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Columbine’s Distler named 2019-20 MaxPreps/NFCA National High School Player of Week (Fall)

November 13, 2019 | News | No Comments

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Ally Distler of Columbine High School (Littleton, Colo.) was named MaxPreps/NFCA National High School Player of the Week for her outstanding play during the week of Oct. 21-27. The senior catcher keyed the offense during Columbine’s run to the program’s first Colorado High School Athletic Association (CHSAA) state title.

Over four games, Distler hit .545 (6-for-11), launched four home runs, doubled, recorded 10 RBI, slugged 1.727 and scored six times.  In the CHSAA 5A championship game, the program’s first appearance since 1995, she broke a 1-1 deadlock with a second-inning leadoff home run and gave the Rebels a 5-1 cushion over Fossil Ridge with a three-run blast an inning later. The victory capped off a 28-2 season for the Rebels. 

Distler doubled, homered, drove in and scored three runs during Columbine’s first-round victory over Valor Christian. She followed that performance with a three-run homer to punctuate a four-run fourth in a 7-5 quarterfinal victory against Legacy. 

MaxPreps.com, the official high school statistical provider of the NFCA, provides all statistics for the NFCA High School Player of the Week award. To nominate a player for the award, the coach must enter his or her athlete’s game stats into MaxPreps.com by Sunday evening to be eligible for that week’s award.

The MaxPreps/NFCA High School Players of the Week are announced on NFCA.org every Monday during the fall season, with one representative chosen from the participating regions. During the spring campaign, a player from each of five separate high school regions is selected.

MaxPreps is a free stat tool that is available to high school coaches across the country and is one of the most recognized and respected high school athletics websites on the internet. Coaches who enter their team’s stats on Max Preps will not only be nominating their players for this award, but they will be getting their team’s information out to thousands of high school sports fans, as well as college coaches across the country.

To obtain a coach’s login, please contact: [email protected] or call (800) 329-7324 x1. To enter a team’s stats on the MaxPreps website, please click here.

 

2019-20 MaxPreps/NFCA Players of the Week

10/28/19 – Ally Distler / Columbine (Colo.) High School

10/21/19 – Jordyn Bahl / Papilliion (Neb.)-LaVista High School

10/14/19 – Tavia Hausman / Beatrice (Neb.) High School

10/7/19 – Olivia Cato / Northgate High School (Newnan, Ga.)

9/30/19 – Katherine Johnson / Millard North High School (Omaha, Neb.)

9/23/19 – Laurin Krings / Loveland (Colo.) High School

9/16/19 – Denver Bryant / Dougherty High School (Albany, Ga.)

9/9/19 – Kynlee Marquez / Southern Valley/Alma High School (Oxford, Neb.)

9/3/19 – Bryna Kapelke / Broomfield (Colo.) High School

8/27/19 – Jordyn Bahl / Papillion (Neb.)-LaVista High School

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By Tncse

Supreme Court Says Sandy Hook Families Can Sue the Remington Gun Maker

November 13, 2019 | News | No Comments

In a major blow to the firearms industry, the U.S. Supreme Court will not block the families of victims of the Sandy Hook shooting from suing the gun maker Remington.

The nation’s highest court on Tuesday denied an appeal by the Remington Arms Company to review a lower court’s ruling that allowed the families to take on the gun maker in court over how it marketed the rifle used in the 2012 school massacre.

“The families are grateful that the Supreme Court upheld precedent and denied Remington’s latest attempt to avoid accountability,” said Josh Koskoff, the attorney representing the families. “We are ready to resume discovery and proceed towards trial in order to shed light on Remington’s profit-driven strategy to expand the AR-15 market and court high-risk users at the expense of Americans’ safety.” One of the weapons Adam Lanza used at Sandy Hook was an AR-15 style Bushmaster.

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The Court’s decision not to take on the Remington case is significant and suggests the court is not yet willing to weigh in on challenges to a federal law that has protected gun companies from lawsuits since it was enacted in 2005. The law, formally known as the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, largely shields firearm and ammunition manufacturers and sellers from liability when their products are used in crimes. There are a few exceptions, such as if a defective weapon causes death or injury or if a seller or manufacturer is found to have violated a law in the marketing or sale of the product. But the law has widely deterred families from targeting gun makers in court.

