TruthOut

The chemical compound ethylene oxide is manufactured and used in hundreds of facilities across the United States. Linked to lymphoma, leukemia, and breast cancer, the carcinogen is used to sterilize about half of all medical devices in the country. Over the last few years, as evidence of its toxicity has become more clear, regulators have attempted to step up enforcement against ethylene oxide...

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Congressional Democrats on Thursday reintroduced a bill to codify federal protections for transgender Americans, as a number of states have passed anti-trans legislation and the Republican-controlled U.S. House is advancing restrictions. The Transgender Bill of Rights, introduced by Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts ahead of the International Transgender...

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Royal Canadian Mounted Police on Wednesday arrested five land defenders on Wet’suwet’en territory near the controversial construction of a natural gas pipeline that runs through central British Columbia. The 416 mile-long Coastal GasLink pipeline is expected to bring 2.1 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas to a facility in Kitimat, B.C. before it is exported to global markets.

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In an unprecedented move, a Manhattan grand jury voted Thursday to indict former President Donald Trump for hush-money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign to hide an alleged affair, making Trump the first former U.S. president to face criminal charges. While the precise details of the charges are not yet known, the development culminates years of...

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“They are going to kill us,” I thought as I saw far right commentators weaponizing information about the Nashville school shooter’s identity to push the nation’s anti-trans panic into overdrive. It was already terrifying to be trans in a country where there is an ongoing and documented movement to “eliminate openly LGBTQ people from the fabric of society.” But now, with Donald Trump Jr.

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Austin, Texas—With bright yellow hair and a black blazer splashed with color, transgender artist and performer “Key Ring” leaned into the microphone on the floor of the Texas Senate chamber on March 23 to address members of the State Affairs committee during hearing about Senate Bill 12. “The language of this bill is … incredibly vague when it comes to defining what exactly a drag performer is and...

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Last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a sobering report aimed in part at policy makers, saying in no uncertain terms that there is a “rapidly closing window” to act on climate in order to avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis. Just 10 days later, Republicans in the House passed a bill aimed at slamming the window shut. On Thursday, the House passed H.R. 1...

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Republican lawmakers in Kentucky have overridden a veto from Gov. Andy Beshear (D) to pass a bill targeting trans children that LGBTQ advocates have described as one of the worst pieces of anti-trans legislation in the country. Republicans, who have supermajorities in both houses of the Kentucky legislature, overrode the veto of Senate Bill 150 on Wednesday. The Senate passed the override by a...

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This week, the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia — the lone abortion clinic in the state before Gov. Jim Justice (R) signed an abortion ban into law last September — announced that it will be opening a clinic roughly five miles from the state border in abortion-friendly Maryland. “This will save lives in West Virginia and beyond,” said the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia...

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A bill advancing through Montana’s statehouse would legally define a man as someone who produces sperm and a woman as someone who produces eggs — and apply that definition to 40 aspects of the state’s legislative code, from employment protections and school sports teams to burial records and marriage licenses. The 60-page bill, which is being considered in the House after being passed by the state...

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A federal judge in Texas has struck down a major preventive care rule set by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that has allowed millions of Americans to access critical health care like cancer screenings, immunizations, and HIV treatment cost-free, in a decision that experts are saying will have devastating impacts across the country if upheld. Judge Reed O’Connor, a George W. Bush nominee...

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Missouri’s Republican-led House of Representatives has given initial approval to a state budget that would strip libraries of state funding in what appears to be retaliation for a lawsuit filed by librarians seeking to overturn a law expanding book bans in schools. Rep. Cody Smith (R-Carthage), chair of the House Budget Committee, proposed eliminating all funding for public libraries in the state...

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Republican lawmakers in Congress are unleashing their hate on families like mine nationwide, all while speaking disingenuous words about “parents’ rights.” As a queer parent with a trans partner and a child in public school, I have a visceral understanding that the “Parents Bill of Rights Act” passed by the U.S. House on March 24 has nothing to do with empowering parents, and everything to do with...

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On Wednesday, the Kansas state Senate advanced a bill based on the misleading notion that fetuses are sometimes born “alive” after an abortion. The bill now sits on the governor’s desk awaiting approval, months after Kansans voted to uphold abortion care protections in the state. Meanwhile, critics say that the very name of the bill is a ruse designed to trick the public into believing that viable...

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Just two days after three children and three adults were killed in a horrific school shooting in Tennessee, Republicans in neighboring North Carolina overrode a governor’s veto for the first time in five years in order to weaken gun laws in the state. In a party line vote on Wednesday, just 48 hours after the shooting at The Covenant School, the North Carolina House voted 71 to 46 to override the...

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We speak with Jaysin Saxton, one of the witnesses who testified at the Senate hearing Wednesday on Starbucks’ union-busting record. Saxton was a former Starbucks shift manager, fired after leading the union drive at a store in Augusta, Georgia. He tells Democracy Now! he and fellow workers were motivated to organize their store to address the “insane” working conditions...

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A BNSF train carrying ethanol derailed and caught fire early Thursday morning in Raymond, Minnesota, forcing residents living near the crash site to evacuate. U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has faced backlash for responding inadequately to the disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, said the Federal Railroad Administration is “on the ground’ in Raymond following the derailment.

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A group once led by far right activist Ginni Thomas, spouse of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, received nearly $600,000 in anonymous donations to oppose progressive cultural causes, a new report from The Washington Post details. From 2019 until the start of 2022, fledgling right-wing group Crowdsourcing for Culture and Liberty received funds through a “fiscal sponsorship” — an arrangement...

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For three years, Sarah Wilson, a disabled 60-year-old living in rural Maryland, received $281 a month from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), better known as food stamps. Coupled with a $1,700 monthly Social Security disability check, the former social worker made do. “My finances were manageable,” she told Truthout. “Then they notified me during the second week of February...

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Ex-Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz testified during a much-anticipated hearing led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) on Wednesday, parroting what appeared to be blatant lies about the company’s fierce anti-union campaign and hundreds of labor law violations over the past year and a half. For the roughly two hours that Schultz was in the hot seat before Sander’s Health, Education...

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