footage from Friday is the very opposite of good judgment and patience," commentator Oded Shalom wrote in the Yediot Ahronot daily. "It documented a shocking display of unbridled brutality and violence."
Nir Hasson, who covers Jerusalem affairs for the Haaretz daily, said the problems run much deeper than Israel's image.
"This was one of the most extreme visual expressions of the occupation and the humiliation the Palestinian people experience," he wrote.
The American Electric Power coal burning plant in Conesville, Ohio. (photo: Michael S. Williamson/WP)
Researchers also determined the cuts would provide more than $600 billion a year in health benefits in the United States
Published in the journal GeoHealth, the study reports the considerable health benefits of removing from the air harmful fine particulates, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides produced by electricity generation, transportation, industrial activities, and building functions such as heating and cooking. Highway vehicles make up the largest single share.
These economic activities from coal, oil and natural gas are also major sources of carbon dioxide emissions that cause climate change, so cutting back on their emissions provides additional benefits.
Unlike reports that emphasize the daunting costs of climate action, this one stressed the advantages of taking measures to reduce pollution.
“We are trying to shift mindsets from burdens to benefits,” said Jonathan A. Patz, a professor of health and the environment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.
“Our work provides a sense of the scale of the air quality health benefits that could accompany deep decarbonization of the U.S. energy system,” said Nicholas A. Mailloux, lead author of the study and a graduate student at the Nelson Institute. “Shifting to clean energy sources can provide enormous benefit for public health in the near term while mitigating climate change in the longer term.”
The study uses models from the Environmental Protection Agency, notably its CO-Benefits Risk Assessment, or COBRA, to look at the impact of local, state and national policy on separate areas around the country. It shows that while the cost of overhauling energy industries can be local, so, too, are the benefits.
“Between 32 percent and 95 percent of the health benefits from eliminating emissions in a region will remain in that region,” the study says. On average, slightly more than two-thirds of the health benefits of removing emissions in a region stay in that region.
The Southwest, for example, would retain 95 percent of the benefits if it moved alone to eliminate fine particulate matter. The Mountain States, however, would retain only a third of their benefits, which would flow to large population centers downwind.
“What we do is look at all at once, if you were to remove fossil fuel emissions from these different sectors, how many lives would be saved, how many emissions avoided, and the numbers are pretty big,” Patz said.
“The report highlights the air quality benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by transitioning the energy system away from fossil fuels,” said Susan Anenberg, director of George Washington University’s Climate and Health Institute, who was not involved in the study. In addition, she said, “it helps us to think about policies and what level of policies are needed to address this problem.”
Patz said that “people look at this as such a huge challenge, but when you look at the health repercussions of switching to clean energy, the benefits are enormous.”
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