In 2014, two years after a gunman killed 20 children and six faculty members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., nine family members of victims and one survivor took on the challenge and filed a wrongful death suit against Remington over its marketing practices. Remington argued it was protected under the law, but the families’ suit said the federal law did not apply because they were accusing Remington of violating state laws in the marketing of the weapon. In March, the Connecticut Supreme Court agreed. Remington appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case without offering any explanation. The case now heads back to the Connecticut Superior Court.

“This simply means that the case can proceed under Connecticut state law, and it doesn’t mean that the plaintiffs will prevail,” says Robert Spitzer, a gun policy expert and chairman of the political science department at the State University of New York at Cortland.

But Spitzer and other experts say Remington could be forced to provide documents that could yield damaging internal memos—similar to the way a major civil settlement in 1998 forced the tobacco industry to disclose millions of pages of internal communications that revealed deceptive marketing practices.

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“Who knows what they’ll find,” Spitzer says, “but there’s certainly a fair likelihood that it could indeed be damaging politically and perhaps even to the legal case they’re trying to make.”

Remington did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Gun rights groups have slammed the lawsuit as a misuse of the legal system. In a statement to TIME, Lawrence Keane, senior vice president and general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said the gun trade group was “disappointed” by the Supreme Court’s decision but “confident that Remington will prevail at trial.”

“Nothing in Remington’s advertising of these products connotes or encourages the illegal or negligent misuse of firearms,” Keane said. “We continue to feel sympathy toward the Sandy Hook victims, as NSSF is headquartered in Newtown, but Adam Lanza alone is responsible for his heinous actions.”

The National Rifle Association (NRA) said perpetrators of shootings who misuse firearms are the “real problem,” not gun manufacturers. “Lawsuits that deflect attention away from mental illness and criminals in order to blame inanimate objects won’t reduce violent crime or make anyone safer,” Jason Ouimet, the executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, said in a statement.

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By Tncse

‘We’re Not Thinking About Others.’ What Hideo Kojima Wants You to Learn From Death Stranding

November 13, 2019 | News | No Comments

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Nearly four years ago, Hideo Kojima felt alone in the world. The celebrated video game auteur had just left Konami, his corporate and creative home of 30 years. “I had nothing around me,” says Kojima, 56, “but a dream and a passion to create.” As he worked to build Kojima Productions, the company he started after leaving Konami, he realized that, in fact, he had spent his life building connections with fellow creative types, like Guillermo Del Toro and F. Paul Wilson. “Suddenly, I realized I wasn’t alone.”

He stumbles over his words while he speaks under stage lights during an event feting Death Stranding, his long-anticipated, extremely weird, extremely Kojima game. “The game’s about connecting the world,” he says, trying to explain what Death Stranding means. He tells the audience — a collection of Sony Music and RCA executives — about knots, of all things. “What I want to say is that I’m connected to everyone and this connection I don’t want to lose. That’s why I created a knot, so that I will never be parted from you ever. Thank you so much.”

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The audience laughed and clapped while Kojima handed off the mic. People drank and schmoozed. Death Stranding stars Norman Reedus and Lindsay Wagner posed for pictures. Kojima talked to an endless stream of people. Everyone wanted his time. Dame Helen Mirren even stopped by.

Despite all that attention, Kojima told me he struggles with loneliness. “I feel always lonely in society,” he says in an interview before the event, speaking through a translator provided by his company. “There are so many people who play games feeling like that, like they don’t belong in this society. They don’t really feel comfortable.” He wants players to share that deep sense of isolation as they play Death Stranding. “You’re all alone playing the game,” Kojima says. “And you’re trying to connect this fractured society by yourself. The world is beautiful, but you’re small, just a tiny speck. You feel hopeless and helpless and powerless. You feel so lonely.”

