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  • Multiple Trump officials have links to antisemitic extremists : NPR
    https://www.npr.org/2025/05/14/nx-s1-5387299/trump-white-house-antisemitism

    President Trump campaigned on a pledge to fight antisemitism.

    “Antisemitic bigotry has no place in a civilized society,” Trump said at an event in 2024.

    However, the president’s critics question whether antisemitism may have found a place within his administration.

    NPR has identified three Trump officials with close ties to antisemitic extremists, including a man described by federal prosecutors as a “Nazi sympathizer,” and a prominent Holocaust denier.

    The White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

    The Trump administration has used the fight against antisemitism as justification for the deportation of pro-Palestinian student protesters and funding cuts to universities.

    Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, argues that the administration is using antisemitism as a pretext.

    “If the administration were serious about countering antisemitism, first and foremost they wouldn’t be appointing people with antisemitic and other extremist ties to senior roles within the administration,” Spitalnick said.

    […]

    • Itay Epshtain sur X :
      https://x.com/EpshtainItay/status/1917836024434016270

      At the @CIJ_ICJ, the US @USUN and its Hungarian client-state, @HUNMissionToUN, undertook a joint effort to subvert the law of war and international adjudication:

      1/3. The US argued that the obligations of an occupying power with respect to humanitarian assistance should be met, “while advancing its own military and security interests.” However, the text of Art. Article 59 is explicit in that the occupying power must agree to and facilitate relief schemes on behalf of the occupied population, in their interest, not in its own, acting as a mere facilitator of offers of relief by impartial humanitarian organizations and states not party to the conflict. The US favours the militarization and politicization of aid, which the Court would have to outright reject.

      2/3 The US also reminded the Court that “only the Security Council can make (the threat determination that must precede such) binding decisions. In addition, such decisions require not only that at least nine Security Council members vote “yes”, but also that the five permanent members either vote yes or abstain.” The unnecessary reminder of US-imposed Security Council paralysis preceded an inappropriate cautioning of the Court that “novel legal interpretations will not bring an end to the ongoing conflict. They will not create a better tomorrow for Israelis, Palestinians, and the region. We encourage the international community to focus on [...] fresh thinking for a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.”

      3/3 Parroting the US in diswaying the Court from exercising its jurisdiction, Hungary argued that “proceeding brought before this esteemed Court may directly contribute to the escalation of the conflict. We are of the view that the present and the former requests for rendering an advisory opinion, as well as the procedure initiated by the Republic of South Africa against the State of Israel, may be considered as an interference in an ongoing conflict that does not contribute to the de-escalation and an eventual settlement.” It went so far as to sugesset that question posed by the request are “so targeted at Israel, that it proceeds on the assumption that Israel has failed to meet its obligations under international law, without any regard to Israel’s legitimate security interests and concerns, or to the obligations of the United Nations and third parties in relation to the very subject-matter of the question.” According to Hungary, humanitarians are at fault, not the occupying power, which besieges, starves, and displaces the civilian population under the guise of security.

  • Science Bob McGwier / X
    https://x.com/BobMcGwier_N4HY/status/1913255203437953380

    THREAD: A federal whistleblower just dropped one of the most disturbing cybersecurity disclosures I’ve ever read.

    He’s saying DOGE came in, data went out, and Russians started attempting logins with new valid DOGE passwords

    Media’s coverage wasn’t detailed enough so I dug into his testimony:

    Thread by mattjay – Thread Reader App
    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1913023007263543565.html

  • Judge: ’Probable cause’ to hold U.S. in contempt over Alien Enemies Act deportations
    https://www.npr.org/2025/04/16/g-s1-60696/judge-probable-cause-to-hold-u-s-in-contempt-over-alien-enemies-act-deportation

    Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia ruled Wednesday that there is “probable cause” to find the Trump administration in criminal contempt of court after he said it violated his order last month to immediately pause any deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.

  • U.S. says it is now monitoring immigrants’ social media for antisemitism
    https://www.npr.org/2025/04/09/g-s1-59149/immigrants-social-media-antisemitism-dhs

    U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has announced it will begin screening immigrants’ social media for evidence of antisemitic activity as grounds for denying immigration benefit requests. The screenings will affect people applying for permanent residence status as well as foreigners affiliated with educational institutions. The policy will go into effect immediately.

    In a statement issued Wednesday morning, the Department of Homeland Security said it will “protect the homeland from extremists and terrorist aliens, including those who support antisemitic terrorism, violent antisemitic ideologies and antisemitic terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, or [the Houthis].”

  • Pourquoi le plan de Trump pour Gaza nous semble-t-il si familier ? Parce que les nazis l’ont essayé en premier
    Posted on février 15, 2025 | Eric Kurlander | The Forward | Traduction JPB pour l’AURDIP

    Le plan Madagascar a été le dernier effort des nazis pour résoudre le « problème juif » avant la Solution Finale.
    https://aurdip.org/pourquoi-le-plan-de-trump-pour-gaza-nous-semble-t-il-si-familier-parce-que-l

    (...) Ce plan a été la dernière proposition majeure du Troisième Reich avant la « Solution finale » – les fusillades aveugles d’hommes, de femmes et d’enfants juifs sur le front de l’Est, conduisant aux massacres dans les camps de la mort et les chambres à gaz à la fin de l’année 1941 – pour l’élimination des Juifs du Grand Reich germanique imaginée par Adolf Hitler dans Mein Kampf. Cette histoire contient un avertissement : Les projets de relocalisation massive d’une population considérée comme gênante ou dangereuse peuvent rapidement dégénérer en perte de souveraineté, de droits de l’homme et de droits civils et, finalement, en nettoyage ethnique.

    L’idée de créer une « colonie pour les Juifs » à Madagascar, proposée pour la première fois par l’antisémite Paul de Lagarde dans les années 1880, a longtemps figuré en bonne place dans les projets de solution territoriale à la « question juive », à savoir la question de savoir si les Juifs pouvaient s’assimiler à la société dans son ensemble et, si tel n’était pas le cas, ce qu’il fallait faire d’eux.

