politics UnderpantsWeevil • 2d ago • 96%

Italy's Meloni tells Israel's Netanyahu attacks on UN peacekeepers are unacceptable

Italy is a significant contributor to the U.N. mission known as UNIFIL. In a phone conversation with Netanyahu, Meloni also called for the "full implementation" of the [UN's Security Council Resolution 1701](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_1701) on Lebanon and stressed the urgent need for a de-escalation of conflict in the region, her office said.

politics UnderpantsWeevil • 5d ago • 98%

US Department of Labor searches northwest Arkansas Tyson Foods plants over alleged child labor

In the Rogers application, the Wage and Hour Division cited a tip from a teacher at a nearby school who reported that one of their 14-year-old students talked about working at the facility with his mother for the summer. In the Green Forest application, a mother of middle schoolers overheard children between the ages of 11 and 13 talk about their employment at that plant on the night shift, which ran from 11 p.m. to around 7 or 8 a.m. The complainant said they were heard talking about how they did not know how to get money from their paycheck out of an ATM. Investigators assigned in July conducted observations outside of both plants and watched workers entering and leaving. They found during the observations multiple people who appeared to be “potentially minor employees below the age of 16,” court docs said. One of the investigators noted the children were believed to have been working in possibly hazardous conditions.

politics UnderpantsWeevil • 5d ago • 72%

The Staggering Price You’re Paying for America’s Nuclear Makeover

www.nytimes.com

To understand how America is preparing for its nuclear future, follow Melissa Durkee’s fifth-grade students as they shuffle into Room 38 at Preston Veterans’ Memorial School in Preston, Conn. One by one, the children settle in for a six-week course taught by an atypical educator, the defense contractor General Dynamics. “Does anyone know why we’re here?” a company representative asks. Adalie, 10, shoots her hand into the air. “Um, because you’re building submarines and you, like, need people, and you’re teaching us about it in case we’re interested in working there when we get older,” she ventures. Adalie is correct. The U.S. Navy has put in an order for General Dynamics to produce 12 nuclear ballistic missile submarines by 2042 — a job that’s projected to cost $130 billion. The industry is struggling to find the tens of thousands of new workers it needs. For the past 18 months, the company has traveled to elementary schools across New England to educate children in the basics of submarine manufacturing and perhaps inspire a student or two to consider one day joining its shipyards.

politics UnderpantsWeevil • 2w ago • 88%

Fatal police-action shootings in Fort Wayne reflect broader pattern, concerns continue

www.journalgazette.net

At least 13,395 people have been killed by law enforcement officers in the past 10 years nationally, according to one nonprofit that tracks data. The organization Mapping Police Violence says that means about 7% of homicides between 2013 and last year can be attributed to law enforcement.

politics UnderpantsWeevil • 2w ago • 98%

Toyota Curbs DEI Policy After Activist Attack Over LGBTQ Support

www.bloomberg.com

Toyota Motor Corp., will refocus DEI programs and halt sponsorship of LGBTQ events, citing “a highly politicized discussion” around corporate commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion. The Japanese carmaker told employees it will also end participation in notable rankings by LGBTQ advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign and other corporate culture surveys. The company will “narrow our community activities to align with STEM education and workforce readiness,” it said in a memo Thursday to its 50,000 US employees and 1,500 dealers. The note comes a week after anti-DEI activist Robby Starbuck started a social media campaign against the company, calling for customer boycotts because of its support for LGBTQ events and other initiatives. Toyota said at the time that the LGBTQ programs targeted were led by employee groups, not the company directly.

politics UnderpantsWeevil • 2w ago • 31%

US leaves Hurricane Helene survivors behind while funding Israel’s genocidal war

Thanks to the efforts of conservative lawmakers, a recently passed funding bill did not allocate additional funds to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) despite knowing that the agency’s funds had run low before the peak of hurricane season. Congress is now in recess until November 12, and while Biden had considered calling Congress back into session early to approve more FEMA funding, there has been no progress. Yet, somehow, conservative leaders and media are attempting to pin the blame of lack of FEMA funding on migrants crossing the US-Mexico border to seek asylum. “Feds say there’s no money left to respond to hurricanes — after FEMA spent $640M on migrants,” read a headline in conservative paper the New York Post following Mayorkas’ announcement. Communities in the southeast of the country, across the Gulf Coast and from Florida all the way to Virginia, have been forced to fend for themselves with grassroots and mutual aid organizations filling in for the state in terms of relief and aid efforts.