Death Stranding is a little like an acid trip — you can try to explain it with words, but only having the experience for yourself can really convey what it’s like. In the game, out now for PlayStation 4 and coming soon to PC, players control Sam (Norman Reedus), a courier in a world where death is broken. Ghosts roam the wastelands between the remnants of American cities. No one trusts anyone else. It’s up to Sam to reconnect people by delivering packages and hooking them up to an advanced internet called the “Chiral Network.” It’s weird and I loved it, but I also know some players won’t enjoy the mix of metaphysics, surrealism, and hours spent climbing mountains and doing other mundane tasks.

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Along with loneliness, death is a core theme here. As Sam crosses America, he encounters ghosts, or “Beached Things,” that try to pull him into the world of the dead. As the game continues, Sam gets covered in handprints where the dead have touched him. Other characters have a similarly dysfunctional relationship with death. Heartman, a scientist you meet later in the game, stops his heart every 21 minutes to explore the afterlife in search of his lost family. The villainous Higgs believes death is beautiful and wants everyone to get there as quickly as possible. Kojima’s personal take is that the dead are never truly gone from our lives. “You just can’t see them,” he says, “but you’re connected.”

Indeed, Death Stranding’s biggest theme is connection, and Kojima sees a world in disarray. The election of Donald Trump and the Brexit vote in the U.K. directly inspired the game. Video game creators are often reluctant to talk politics, but Kojima doesn’t mince words. According to him, all art, games including, is inherently political — our connections make it so. “We are living in the world,” he says. “Politics is always involved. I can’t create art … while trying to be blind about it. I put myself out in a game. Those parts will come out. If someone doesn’t do that in their works, it means that [they] don’t care about politics at all or maybe is just a weird person.”

Despite its morbid themes, there are signs of life here that betray Kojima’s optimism. As Sam makes his way across America, he builds structures that help him on his quest — a rope to descend mountains, a ladder or bridge to cross a river. If the player leaves these things behind, other players can find and use them too — it’s a kind of hybrid single player/multiplayer experience. You’ll never see another player, but you might see their left-behinds — artifacts that let you know you’re not alone. “Just knowing that, you won’t feel alone anymore,” Kojima says. And while I played the game, I could press a button to make Sam shout. If another player was in the same area as me in their own game world, they would shout back. I couldn’t see them, but just hearing their voice made me feel less alone.

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Kojima told me that, while his game asks plenty of big questions, it doesn’t answer all of them — in part because he’s still trying to work out what the answers are. But he’s hopeful that players come away from Death Stranding feeling renewed. “I want players to think about these things and have the energy to live on the next day,” he says.

Kojima isn’t a luddite — it would be hard for someone in the gaming world to eschew technology completely. But he believes that innovations like social media have made it so easy to communicate that people forget to consider the humanity on the other end of a message. “We’re in an era of individualism,” he says. “Everyone is fractured. Even on the internet. It’s all connected, all around the world, but everyone is fighting each other.”

That, he believes, has caused people to feel even more lonely, despite how easy it is to connect with one another. “Right now, communication is too direct,” Kojima says. “That’s the root of it. We’re not thinking about others.” I asked him how we change that. “I don’t have the complete answer,” he says. “I really want people to play Death Stranding and answer themselves. I’m not giving up on it. Social media isn’t just bad things. It really helped me to connect directly to people I would never have had the opportunity to. I feel lonely on it, but I can’t say no.”

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By Tncse

A Viral Tweet Accused Apple’s New Credit Card of Being ‘Sexist.’ Now New York State Regulators Are Investigating

November 13, 2019 | News | No Comments

New York regulators are investigating Goldman Sachs after being alerted for potentially violating state laws banning sex discrimination with regard to Apple’s new credit card. A discriminatory algorithm may be to blame.

The Apple Card, which Apple announced this March, is issued by Goldman Sachs. After complaints began to circle around the internet over the past week, the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYSDFS) took interest and launched an investigation into the card’s issuer.

The NYSDFS was first tipped off by a viral Twitter thread from tech entrepreneur David Heinemeier Hansson, begun on Nov. 7. He detailed how his card’s credit limit was 20 times higher than his wife’s, even though she has a higher credit score and they file joint tax returns. Hansson referred to the Apple Card as a “sexist program” and said that its over-reliance on a “biased” algorithm did not excuse discriminatory treatment.