    Le Plan Madagascar fut le dernier effort sérieux, bien que très problématique, pour résoudre la « question juive » d’une manière non génocidaire.

    Mais malgré l’origine fanatique de l’idée, la perspective d’une réinstallation massive des Juifs à Madagascar, ou dans un autre territoire colonial africain, attirait des personnes aux idéologies très diverses – y compris, outre les antisémites de droite et les impérialistes libéraux, certains « territorialistes » juifs qui pensaient que le sionisme était impraticable et que tout État juif devait être établi en dehors de la terre d’Israël.

    Puis vint le Troisième Reich.

    En 1939, Adolf Eichmann, « expert juif » résident de la SS de Heinrich Himmler, a élaboré le « plan Nisko », plus modeste, visant à créer une « réserve juive » dans la Pologne occupée par l’Allemagne, près de Lublin, où les Juifs polonais, tchèques et autrichiens pourraient vivre dans une sorte de précarité permanente et apatride – ce qui n’est pas sans rappeler les réserves créées pour les Amérindiens à la fin du XIXe siècle aux États-Unis, un point de référence fréquent pour Hitler, ou encore la situation actuelle à Gaza. [ https://www.npr.org/2023/11/04/1210645265/gaza-is-called-an-open-air-prison-how-did-it-get-to-this ]

    Lorsque le plan Nisko s’est avéré irréalisable, Eichmann et Franz Rademacher, chef du « bureau juif » du ministère des Affaires étrangères, ont repris l’idée, longtemps évoquée, de réinstaller les Juifs d’Europe dans la colonie française de Madagascar. Leur plan a été méticuleusement conçu, impliquant des études climatiques et démographiques détaillées, une comptabilité précise du nombre de navires et des ressources nécessaires, ainsi qu’un examen complet des diverses nécessités financières et de la logistique administrative.

    De nombreux historiens affirment que le plan Madagascar était, au mieux, totalement fantaisiste et, au pire, une tentative à peine voilée d’assassiner tous les Juifs d’Europe en les déportant dans un climat rude où ils mourraient sans aucun doute d’épuisement. Les preuves dont nous disposons sont plus complexes et indiquent que le plan Madagascar a été le dernier effort sérieux, bien que très problématique, pour résoudre la « question juive » d’une manière non génocidaire. (...)

  • Federal health workers terrified after ’DEI’ website publishes list of ’targets’

    The site calls out workers who have been involved with DEI initiatives. A majority are Black.

    Federal health workers are expressing fear and alarm after a website called “#DEI_Watch_List” published the photos, names and public information of a number of workers across health agencies, describing them at one point as “targets.”

    It’s unclear when the website, which lists mostly Black employees who work in agencies primarily within the Department of Health and Human Services, first appeared.

    “Offenses” for the workers listed on the website include working on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, donating to Democrats and using pronouns in their bios.

    The website, a government worker said, is being circulated among multiple private group chats of federal health workers across agencies, as well as through social media links.

    The site also reached Dr. Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, who learned about it Tuesday evening when a federal health worker sent it to him.

    “This is a scare tactic to try to intimidate people who are trying to do their work and do it admirably,” Benjamin said. “It’s clear racism.”

    A government worker said they found out theirs was among the names on the website Tuesday afternoon after a former co-worker sent them the link on social media.

    “It’s unnerving,” said the person, who requested anonymity because of safety concerns. “My name and my picture is there, and in 2025, it’s very simple to Google and look up someone’s home address and all kinds of things that potentially put me at risk.”

    “I don’t know what the intention of the list is for,” the person said. “It’s just kind of a scary place to be.”

    On Tuesday evening, the site listed photos of employees and linked to further information about them under the headline “Targets.” Later Tuesday night, the headline on each page had been changed to “Dossiers.”

    The site lists workers’ salaries along with what it describes as “DEI offenses,” including political donations, screenshots of social media posts, snippets from websites describing their work, or being a part of a DEI initiative that has been scrubbed from a federal website.

    Benjamin suggested the acts of online harassment are criminal. “Law enforcement should look into them.”

    A person who isn’t on the list but works at a federal health agency called the website “psychological warfare.” The link, this person said, is being circulated in their private group chat of federal health workers, causing some to “freak out.”

    It’s hard to gauge, the worker said, whether it’s a legitimate threat. “I don’t know anything about the organization doing this or their parent association. People are just paranoid right now.”

    A note at the bottom of the website says, “A project of the American Accountability Foundation.” That group is a conservative watchdog group.

    It’s not the first time the group has created such a list. In December, it sent Pete Hegseth, then the nominee for defense secretary, a list of names of people in the military whom it deemed too focused on diversity, equity and inclusion, the New York Post reported at the time.

    Neither the American Accountability Foundation nor HHS immediately responded to requests for comment.

    The website comes after a bruising two weeks for public health workers. Employees at the #Centers_for_Disease_Control_and_Prevention say they have received “threatening” memos from the #Department_of_Health_and_Human Services directing them to terminate any activities, jobs and research with any connection to diversity, equity and inclusion — and turn in co-workers who don’t adhere to the orders. HHS oversees federal health agencies, including the CDC and the #National_Institutes_of_Health.

    “The tone is aggressive. It’s threatening consequences if we are not obedient. It’s asking us to report co-workers who aren’t complying,” said a CDC physician who wasn’t authorized to speak to reporters. “There’s a lot of fear and panic.”

    NBC News reviewed one of the memos, which directed employees to “review all agency position descriptions and send a notification to all employees whose position description involves inculcating or promoting gender ideology that they are being placed on paid administrative leave effective immediately.”

    The result, staffers said, is paranoia.

    “I know of people who have been put on administrative leave for perceived infractions related to these ambiguous memos. People are thinking if I put one foot wrong, I’m just going to be fired,” another CDC physician said.

    In one case, a potluck luncheon among co-workers was hastily canceled for fear it would be seen as a way to promote cultural diversity.

    Despite the harassment, public health employees said they remain committed to their work.

