United States | News & Politics

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6295130

In 2013, California launched its cap-and-trade program, a carbon credit market that allows companies and governments to engage with offset projects that incentivize investments in planting trees, preserving forests, or even supporting solar farms. The idea is to reduce or offset greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing credits for nature-based projects.

Initially, the Yurok Tribe expressed interest in joining the program. The market would provide additional revenue and would enable the Yurok to play an additional role in addressing climate change. But Frankie Myers, an environmental consultant for the tribe and former vice chairman, had doubts.

“This idea of ‘you can pay to pollute’ was something that I was very, very concerned about,” he said. “I was very concerned with how that lined up with our cultural values as a tribe.”

The Yurok Tribe’s carbon offset project in Northern California includes 7,600 acres of a tribally-managed forest: mature evergreen, fir, and redwood trees, ideal for carbon sequestration. When the Yurok joined the state’s program in 2014, private consultants and brokers oversaw the project due to the tribal nation’s limited funds, removing the tribe’s ability to manage the forest in a way that aligned with Yurok values. Four years later, revenue began to climb and the nation took over management. It was then that Myers began to see the benefits of a tribal-led carbon offset project. Since the Yurok Tribe joined the cap-and-trade program, at least 13 Indigenous nations in the U.S. have launched their own offset projects on California’s marketplace.

Originally, the program was slated to end this year. However, last week, California Governor Gavin Newsom extended the state’s cap-and-trade program until 2045. The “action comes as the Trump administration continues its efforts to gut decades-old, bipartisan American clean air protections and derail critical climate progress,” Newsom’s office said.

Before its offset project, the tribal economy for the Yurok Nation relied on discretionary funds from the federal government and gaming revenue, but Myers said that the tribe has now received tens of millions of dollars in carbon credit sales, boosting its economy and funding environmental projects like recovery work on the Klamath River in the wake of dam removal

Full Article

cross-posted from: https://altmedia.house/post/110549

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/36731297

The "Jerry Rescue" (1851)

Wed Oct 01, 1851

Image: A monument to the Jerry Rescue

On this day in 1851, arrested fugitive slave William "Jerry" Henry was broken out of jail by hundreds of abolitionists in Syracuse, New York. Jerry and prominent members of the rescue fled to Canada afterward.

Earlier that year, the pro-slavery Secretary of State Daniel Webster had warned that the new Fugitive Slave Act (passed in 1850) would be enforced even "here in Syracuse in the midst of the next Anti-Slavery Convention." The arrest was considered a message that the locally-unpopular law would be enforced by federal authorities.

The abolitionist Liberty Party was holding a state convention in Syracuse and, when Jerry's arrest became known, several hundred abolitionists broke into the city jail and freed him. The event came to be widely known as the "Jerry Rescue".

Jerry himself was hidden in Syracuse for several days, then was taken to the Orson Ames House in Mexico, New York, and from there to Oswego, before crossing Lake Ontario into freedom in Canada. Many of the prominent members of the jailbreak also fled to Canada, including Reverend J.W. Loguen and Minister Samuel Ringgold Ward.

• Date: 1851-10-01
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.nyhistory.com, www.cnyhistory.org.
• Tags: #Abolitionism.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

cross-posted from: https://altmedia.house/post/110557

The Trump administration is blaming Democrats for the government shutdown in internal federal agency communications as well as public agency websites, in what experts say could be a violation of federal ethics laws.

A bright red banner and pop-up message first appeared Tuesday on the Department of Housing and Urban Development's website. It was updated early Wednesday morning and warns: "The Radical Left in Congress shut down the government. HUD will use available resources to help Americans in need."

Wednesday morning, a banner added to the top of Department of Justice websites reads "Democrats have shut down the government" with a link to its shutdown plans.

Forty percent of registered US voters think Israel is intentionally killing civilians in its war on Gaza, according to a national poll published Tuesday.

When asked if Israel was taking enough precautions to avoid civilian casualties, 62 percent said they were not, with just 25 percent saying Israel was taking enough precautions.

More than half of registered US voters disapprove of Israel’s war, and 59 percent said they believe that Israel should stop its "military campaign" even if Hamas has not been fully "eliminated". Only 27 percent said the campaign should continue.

Much of the federal government is now shut down after Republicans and Democrats in the Senate failed to agree on a pair of dueling funding bills to keep the government open.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/36919574

In a blistering opinion, a federal judge in Boston said the Trump administration used the threat of deportations to systematically intimidate certain campus demonstrators into silence.

By Zach Montague
Reporting from Washington
Sept. 30, 2025 Updated 7:32 p.m. ET

https://archive.ph/qZZCZ

The Texas Republican and avid traveler is in hot water for remarks during a Tuesday morning Senate hearing in which he inexplicably urged colleagues, “Let’s stop attacking pedophiles,” Mediate reports.

Look, we know that you voted against releasing the Epstein files, but you’re saying the quiet part out loud, Rafael!

The Texas senator blocked a bill that would have prevented data brokers from selling personal data on anyone in the United States, and not just federal lawmakers and government officials.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — On a visit to New Zealand, FBI Director Kash Patel gave the country’s police and spy bosses gifts of inoperable pistols that were illegal to possess under local gun laws and had to be destroyed, New Zealand law enforcement agencies told The Associated Press.

The plastic 3D-printed replica pistols formed part of display stands Patel presented to at least four senior New Zealand security officials in July. Patel, the most senior Trump administration official to visit the country so far, was in Wellington to open the FBI’s first standalone office in New Zealand.

Pistols are tightly restricted weapons under New Zealand law and possessing one requires an additional permit beyond a regular gun license. Law enforcement agencies didn’t specify whether the officials who met with Patel held such permits, but they couldn’t have legally kept the gifts if they didn’t.

It wasn’t clear what permissions Patel had sought to bring the weapons into the country. A spokesperson for Patel told the AP Tuesday that the FBI would not comment.

US FBI Director Kash Patel visits New Zealand, immediately provides local officials with 3d printed, potentially operable firearms...

... which is a crime, that could carry up to a 3 year prison/jail sentence in NZ...

... and would also potentially be somewhere between a misdemeanor and a felony depending on where you are in the US, as 3d printed firearms are generally without serial numbers and are thus 'ghost guns', which are often illegal if unregistered, if not outright banned, though this differs from state to state and city to city.

(Oh also, I guess he is so concerned about properly investigating the death of Charlie Kirk that he is uh, personally looking for leads in New Zealand, or something.)

EXCLUSIVE: Leaked letter from Guard leader levels with troops on unpopular mission

Resubmitting this from a just-archived copy because the content appears to have substantially changed from a prior version of the article, to highlight Trump's implications on the domestic role of the military.

The Federal Trade Commission is suing real estate giants Zillow and Redfin, alleging the two illegally conspired to reduce competition in the online multifamily rental listing market, the agency said Tuesday.

In the complaint, the FTC alleges the companies violated federal antitrust laws earlier this year when Zillow paid Redfin $100 million to essentially re-host Zillow multifamily rental listings on Redfin and its sites.