Hansson’s complaints were even echoed by Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, who responded to Hansson’s tweet, saying “the same thing happened to us.” Wozniak said that his credit limit was 10 times higher than what his wife had, even though they did not have any separate assets or accounts. In his view, Apple should “share responsibility” for the problem.

Goldman Sachs has denied wrongdoing, stating unequivocally through company spokesman Andrew Williams that “in all cases, we have not and will not make decisions based on factors like gender.”

Williams said that two family members can “receive significantly different credit decisions” based on their individual income and creditworthiness, which can include personal credit scores and debt levels.

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A spokeswoman for Apple directed TIME to a Goldman Sachs representative when requested to comment.

Superintendent of the NYSDFS Linda Lacewell said Sunday in a statement that state law bans discrimination against protected classes of individuals, “which means an algorithm, as with any other method of determining creditworthiness, cannot result in disparate treatment for individuals based on age, creed, race, color, sex, sexual orientation, national origin or other protected characteristics.”

Lacewell said that New York supports innovation but “new technologies cannot leave certain consumers behind or entrench discrimination.” She added that this “is not just about looking into one algorithm” but also about working with the tech community more broadly to “make sure consumers nationwide can have confidence that the algorithms that increasingly impact their ability to access financial services do not discriminate.”

This isn’t the first time a potentially discriminatory algorithm has come under scrutiny by the NYSDFS. Last week, the agency began investigating an algorithm sold by a United Health Group subsidy that allegedly resulted in black patients getting substandard care as compared to white patients. Various algorithms across industries have faced criticism for being racist or sexist.

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By Tncse

To Great Applause, Paris Announces Combustion Engine Ban by 2030

November 12, 2019 | News | No Comments

Receiving great applause from climate advocates, Paris officials announced a new goal on Thursday to ban gas-powered cars from its streets by 2030.

The proposal would accelerate existing efforts to reduce air pollution in the city after French President Emmanuel Macron promised to ban the sale of vehicles with combustion engines by 2040.

Under the rule, only electric cars would be allowed in the city. Paris is already home to an electric car-sharing service, Autolib, which has become wildly popular since its launch in 2011 with the goal of reducing carbon emissions by 20 percent over a decade.

“Time is simply pressing,” said Christophe Nadjovski, Paris’s deputy mayor of transport, in an interview with the radio station France Info. “This is about planning for the long term with a strategy that will reduce greenhouse gases. Transport is one of the main greenhouse gas producers…so we are planning an exit from combustion engine vehicles, or fossil-energy vehicles.”

Mayor Anne Hidalgo also said Thursday that diesel vehicles would be banned in the city by 2024. She has established bike paths and new bus lanes in an effort to reduce the city’s dependence on cars.

The city’s efforts to cut carbon emissions from cars follow a rise in air pollution, with the air quality reaching an “alert threshold” last year according to the pollution-monitoring group Airparif.

Banning combustion engines is the latest of several steps authorities have taken to combat smog. Paris officials have taken to making public transportation free on days when pollution levels are especially high.

And Paris City Hall called its third car-free day, banning automobiles in more than 40 square miles for most of October 3. The first car-free day, held two years ago, saw a 40 percent decrease in exhaust emissions.

“We are changing the model of mobility. By offering alternatives, we can do without a personal car. That’s my goal,” said Hidalgo in an interview with Le Parisian on the city’s anti-pollution measures.

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As Trump Sells War Ahead of Korea Visit, Groups Demand 'Urgent Pivot Towards Peace'

November 12, 2019 | News | No Comments

As President Donald Trump continues his bellicose rhetoric towards North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during his trip to the Asia-Pacific region this week, organizations from the U.S., South Korea, and Japan on Monday demanded an “urgent pivot towards peace” and called on their leaders to rein in the militarization that could lead to “catastrophe.”

Trump is in Japan on Monday as he continues his nearly two-week “Indo-Pacific” tour, which will also include stops in South Korea, China, Vietnam, and the Philippines. In Tokyo, Trump said (his “sidekick”) Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would be able to ensure his country’s safety by buying “lots of” military equipment from the United States.