    “If I leave, who’s going to replace me?” a CDC physician said. “If nobody replaces me and enough of us leave, then who’s going to be doing the public health work?”

    https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/federal-health-workers-terrified-dei-website-publishes-list-targets-rcna190
    #liste #cibles #USA #Etats-Unis #it_has_begun #fonctionnaires #intimidation #inclusion #diversité #équité #santé #menaces #santé_publique #délation #DEI

    • Higher Ed Fights Back Against Trump’s #DEI_Order

      The American Association of University Professors and others argue in a new lawsuit that the executive orders violate the Constitution.

      College professors and university diversity officers are teaming up with nonprofits and local governments to challenge President Trump’s executive orders that target diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government, higher education and the private sector. Those orders, they argue, violate the U.S. Constitution and have already caused much uncertainty on college campuses.

      The American Association of University Professors, the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education and other groups argue in a lawsuit filed Monday that the orders exceed executive legal authority, violate both the First and Fifth Amendments, and threaten academic freedom and access to higher education for all. They want a judge to declare that the executive orders are unconstitutional and to block the government from further enforcement.

      “In the United States, there is no king,” the plaintiffs say in the 40-page complaint. “In his crusade to erase diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility from our country, President Trump cannot usurp Congress’s exclusive power of the purse, nor can he silence those who disagree with him by threatening them with the loss of federal funds and other enforcement actions.”

      Filed in the U.S. District Court in Maryland, the lawsuit is the first to target the DEI-related orders. Numerous states and nonprofits, however, have sued the Trump administration to challenge other executive actions taken during the president’s first two weeks in office, including his attempt to freeze trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans.

      The academic organizations involved in this DEI case are represented by Democracy Forward, the same pro bono legal group that was first to successfully challenge the federal funding freeze. Asian Americans Advancing Justice, another nonprofit civil rights group, also is representing the plaintiffs.

      The executive orders at issue in this lawsuit aim to end what Trump sees as “illegal discrimination” and “wasteful” programs. Institutions that don’t comply could face financial penalties or federal investigations.

      Although AAUP has openly discouraged universities from engaging in “anticipatory obedience,” which it defined as “acting to comply in advance of any pressure to do so,” several colleges and universities have already taken action in an attempt to avoid rebuke from the Trump administration. That includes canceling a Lunar New Year event and removing references to DEI from college websites.

      Trump’s orders are not the first of their kind. They build on a number of laws recently passed in Republican-led states that ban DEI offices and programs in colleges and universities and aim to take those efforts nationwide. Colleges in states like Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Texas and Utah have taken action to comply with those laws, laying off staff and shutting down cultural centers. In some states, such as Kentucky and Michigan, public colleges dissolved certain DEI standards or full offices before legislation passed.

      Regardless of the state-by-state scenarios, groups like NADOHE say they will continue to fight for DEI protection, as such programs are crucial to fulfilling the mission of higher education. Getting rid of DEI, NADOHE says, would send a chilling shock wave throughout academia and lead to increased harassment, discrimination and violence across campuses.

      “By attacking the important work of diversity, equity and inclusion offices at educational institutions, the order seeks to dismantle critical support systems for historically underrepresented students,” NADOHE president Paulette Granberry Russell told Inside Higher Ed after Trump signed the second DEI order. “This would limit workforce preparation and stifle efforts to address systemic inequities. This order depicts diversity, equity and inclusion as divisive when, in reality, these initiatives aim to ensure opportunity for all.”
      What Does the Lawsuit Say?

      The lawsuit is focused on two executive orders that Trump issued during his first 48 hours in office.

      The first order directed federal agencies to get rid of all federal diversity offices and positions and end any “equity-related” grants and contracts. Numerous DEI staffers have since lost their jobs, and dozens of general staff members from the Education Department who attended any DEI training in the past have been put on administrative leave.

      The lawsuit alleges that Trump exceeded his legal authority in issuing that order, as Congress—not the president—has authority over the federal government’s purse strings. Therefore, the plaintiffs argue, Trump does not have the power to unilaterally terminate equity-related grants and contracts “without express statutory authority.”

      The second order, signed Jan. 21, more directly impacts higher education. It calls on all agencies—including the Department of Education—to “enforce our longstanding civil-rights laws and to combat illegal private-sector DEI preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities.” It also orders the attorney general and the education secretary to create guidance for colleges and universities on how to comply with the 2023 Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action, and for the secretary to investigate up to nine colleges that have endowments worth more than $1 billion as part an effort “to deter DEI programs or principles.

      The lawyers argue that both orders are overly vague. Neither defines terms such as “DEI,” “illegal DEIA” or “equity.” As a result, they argue, colleges, universities and other institutions have not been given fair guidance as to what is prohibited and what they could be indicted and face penalties for, violating the plaintiffs’ right to due process under the Fifth Amendment. “The lack of definitions necessarily requires people of common intelligence to guess as to what is prohibited,” the lawsuit states. It goes on to suggest that by ordering the investigation of “illegal DEIA” practices at up to nine colleges without first defining the term, the president has granted agencies “carte blanche authority to implement the order discriminatorily.”

      The plaintiffs also argue that the second order violates the First Amendment, discouraging free speech and academic freedom around DEI-related topics on campus—dampening the public service role of academia as a marketplace of ideas. “The Constitution protects the right of scholars, teachers, and researchers to think, speak, and teach without governmental interference,” the plaintiffs write. “The ‘essentiality of freedom in the community of American universities is almost self-evident’ and educators play a ‘vital role in a democracy’.”
      Can Trump ‘Avoid Running Afoul’?

      AAUP president Todd Wolfson said the association is committed to fighting for a higher education system that’s accessible to all, regardless of background. He went on to describe Trump’s orders as “destructive” and said that eliminating DEI at public institutions would threaten the democratic purpose of higher ed.

      “Trump’s orders are about controlling the range of ideas that can be discussed in the classroom, limiting and censoring faculty and students, and codifying into law the prejudices of the past,” he said in a statement to Inside Higher Ed. “These are attempts at authoritarianism that this nation has overcome before. We will do so again.”