politics UnderpantsWeevil • 2w ago • 98%

Senator tells Native American candidate to go back to where she came from, storms out of public event

www.boisestatepublicradio.org

A bipartisan forum in a small Latah County community took a turn when Republican Senate incumbent Dan Foreman stormed out of the event, following a racist outburst directed at a Native American candidate. On Tuesday, local Democrat and Republican representatives organized a “Meet your candidates” forum in the northern Idaho town of Kendrick. ... In a statement released Wednesday, Democratic candidate for House Seat A and member of the Nez Perce tribe Trish Carter-Goodheart said she pushed back on that idea that discrimination existed in Idaho when it was her turn to speak, pointing to her own experience and the history of white supremacy groups in Northern Idaho. ... Foreman stood up and angrily interjected, using an expletive to criticize what he cast as the liberal bent of the response, according to the release and people present at the forum. Carter-Goodheart said he then told her she should go back to where she came from, and heatedly stormed off. One event organizer and two other panelists confirmed Carter-Goodheart’s account, adding Foreman appeared very agitated.

politics UnderpantsWeevil • 2w ago • 68%

Why the Biden Administration Is Shifting on Immigration

For much of the Biden administration’s first three years in office, migration surged at the Mexican border. Administration officials frequently argued that the problem was beyond their control — a reflection not of U.S. policy but of global forces pushing people toward the border. Then, starting in December, when the issue threatened President Biden’s re-election, he began a crackdown. The traffic of people crossing the border plummeted. Today, it remains near the lowest point since 2020 and not so different from levels during parts of the Trump and Obama administrations. This week, the Biden administration imposed tough new rules to keep it that way.

politics UnderpantsWeevil • 2w ago • 98%

A school district in Pennsylvania approved nearly $9,000 ‘to cut windows into the ‘gender-identity’ student bathrooms so passerby can look inside’

www.yorkdispatch.com

South Western’s elected school board is making some strange decisions. For the last two years, they’ve fixated on which bathrooms LGBTQ+ kids use. In 2023, officials in this Hanover-area district played musical chairs with school bathrooms in a misguided attempt to appease the loudest bigots among them — ending up with five different types of bathrooms. After a low-turnout school board election in which several far-right members joined their ranks, they hired a Christian law firm, decided to begin banning books and reopened the bathroom issue. Board President Matthew Gelazela, who was elevated to his post after previously serving as the board’s most vocal bomb-thrower, pointed to Red Lion’s discriminatory policies as something to aspire to. Now, upon the advice of that law firm — the Harrisburg-based Independence Law Center — the board approved spending $8,700 to cut windows so passersby can look into the so-called “gender-identity” student bathrooms.

politics UnderpantsWeevil • 2w ago • 98%

Donald Trump escalates tariff threat as he doubles down on protectionism: Ex-president’s latest broadside warns countries to stick with the dollar or face 100% levy

Donald Trump is escalating his threats to increase tariffs on imports if he wins a second term in the White House, reviving fears of renewed trade wars that hit the global economy during his presidency. The Republican candidate, seeking to win blue-collar votes in swing states pivotal to November’s presidential election, has doubled down on his protectionist rhetoric, delivering blunt warnings of tariffs to US trading partners including the EU. On Saturday, Trump went further, promising tariffs of 100 per cent on imports from countries that were moving away from using the dollar — a threat that could engulf many developing economies too. “I’ll say, ‘you leave the dollar, you’re not doing business with the United States. Because we’re going to put a 100 per cent tariff on your goods,’” he said at a rally in Wisconsin. “If we lost the dollar as the world currency, I think that would be the equivalent of losing a war,” he told the Economic Club of New York on Thursday. https://archive.ph/2b2zp

World News UnderpantsWeevil • 3w ago • 90%

Ukraine faces its darkest hour: Zelenskyy must deal with Russian advances, an exhausted society and the prospect of winter energy shortages

“Right now, I’m thinking more about how to save my people,” says Mykhailo Temper. “It’s quite hard to imagine we will be able to move the enemy back to the borders of 1991,” he adds, referring to his country’s aim of restoring its full territorial integrity. Once buoyed by hopes of liberating their lands, even soldiers at the front now voice a desire for negotiations with Russia to end the war. Yuriy, another commander on the eastern front who gave only his first name, says he fears the prospect of a “forever war”. “I am for negotiations now,” he adds, expressing his concern that his son — also a soldier — could spend much of his life fighting and that his grandson might one day inherit an endless conflict. “If the US turns off the spigot, we’re finished,” says another officer, a member of the 72nd Mechanised Brigade, in nearby Kurakhove. Ukraine is heading into what may be its darkest moment of the war so far. It is losing on the battlefield in the east of the country, with Russian forces advancing relentlessly — albeit at immense cost in men and equipment.