But according to the civil society organizations, such a move would add to the already antagonistic stew of verbal threats, sanctions, joint U.S., Japanese, and South Korean military exercises, Abe’s controversial move to re-militarize the country, and the continued nuclear weapons possession by any state. Instead, they say, Trump, Abe, and South Korea President Moon Jae-in should “take bold steps to ensure lasting peace.”

“Washington is forcing a trilateral military alliance and provocative war drills on Tokyo and Seoul that threatens North Korea and the region,” said Christine Ahn, international coordinator of global peace movement Women Cross DMZ. “The people of Japan, South Korea, and United States oppose war. Our demands are an urgent pivot towards peace.”

Many South Koreas are putting that opposition on display. Ahead of a protest that willl coincide with Trump’s visit to Seoul on Tuesday, thousands rallied in that capitol on Sunday chanting “We oppose war! Nengotiate peace!” 

According to Choi Eun-a of the Korean Alliance for Progressive Movements, which is among the groups calling for a national protest on the day of the U.S. president’s visit, “The South Korean public is highly critical of Trump for making threats of war and dismissing the gravity of its consequences as something ‘over there,'” apparently referring to recent comments the president made to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

“The war-threatening, weapons salesman Trump is not welcome here, especially as he demands that South Korea pay more to host U.S. troops and set aside land for useless weapons like the THAAD missile defense system,” she added, referring to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system located at a base in Seongju, around 300 kilometers (186 miles) south of Seoul.

“The war-threatening, weapons salesman Trump is not welcome here.”The groups also spoke out about a series of joint U.S.-South Korean military drills scheduled to happen during Trump’s visit.

“Peace-loving people in the United States, Japan, and South Korea reject the war-mongering policies of our governments and express our friendship and solidarity with the people of North Korea,” said Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director of the Western States Legal Foundation in California, and the National Co-Convener of United for Peace and Justice. “The U.S. government must end its policy of sanctions and military threats against North Korea, cease the deployment of more weapons of mass destruction to the Korean peninsula and the region, and halt large-scale military exercises that impede dialogue with North Korea.”

The new statements come less than two weeks after U.S. lawmakers introduced legislation to prevent Trump from launching a pre-emptive strike against North Korea, and days after the Pentagon said that only a ground invasion could secure North Korea’s nuclear weapons sites “with complete certainty.”

That assessment, said 16 U.S. lawmakers, is “deeply disturbing,” and such an action “could result in hundreds of thousands, or even millions of deaths in just the first few days of fighting.”

The lawmakers, all veterans, said, the “assessment underscores what we’ve known all along: There are no good military options for North Korea.”

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* * *

Read the civil society groups’ full statement below:

U.S., South Korean, and Japanese Civil Society Organizations Call for a Bold Shift in Policy for Peace in Korea and Northeast Asia

As U.S. President Trump travels to Asia, we civil society groups from the United States, South Korea, and Japan call for a diplomatic solution to the dangerous conflict between the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea). As those who would be directly impacted by the outbreak of such a conflict, we call on our leaders to take bold steps to ensure lasting peace.

Recent events have set the stage for a possible catastrophe on the Korean Peninsula and even throughout the greater Northeast Asian region. Any further escalation of tensions could rapidly degenerate into violence. In its 27 October 2017 report, the U.S. Congressional Research Service estimates that over 300,000 people would die in the opening days of a military conflict on the Korean Peninsula, even without nuclear weapons, and would ultimately claim 25 million lives.