      But Tyler Coward, lead counsel for government affairs at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a First Amendment advocacy group, isn’t so sure. He said in an email statement that Trump’s executive orders on DEI “appear to avoid running afoul of the First Amendment,” but in a more detailed analysis memo, FIRE warns that “implementation should proceed carefully.”

      “Overzealous enforcement could threaten free speech by, for example, indirectly chilling a professor from sharing their positive views of affirmative action policies or leading to investigation of a government grantee for a social media post expressing personal support for DEI initiatives,” the foundation wrote.

      Neither Coward nor the foundation at large, however, commented on the lawsuit’s standing as far as violations of the Fifth Amendment or the separation of powers.

      “We are concerned that the executive order about gender ideology could be used to censor speech on sex and gender,” Coward said. “FIRE is closely watching how federal agencies interpret and enforce the executive orders to ensure the government doesn’t infringe on constitutionally protected speech.”

      https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/2025/02/05/higher-ed-organizations-sue-against-trumps-dei-orders

      #mots #vocabulaire
      #diversité #équité #inclusion #accessibilité

    • Trump Takes Aim at DEI in Higher Ed

      The executive order doesn’t have an immediate impact on DEI programs at colleges and universities, but experts worry about a chilling effect.

      One of President Donald Trump’s latest executive orders aims to end “illegal” diversity, equity and inclusion policies and could upend programs that support underrepresented groups on college campuses.

      Whether the order, signed late Tuesday night, will be effective is not clear, some experts cautioned Wednesday. Others celebrated it as the end of DEI in America.

      The order calls on all agencies to “enforce our longstanding civil-rights laws and to combat illegal private-sector DEI preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities,” though it doesn’t define DEI. Additionally, the order directs the attorney general and education secretary—neither of whom have been confirmed—to create guidance for colleges and universities on how to comply with the 2023 Supreme Court ruling, which banned the use of race-conscious admissions policies.

      The order should not, however, have any immediate impact on higher ed, as most provisions require agency action.

      Higher education experts and diversity, equity and inclusion advocates say it’s difficult to know how far Trump’s latest order against DEI will actually go, but they are certain it represents an attempt to reverse more than 50 years of civil rights work to promote equal access to the American education system.

      University stakeholders add that Trump’s ultimate goal is to amplify culture war issues and create a dichotomy between merit and hard work and programs that celebrate diversity and promote equitable access.

      “What I see is a broad attempt to remove everything that is associated with long-standing institutional efforts to desegregate the U.S. government and institutions like colleges and universities that are entangled with the government through federal financial aid,” said Brendan Cantwell, a professor of education at Michigan State University.

      But anti–diversity, equity and inclusion activists and conservative politicians, on the other hand, see Tuesday’s order as a positive change that reminds colleges to teach students how to think rather than what to think.

      “For too long, social justice warriors crusaded to mandate DEI in every corner of America. Instead of merit, skills, and ability, DEI devotees pushed policies that are antithetical to American exceptionalism,” Republican representative and House education committee chair Tim Walberg said in a statement. “From the classroom to the board room, Americans have felt the negative effects.”

      Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, said deconstruction of DEI is impending.

      “Tomorrow morning, the general counsels for every major corporation and university are going to be reading President Trump’s executive orders on DEI and figuring out how they can avoid getting ruined by federal civil rights lawyers,” he wrote on X. “Huge changes imminent.”

      Trump’s latest DEI action builds upon other related orders regarding sex, race and equity that he signed in the first two days of his second term, but this one has the highest likelihood of directly impacting higher education.

      That’s in part because the order designates any institution that receives federal financial aid as a subcontractor. As subcontractors, colleges’ employment, procurement and contracting practices “shall not consider race, color, sex, sexual preference, religion, or national origin in ways that violate the nation’s civil rights laws,” according to the order.

      Additionally, the Education Department must pick up to nine colleges that have endowments worth more than $1 billion to investigate as part an effort “to deter DEI programs or principles.” Harvard University, other Ivy League institutions and more than two dozen other colleges would be on the list for a potential inquiry.

      ‘The DEI Party Is Over’

      Across the board, policy experts that Inside Higher Ed spoke with say that while it is clear what Trump seeks to do, it is uncertain exactly what will actually come to pass. They called the order’s language broad and said much of its consequences will depend on what levers the department pulls for compliance, among other factors.

      Jon Fansmith, senior vice president of government relations and national engagement for the American Council on Education, said in a webinar Wednesday that though the executive orders have created uncertainty, the directives don’t change federal law and are subject to lawsuits.

      “The things we are talking about aren’t absolutes,” he said. “There’s a lot of understandable concern, but some things haven’t changed.”

      On the other hand, Adam Kissel, a visiting fellow of higher education reform at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the order’s implications are very clear.

      “Colleges and universities, as well as other institutions, are on notice that the DEI party is over,” he said.

      One way that the Trump administration can try to ensure the “DEI party” is fully brought to a halt is by telling colleges that the Supreme Court’s ruling on race-conscious admissions policies extends to any scholarship program or student support services that are geared toward a specific race or ethnic group. Colleges that don’t comply could risk their access to federal financial aid.

      Some legal analysts and Republican officials have argued that the Supreme Court’s ruling also bars scholarships, internships and other educational programs that take race into account. The Biden administration disagreed and said the ruling only affected admissions.

      Kissel said he is “200 percent sure” the Trump administration has the ability to extend the ruling to more than just admissions.

      “The Supreme Court said discrimination is wrong and illegal under the equal protection clause as well as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” he said. And “when we’re talking about nondiscrimination, I think SCOTUS was very clear that the broad interpretation is correct.”

      Kissel expects that the Trump administration will tie DEI compliance to both research grants and Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which authorizes federal financial aid programs. He believes they have clearance to do so as DEI is, in his view, discriminatory and colleges accessing federal funds cannot discriminate.
      ‘Pre-Emptive Compliance’

      Regardless of the clarity level, a key factor that could determine the impact of the DEI order is how university leaders respond.