Even as President Trump calls his predecessor’s policy of “strategic patience” on North Korea a failure, he continues the same policy, i.e., intensifying U.N. and unilateral sanctions and military threats. Meanwhile, North Korea continues to escalate the pace and scale of its nuclear and missile tests. The Abe government, seizing on the crisis in Korea, has quickened the pace of remilitarization and revision of Article 9 of its constitution. South Korean President Moon Jae-in meanwhile, despite an unambiguous mandate from the South Korean people, who ousted his hawkish predecessor in hopes of a radical transition to harmonious North-South relations, instead continues to do the bidding of the United States as he assumes a hostile posture vis-à-vis North Korea. We therefore demand that:

1. The Trump administration boldly shift to a policy of peace by:
· Ending its policy of sanctions and military threats against North Korea;
· Ceasing the deployment of more weapons of mass destruction on the Korean peninsula and in the region, and withdrawing the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system from South Korea as it only exacerbates tensions in the region; and
· Halting large-scale military exercises that impede dialogue with North Korea

2. The administration of President Moon Jae-in of South Korea honor the spirit of past North-South joint declarations for peace and reconciliation by:
· Assertively pursuing inter-Korean dialogue and cooperation;
· Halting future large-scale U.S.-South Korea combined military exercises to minimize the risk of confrontation ahead of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyongchang, South Korea; and
· No longer cooperating with investments in costly weapon systems with the United States and Japan, including spending on missile defense, which only exacerbates tensions in the region and diverts precious resources away from human needs.
3. The government of Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe immediately cease all further moves toward military buildup and instead contribute to regional peace by:
· Abolishing the controversial “Conspiracy Law” and “State Secrecy Law,” as well as the 2015 “Peace and Security Legislation” or war bills which permit the use of the so-called right to collective self-defense;
· Pursuing the normalization of relations between Japan and North Korea based upon the principles of the Pyongyang Declaration and the Stockholm Agreement; and
· Ceasing moves to change Article 9, the peace clause in its constitution.

These are among the hundreds of civil society organizations who have signed on:

Japan

· Citizens Association against Constitutional Revision (許すな！憲法改悪・市民連絡会)
· Femin Women’s Democratic Club (ふぇみん婦人民主クラブ)
· Japan-Korea People’s Solidarity Network (日韓民衆連帯全国ネットワーク)
· Kyoto/Kinki Association against the U.S. X-band Radar Base (米軍Xバンドレーダー基地反対・京都/近畿連絡)
· Network of Religious Persons Making Peace
· Nonviolent Peaceforce Japan (非暴力平和隊・日本)
· Peace Boat (ピースボート)
· Veterans for Peace Japan (ベテランズ・フォー・ピース・ジャパン)

South Korea
• Federation of Korean Trade Unions (한국노동조합총연맹)
• Korean Alliance of Progressive Movements (한국진보연대)
• Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (전국민주노동조합총연맹)
• Korean Peasants League (전국농민회총연맹)
• Korean Street Vendors Confederation (전국노점상연합)
• Korean Women’s Alliance (전국여성연대)
• Korean Women Peasants Alliance (전국여성농민회총연합)
• Korean Youth Solidarity (한국청년연대)
• National Alliance of Squatters and Evictees (전국철거민연합)

United States
• Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security
• International Forum on Globalization
• Peace Action
• Task Force to Stop THAAD in Korea and Militarism in Asia and the Pacific
• United for Peace and Justice
• Veterans for Peace National
• Western States Legal Foundation
• Women Cross DMZ

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As Tensions Ease Between North and South Korea, New Demands for US Diplomacy

November 12, 2019 | News | No Comments

After the Olympic Winter Games came to a close in PyeongChang on Sunday, South Korean President Moon Jae-in urged the Trump administration to “lower the threshold” for diplomatic talks to ease rising nuclear tensions with North Korea, and called on the North to demonstrate its commitment to ending its blossoming nuclear weapons program.

“It’s important the United States and North Korea sit down together quickly.”
—Moon Jae-in, South Korean President

“Recently, North Korea has shown it is open to actively engaging the United States in talks and the United States is talking about the importance of dialogue,” Moon said Monday, while meeting with Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong in Seoul, according to Reuters.

“There is a need for the United States to lower the threshold for talks with North Korea, and North Korea should show it is willing to denuclearize,” Moon added. “It’s important the United States and North Korea sit down together quickly.”

Those comments built upon statements released during the Games’ closing ceremony. Moon’s office had said the North has “ample intentions of holding talks with the United States,” while North Korea said that “South-North relations and U.S.-North Korean relations should be improved together,” according to the Associated Press. 

Peace advocates and world leaders have for months demanded that the Trump administration agree to talks with South Korea, a U.S. ally, and North Korea.

South Korea has held multiple meetings with North Korean officials in recent weeks, with the aim of reducing regional tensions. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un took Moon up on his offer to welcome North Korean athletes at the Olympics, and during the opening ceremony, competitors from the North and South marched in together, provoking ample applause.

Meanwhile, on Friday, the United States unveiled the largest sanctions ever imposed on North Korea, which the Washington Post reported “target 56 vessels, shipping companies, and other entities that U.S. officials say are used by North Korea to conduct trade prohibited under previous sanctions.”

“Instead of doubling down on threats and the so-called ‘maximum pressure’ campaign, the Trump administration needs to pivot to diplomacy now.”
—Jon Rainwater,
Peace Action

Jon Rainwater, executive director of Peace Action, said in response to the new sanctions that “with this blunt military threat—and let’s not be coy, that is what this is— [President Donald] Trump is ratcheting up tensions and making diplomatic solutions more difficult.”

“It’s particularly harmful that he is beating the drums for war while both North and South Korea are working to build on the diplomatic opening created by the Olympic Truce,” Rainwater added. “Instead of doubling down on threats and the so-called ‘maximum pressure’ campaign, the Trump administration needs to pivot to diplomacy now.”

This latest round of sanctions had been teased by Vice President Mike Pence ahead of the Olympics. There had been high hopes that Pence, who led the U.S. delegation during the Games’ opening ceremony, would use the trip to meet with representatives from North Korea, and he came under fire both for his refusal to stand for other countries’ athletes, including the joint Korean team, as well as his refusal to engage with the North Korean delegation, which was seated behind him.

The vice president’s office told the Post last week that Pence had been scheduled to meet with North Korean officials on Feb. 10, but North Korea canceled the meeting a few hours beforehand, and “when canceling the meeting, the North Koreans expressed dissatisfaction with Pence’s announcement of new sanctions as well as his meeting with North Korean defectors.”

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'I Am Not the First Woman to Work and Have a Baby': Global Praise for New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern

November 12, 2019 | News | No Comments

Drawing global applause, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Friday that she is expecting her first child, and that she plans to work through her pregnancy and retain her political post, telling reporters outside her home: “I am not the first woman to multitask. I am not the first woman to work and have a baby.”

“I know these are special circumstances, but there are many women who would have done this well before I have,” she added.

Ardern said she will take a six-week maternity leave, deferring to Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters during that time. After that, “we’ll be joining the many parents out there who wear two hats,” Ardern wrote in a Facebook post announcing her pregnancy. “I’ll be Prime Minister AND a mum, and Clarke will be ‘first man of fishing’ and stay at home dad.”

The news of Ardern’s pregnancy was met with an outpouring of support as well as commentary about the importance of empowering women to pursue both motherhood and their careers.

Her short time off “contrasts with her party’s parental leave policies, with the Labour-led coalition expanding paid parental leave from 18 to 22 weeks in one of its first legislative changes,” Reuters notes. “That is set to rise again to 26 weeks in 2020.”

“One of the things that I have always talked about, regardless of our circumstances, has been how great it would be for us all to have the pride of knowing that we are one of the best countries to be a child,” Ardern said in an interview with NZ Herald Focus.

“I’ve always been motived by that, and I would be had I not been in these circumstances, and so that remains a goal, and that’s what our families package was about,” she added, pointing to Labour’s ongoing goals related to health, wellbeing, and poverty.

Ardern—who, at 37, is New Zealand’s youngest prime minister in recent memory—was sworn in last October, after an intense election season. She and her partner, television presenter Clarke Gayford, found out she was expecting while in the middle of forming the national government.

Ardern will join a short list of women to serve as a nation’s elected leader while pregnant; in 1990, Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto gave birth while in office.

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'Your Bombs Are Killing Victims Here': U.S.-Made Bomb Hit School Bus in Attack That Killed 40 Yemeni Children

November 12, 2019 | News | No Comments

The United States carries direct responsibility for the school bus bombing that killed 40 children in Yemen last week, according to munitions experts who found that the bomb used was sold to Saudi Arabia by the State Department.