      Cantwell said the response from leaders will depend on whether the university is private and what state it’s located in. He expects the order to carry more force at public colleges in Republican-led states. The government has the least control over private universities, he said, and though some dollars come from the federal government, much of higher ed funding is allocated at the state level, giving local lawmakers the most leverage on whether to enforce Trump’s rules.

      Although blue states that disagree with the president’s order may be less likely than red states to pass legislation reinforcing the guidelines, some universities could act on their own. Some institutions, such as the University of Michigan, have already started to rethink their DEI programs in an effort to pre-emptively comply with federal directives.

      “[The case of Michigan] does hint at some wariness,” Cantwell said. “And that wariness and sort of pre-emptive compliance, even absent direct threats from the federal or state government, might be somewhat universal. But I also think we will definitely see lots of variation by state.”

      Sarah Hubbard, a Republican elected regent at the University of Michigan, said the latest executive order shows that Trump is “doing exactly what he said he’d do” and should be a sign that more steps need to be taken in order for Michigan and other public institutions to avoid losing billions in federal funds.

      Michigan has already repealed the use of diversity statements in the hiring process and adopted a policy of institutional neutrality but has not directly cut staff or funding for any of its highly criticized DEI programs. Those decisions would be made in the upcoming budget cycle.

      “Not speaking on behalf of the board … I hope that we will be doing more to realign our campus toward need-based scholarships and removing overbearing DEI bureaucracy,” Hubbard said.
      A Chilling Shock Wave

      Some higher education experts—particularly those working in and around DEI departments—are bracing for it to have a “gigantic” impact on students and faculty.

      Kaleb Briscoe is an assistant professor of adult and higher education at the University of Oklahoma whose recent research has focused on the repercussions of DEI bans. She said that the order has already “sent shock waves,” adding that her phone is “blowing up about it.”

      Although the action does not explicitly say it will ban or restrict DEI programs like some state-level laws, Briscoe believes that Trump’s campaign messages and record from his first term speak loudly. Among other actions, Trump issued an executive order defunding any federally funded trainings or programs that promote race or sex “stereotyping” or “scapegoating.” (Former President Biden rescinded that order.)

      “The language within the executive order does not directly call for [banning DEI], but it doesn’t mean that it cannot be misinterpreted or used by policymakers to come up with additional bans,” she said.

      Shaun Harper, a professor of education, business and public policy and the founder of the University of Southern California’s Race and Equity Center, and an opinion contributor to Inside Higher Ed, said the order “will surely frighten” university administrators. It will likely lead to the pre-emptive hiding, renaming or discontinuation of their DEI initiatives, he added.

      “These leaders will be worried about losing their federal funding, which is exactly what DEI opponents want,” Harper said in an email to Inside Higher Ed. Heterosexual, Christian white men will likely feel supported and affirmed by Trump’s anti-DEI orders, as “too many of them have been tricked into misunderstanding DEI initiatives to be unfair, universal attacks,” he added.

      But in the meantime, Harper said that minority students will face increased harassment, discrimination and violence and will “be left stranded without justice.”

      Briscoe echoed Harper, adding that as the number of DEI-focused staff members dwindles, faculty members will be left to pick up the pieces.

      “We’re looking at a very uphill climb of faculty having to take on more student affairs, diversity professional roles,” she said. “Staff may not exist, but these student needs will have not changed.”

      Paulette Granberry Russell, president and CEO of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, said the order is “deeply concerning,” mischaracterizes DEI and takes aim at the core mission of higher education.

      “By attacking the important work of diversity, equity and inclusion offices at educational institutions, the order seeks to dismantle critical support systems for historically underrepresented students,” she said. “This would limit workforce preparation and stifle efforts to address systemic inequities. This order depicts diversity, equity and inclusion as divisive when, in reality, these initiatives aim to ensure opportunity for all.”

      Granberry Russell added that while the order’s immediate impact will depend on how agencies enforce it, “it is already causing uncertainty and fear.”

      “I hope that university leaders will recognize that executive orders should not dictate the values and priorities of higher education institutions,” she said. “Many colleges and universities have long-standing commitments to fostering inclusive environments, and I hope they will continue to uphold these principles despite political headwinds.”

      https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/politics-elections/2025/01/23/how-trumps-order-targeting-dei-could-affect-higher-ed
      #ESR #recherche #université #enseignement_supérieur

    • ’Unprecedented’: White House moves to control science funding worry researchers

      Darby Saxbe is worried her research funding might get canceled.

      People’s brains change when they become parents. She studies fathers’ brains, in particular, to understand which changes might underlie better parenting. And she wants to study a variety of brains.

      “If you want to understand the brain and biology changes of fathers, you don’t necessarily want to only look at white affluent fathers who are hanging out around a university, which is what a convenient sample might be composed of,” says the University of Southern California neuroendocrinologist. “That just makes for a better, more impactful research project.”

      So with a grant from the #National_Science_Foundation — a federal agency with a $9 billion annual #budget to fund research — she’s working to include more people from minority groups in her study.

      But her research proposal contained the words “diverse” and “underrepresented,” words that now appear on a list of hundreds of DEI-related terms that NSF is currently using to comb through tens of thousands of research grants. The process, described to NPR by two NSF officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the administration, aims to flag research that may not comply with President Trump’s executive orders targeting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

      This kind of scrutiny, along with other actions of the administration so far — freezing grants, clamping down on communications from federal agencies, taking down databases on women’s health, HIV and youth behaviors and purging some of DEI-related terms — represent to many scientists an extreme move to exert more presidential control over the kinds of science that get funded, and potentially who does it. If continued, it could represent a major departure from how science has been funded for decades.

      “This is totally unprecedented, nothing like this has ever happened,” says Neal Lane, who served as director of the NSF from 1993 to 1998. “NSF has a mandate to care about the workforce and ensure that all Americans have opportunities to participate in science,” he says. By targeting DEI, “they’re killing American science.”

      Since the 1990s, Congress has mandated that NSF weigh how its grants will boost the participation of women and minorities in science, in addition to the intellectual merits of the proposal. Now, the Trump administration is essentially saying they can’t follow that law.

      “President Trump was elected president, but in being elected president, the laws of the United States were not repealed and replaced with whatever he wants to do,” says Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., ranking member of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology. “These are bipartisan efforts to make sure that we don’t miss smart people in the science enterprise across the United States.”

      But some say that considering diversity in grantmaking leads to worse science. Last October, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said in a report that “NSF allocated over $2.05 billion to thousands of research projects that promoted neo-Marxist perspectives or DEI tenets” and suggested that it undermines “objective hard science.”

      “Intellectual diversity is welcome,” says Jonathan Butcher, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. “But judging the merits of an idea based on the description of the grant is far more important than figuring out where the people involved are literally coming from, in terms of racial background or country of origin.”
      Changing how science gets funded

      Presidents have the authority to set priorities in research funding, and have used this power. The Biden administration made a push for climate and cancer research, for instance, and George W. Bush’s administration prioritized energy research and the physical sciences. Congress allocates money to these priorities, and then the agencies work out the finer details.

      “Since World War II, science has been organized around this idea of peer review, that scientists understand what good science is and should make decisions about what we should be funding,” says Elizabeth Popp Berman, a sociologist who studies science at the University of Michigan.

      At NSF, that means program officers — often scientists who work at other institutions who come to NSF for temporary stints — manage a review process of proposals, with input from a range of scientists. The law dictates that NSF consider both the intellectual merit of a proposal and the “broader impacts” the research might enable, meaning how the research will benefit society.

      For decades, a key part of those potential benefits is how grants will boost the participation of women and underrepresented groups in science. Since 1997, Congress has required NSF to explicitly weigh such factors in its grantmaking. According to Suzanne Barbour, dean of the Duke University Graduate School and chair of NSF’s Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering, that ultimately benefits the taxpayer.

      “There is a large emerging literature that suggests that teams have the largest array of voices, from different different backgrounds, different kinds of lived experiences, voices that perhaps have addressed problems from slightly different angles,” she says. “They’re more creative, they’re more successful and … ultimately are the kinds of teams that make the biggest discoveries.”

      Trump’s executive orders are squarely opposed to that mission. The agency is currently reviewing grants for DEI-related terms using, in part, a list from Sen. Cruz’s October 2024 report titled “How the Biden-Harris NSF Politicized Science,” according to NPR’s NSF sources.

      It’s unclear what will happen to flagged grants. NSF has resumed funding existing awards after freezing them in late January and says they “can not take action to delay or stop payment for active awards based solely on actual or potential non-compliance with the Executive Orders.” The NSF sources tell NPR that approximately 20% of grants were initially flagged, and that number could be further winnowed.

      In reviewing grants for DEI-related content and temporarily pausing payments, the agency seems to be prioritizing the executive order over its congressional mandate, a practice that contradicts internal guidance saying law takes precedence over executive orders when there’s a conflict.

      The Trump administration’s efforts to exert more control over science at NSF go beyond DEI. On Tuesday, staff were informed of plans to cut the agency’s headcount of about 1,700 by 25% to 50% over the next two months, according to NPR’s NSF sources. Staff were also informed that President Trump’s first budget request could slash the agency’s budget from $9 billion to $3 billion, first reported by ArsTechnica and confirmed by NPR, though the actual reduction negotiated by Congress may be different.

      “This administration appears to be not just setting priorities, but enforcing ideological conformity in a way that if your grant is studying something that’s not aligned with a particular view of the world, it’s just not going to be funded,” says Berman. “I think taking that away has the potential to undermine the whole scientific enterprise.”
      Worries about America’s competitive edge

      If the Trump administration continues aggressively targeting diversity initiatives in science and seeking to substantially cut funding, American science will look fundamentally different, says Berman.

      Whole academic fields could wither without federal funds, she says, especially if DEI is broadly defined. “This cuts across economics, psychology, sociology. In all these fields, there are whole chunks of the discipline that may just not be possible to carry on anymore,” says Berman.

      The moves have also sparked a culture of fear among many scientists. “This level of scrutiny is going to make research less collaborative, less competitive and less innovative,” says Diana Macias, an ecologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who is funded by an NSF grant. Bringing more people into science is “not just broadening for the sake of broadening, but it’s broadening for the sake of developing rigorous questions that help us really stay competitive.”

      Only about a quarter of NSF grant proposals win funding, and that’s after a rigorous application process. The idea that an awarded grant could get rescinded, or proposals not get funded for political reasons, makes many scientists uncomfortable and could ultimately lead some to quit or move outside the U.S.

      “I train graduate students and undergrads who want to pursue science careers,” says Saxbe. “It’s hard for me to think about how to encourage them when it seems like the very work that we do is so vulnerable to partisan attack.”

      Federal funding supports these trainees, many of whom ultimately go into the private sector. The NSF funds nearly 80% of fundamental computing research at universities, according to a recent statement from the Computing Research Association.

      Reduced funding could ultimately lead to a smaller skilled workforce to work on important issues in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and more. That’s despite an insistence by close allies of the president, including Elon Musk, that the U.S. lacks enough homegrown talent to fill the tech industry’s demand for computer science professionals like software engineers and programmers.

      “The private sector does a lot of very important, primarily applied research and development. But they really don’t fund the same kind of research where you are really exploring the frontier,” says Lane, the former NSF director.