CNN reported late Friday that experts and Yemeni journalists had found that the bus exploded after being hit by a Lockheed Martin-produced laser-guided MK 82 bomb.

“This American-made bomb killed them, killed the innocent children,” journalist Ahmad Algohbary said this week, even before CNN verified the report. “Most of these victims were children. Your bombs are killing victims here, are killing children.”

The Trump administration reinstated sales of laser-guided missiles to the Saudis soon after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, months after a bombing by the Saudi coalition of a funeral hall killed 155 Yemenis and led to the Obama administration’s suspension of arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

A total of 51 people were killed in the attack, and 79 were wounded.

The bombing was denounced by outspoken critics of the United States’ support of the Saudi-led coalition that has led an airstrike campaign in Yemen since 2015, in support of the government’s war against the Houthis. The U.S. has provided fuel and tactical support to the coalition as well as weapons.

The report confirms what many Yemeni civilians already knew, as evidenced by mourners at the victims’ funeral carrying signs that read “America kills Yemeni children,” according to the Middle East Eye.

On social media, critics doubled down on their condemnation of the United States’ support for the Saudi coalition in Yemen’s civil war, in which 15,000 Yemeni civilians have been killed and injured.

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Reinforcing US Status as 'Bully and Hegemon,' Bolton to Threaten ICC Over Probes into America's War Crimes

November 12, 2019 | News | No Comments

Reinforcing the worldwide perception of the U.S. as “a bully and a hegemon” that will not tolerate attempts by the global community to hold it accountable for its deadly actions overseas, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton is set to deliver a speech on Monday that will reportedly threaten International Criminal Court (ICC) officials with sanctions if they dare to move ahead with probes into U.S. or Israeli war crimes.

“Afghans have been waiting decades for justice for war crimes, including some allegedly committed by U.S. forces. The ⁦ICC⁩ is the only hope they have for justice at the moment. Trump is determined to take that away.”
—Heather Barr, Human Rights Watch

“The United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court,” Bolton will say at an event hosted by the right-wing Federalist Society, according to a speech draft viewed by Reuters. “If the court comes after us, Israel, or other allies, we will not sit quietly.”

To deter ICC officials from investigating American actions in the 17-year-long Afghanistan war, Bolton will reportedly outline a plan to hit all who cooperate with the probe with economic sanctions and a ban on travel to the U.S.

“Afghans have been waiting decades for justice for war crimes, including some allegedly committed by U.S. forces,” Heather Barr, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, wrote in response to the White House’s plans. “The ⁦ICC⁩ is the only hope they have for justice at the moment. Trump is determined to take that away. Bon courage.”

Citing anonymous Trump administration officials, the Washington Post reported that Bolton is also expected to announce that the U.S. is “shutting down a Palestinian diplomatic office in Washington because Palestinians have sought to use the international court to prosecute U.S. ally Israel.”

Jamil Dakwar, director of ACLU’s human rights program, wrote on Twitter that the move would be yet “another low point” for an administration that has been explicit in its disdain for international diplomacy and its unwavering support for Israel’s brutal occupation of Palestinian territory.

Responding to the Trump administration’s reported plan to shutter a Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) office in Washington over Palestinians’ attempts to investigate and prosecute Israelis for war crimes through the ICC, Palestinian official Saeb Erekat told Reuters, “We reiterate that the rights of the Palestinian people are not for sale, that we will not succumb to U.S. threats and bullying.”

“Accordingly, we continue to call upon the International Criminal Court to open its immediate investigation into Israeli crimes,” Erekat said.

Bolton’s remarks will come months after ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda submitted a formal request to launch a probe into possible war crimes committed by the U.S. and its allies during the 17-year-long war in Afghanistan.

“For decades, the people of Afghanistan have endured the scourge of armed conflict,” Bensouda wrote last fall. “Should the Pre-Trial Chamber grant my request to open an investigation, my office and I count on the support and cooperation of the government of Afghanistan, other states parties, and the international community as a whole to accomplish our objectives of ensuring accountability for the crimes committed and that the long-suffering victims of those crimes receive justice.”

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