      “They can’t justify to their stockholders doing most of the things that the National Science Foundation does. If you take away federal support for science, science is dead in the United States. Nothing can replace that.”

      https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/02/07/nx-s1-5289912/unprecedented-white-house-moves-to-control-science-funding-worry-researchers

      #science #projets_de_recherche

    • Offensive obscurantiste aux USA : Trump crée un « #bureau_de_la_foi » et #censure le monde universitaire

      Ces propos délirants sortent de la bouche de Paula White, la conseillère spirituelle du président américain depuis 2011. Vous ne la connaissez peut-être pas encore, mais son rôle a été prépondérant pendant la campagne de Trump : elle assure notamment la communication avec les courants intégristes religieux, très puissants aux États-Unis. Un habitant des États-Unis sur cinq se définit en effet comme évangéliste : une base électorale obscurantiste et essentielle pour Donald Trump.
      L’intégrisme chrétien au pouvoir

      Paula White est à présent à la tête d’un nouveau “Bureau de la foi” de la Maison blanche, chargé de renforcer la place de la religion dans la politique du pays. Cette dernière est connue pour ses appels à la haine homophobe ou raciste, déclarant que “l’antifascisme et Black Lives Matter sont l’antéchrist” ou encore “ce n’est pas OK de se faire avorter. Ce n’est pas OK de se marier avec quelqu’un du même sexe”. Ses propos fanatisés semblent sortis d’un autre âge.

      Paula White avait, entre autres joyeusetés, organisé une prière publique en janvier 2020 pour que “toutes les grossesses sataniques aboutissent à une fausse couche”. Cette illuminée aurait toute sa place sous l’inquisition du Moyen-Age, quand un tribunal ecclésiastique jugeait les hérétiques.

      Les mouvements chrétiens fondamentalistes américains considèrent Trump comme un “envoyé de Dieu”, dont la mission sacrée est de s’opposer aux satanistes – les “wokes”, les homosexuels… Il affirmait lui-même d’ailleurs avoir été “sauvé par Dieu” lors de la tentative de meurtre à laquelle il a échappé l’été dernier, pour qu’il guide le pays et lui rende sa grandeur. Une mission divine, exaltée par ses déclarations : “ramenons Dieu dans nos vies” a-t-il réclamé.

      Pourtant, le 1er amendement des États-Unis proclame la séparation de l’État et de la religion. Ces personnes qui se présentent comme les seules vraies gardiens de la Constitution des USA violent donc allègrement son premier amendement. Ces mouvements intégristes religieux constituent la base de l’extrême droite américaine : on les retrouve massivement lors de l’attaque du Capitole en 2021, où nombre de manifestants arboraient des t-shirts avec des symboles chrétiens.

      Dans le même registre, le nouveau secrétaire de la Défense des USA Pete Hegseth, qui est désormais l’un des hommes les plus puissants du pays, a fait inscrire « Jésus » en hébreu sur son bras, un tatouage réalisé à Bethléem, et une grande croix de Jérusalem sur sa poitrine, un symbole représentant une grande croix encerclé de croix grecques plus petites. Un symbole utilisé pendant les Croisades et représentant le royaume de Jérusalem établi par les croisés.

      Hegseth ne cache pas sa fascination pour cette période de conflit sanglant opposant les armées chrétiennes aux musulmans. Cet homme est un vétéran de la Garde nationale du Minnesota, un animateur de la chaine d’extrême droite Fox News, et adhère à une mouvance religieuse sectaire nommée Reconstructionnisme réformé, qui prône l’application de la loi chrétienne biblique à la société, un monde exclusivement dirigé par les hommes et une préparation au retour de Jésus.

      Doit-on s’étonner de voir l’obscurantisme religieux revenir sur le devant de la scène aux États-Unis ? Non. Il avance main dans la main avec le capitalisme sans limite dont rêvent Trump et son inséparable duo Elon Musk. La religion représente d’ailleurs un marché plus que rentable aux États-Unis : 1200 milliards de dollars en 2016.

      L’extrême-droite est étroitement liée aux milieux chrétiens dans de nombreux pays. L’économiste Samir Amin explique que “le capitalisme des monopoles contemporain, en crise, développe une offensive idéologique massive et systématique assise sur le recours au discours de la spiritualité”. Il estime que la faillite de la classe bourgeoise, qui avait massivement adhéré si ce n’est au nazisme ou au fascisme, tout du moins à la collaboration, avait permis aux classes ouvrières au lendemain de la seconde guerre mondiale de construire un rapport de force conséquent.

      Après guerre, le patronat était discrédité, le Parti Communiste était le premier parti dans de nombreux pays, dont la France et l’Italie, et les syndicats étaient de puissants contre-pouvoirs. Pour contrer cela, Washington a poussé à la création de nouveaux partis chrétiens-démocrates afin de résister à la menace communiste.

      Ces partis constituent aujourd’hui la droite traditionnelle dans de nombreux pays européens, remettant le débat autour de l’importance du christianisme comme base de la civilisation occidentale. On en voit la marque de nos jours dans la droite de nombreux pays européens, et la France n’est pas en reste : Macron a largement piétiné la laïcité ces dernières années, comme la cérémonie d’ouverture de Notre-Dame en a été encore l’exemple.

      Aujourd’hui, les partis fascisants qui arrivent au pouvoir dans de nombreux pays se réclament également d’un retour à la foi chrétienne. Mais une foi revisitée, vidée de sa spiritualité, transformée en show, mise en spectacle sur le modèle des évangélistes. Georgia Meloni se revendique “femme, italienne, et chrétienne”, faisant de cette identité un véritable programme politique. Viktor Orban se pose en défenseur des “valeurs chrétiennes”. Marine Le Pen se dit “extrêmement croyante”. Aux États-Unis, l’arrivée au pouvoir de Trump a scellé l’accord parfait entre extrême-droite, intégrisme religieux et capital.
      Guerre contre la science

      L’obscurantisme est défini comme l’attitude attribuée à ceux qui sont hostiles au progrès, au libre exercice de la raison, à la diffusion de l’instruction et du savoir. Cette percée des fondamentalistes religieux s’accompagne ainsi d’une attaque historique contre la science. L’un ne va pas sans l’autre.

      Un décret sur “L’abrogation Woke” a été publié par l’administration Trump il y a quelques jours. Le but ? Détruire toutes les politiques, programmes ou projets de recherche sur des sujets jugés “woke” et donc dangereux pour la sûreté de l’État : le réchauffement climatique et l’environnement, le genre, la diversité, la race, l’inclusion…

      Pour faire simple, une IA va pouvoir identifier des mots clés, au nombre de 120 pour le moment, afin de geler les financements, supprimer des publications… Reporterre dévoile par exemple que toute référence au réchauffement climatique a été purement et simplement effacée de sites internet fédéraux. Certaines pages ont carrément disparu, ne laissant qu’un »404 Not Found ». Parmi les 120 mots interdits, on retrouve “femme”, “préjugé”, “justice environnementale”, “accessibilité”.

      Autre conséquence dramatique : le CDC, le centre de contrôle des maladies, est la plus grosse agence gouvernementale étasunienne pour la santé publique. Une liste de 20 termes a été distribuée en interne afin de retirer ou d’éditer certaines informations, pourtant tout simplement vitales, du site. On trouve notamment dans cette liste les termes « transgenre », « LGBT », « personne enceinte », « biologiquement femme », « biologiquement homme »… Certaines pages sur le virus du SIDA ont également disparu.

      Au fil des siècles, les forces obscurantistes utilisaient l’autodafé afin de détruire les écrits que le pouvoir en place jugeait dangereux pour son propre pouvoir. Le plus célèbre est l’autodafé du 10 mai 1933 où 25.000 ouvrages considérés comme subversifs – auteurs marxistes, anarchistes, juifs…– furent consumés par les nazis. D’ailleurs, en 2023, des élus Républicains du Missouri s’étaient déjà mis en scène en train de brûler des livres considérés comme « woke » au lance-flamme.

      Si l’effacement de données en ligne paraît bien moins spectaculaire, il n’en est pas moins une tentative d’effacement total des pensées divergentes. Et il précède toujours d’autres violences.

      https://contre-attaque.net/2025/02/14/offensive-obscurantiste-aux-usa-trump-cree-un-bureau-de-la-foi-et-ce
      #université #foi

    • US science is feeling the Trump chill

      President Donald Trump’s assault on federal spending, climate science and diversity initiatives is fueling an existential crisis for the nation’s vast web of research institutions — and the scientists who power them.

      The administration is seeking to thwart research it considers a threat to Trump’s agenda — including anything connected to climate science or diversity, equity and inclusion, writes Chelsea Harvey. It has frozen billions of dollars in federal funding, paused grant reviews and cut critical support for university research.

      The language in Trump’s directives is so broad that universities and research institutions worry that projects that make mere mention of gender, race or equity could be on the chopping block. At least one university told researchers that even terms such as biodiversity could be flagged by AI-based grant review systems looking for DEI proposals.

      Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has added to the alarm by launching an online database last week identifying more than 3,400 grants funded by the National Science Foundation that he said promote “advanced neo-Marxist class warfare propaganda.”

      Federal courts have begun pushing back on some of Trump’s moves — by ordering an end to a sweeping funding freeze, for example — but the administration has been slow to comply and remained steadfast in its attempts to gut science agencies. The atmosphere of fear and confusion is leading some university supervisors to quietly advise faculty to censor their research proposals and other public-facing documents to comply with Trump’s directives.

      A professor at one U.S. university, who was granted anonymity, told Chelsea they were recently advised to remove terms including “climate change” and “greenhouse gas emissions” from research papers and other public documents.

      While past administrations have steered the focus of U.S. research in new directions — from nanotechnology to cancer research — those priorities were typically additive; they didn’t restrict research in other areas.

      Trump’s approach “will have long-term harmful consequences,” said Matt Owens, president of the Council on Government Relations, an association of academic research institutions.

      “One of our strengths as a nation is the federal government has invested across the board in curiosity-driven research, because over time this pays dividends,” he told Chelsea. “So an erosion of broad federal support for all areas of research will damage our ability to remain the global science and innovation leader.”

      Senior prosecutor quits over imperiled climate funds
      A top federal prosecutor in Washington resigned Tuesday rather than follow a Justice Department order to freeze a private bank account holding $20 billion of already allocated climate change funds, write Kyle Cheney, Josh Gerstein, Alex Guillén and Jean Chemnick.

      The resignation of Denise Cheung, the head of the criminal division in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, is one of the most dramatic outcomes yet from Trump’s effort to claw back congressionally authorized federal funding.

      Chung said interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin demanded her resignation after she refused to order the bank to freeze the grants — a step she said is permitted only if prosecutors have “probable cause” to suspect a crime was committed. The Environmental Protection Agency placed the money at Citibank last year to fund a “green bank” created by Congress.

      Trump attacks 50 years of green rules

      The Trump administration is working to unwind almost five decades of rules crafted and imposed under the #National_Environmental_Policy_Act, a foundational statute widely known as the “magna carta” of environmental laws, writes Hannah Northey.

      The plan is to rescind all regulations that the Council on Environmental Quality has issued to implement the bedrock law since 1977, when then-President Jimmy Carter signed an order directing the agency to issue rules under NEPA.

      Trump’s oil ambitions face harsh realities

      Trump wants to “unleash” American energy. The problem: U.S. oil production growth is starting to dwindle, writes Mike Soraghan.

      The nation’s once-hot shale plays are maturing. It’s getting more expensive to get significant amounts of new oil out of the ground. Some observers expect production to level off in the coming years and then start to decline by the early 2030s. Soon enough, oil companies may need to “drill, baby, drill” just to keep up current production levels rather than boosting them.

      https://www.politico.com/newsletters/power-switch/2025/02/18/us-science-is-feeling-the-trump-chill-00204701

      #biodiversité #climat #changement_climatique #projets_de_recherche

    • The foundations of America’s prosperity are being dismantled

      Federal scientists warn that Americans could feel the effects of the new administration’s devastating cuts for decades to come.

      Ever since World War II, the US has been the global leader in science and technology—and benefited immensely from it. Research fuels American innovation and the economy in turn. Scientists around the world want to study in the US and collaborate with American scientists to produce more of that research. These international collaborations play a critical role in American soft power and diplomacy. The products Americans can buy, the drugs they have access to, the diseases they’re at risk of catching—are all directly related to the strength of American research and its connections to the world’s scientists.

      That scientific leadership is now being dismantled, according to more than 10 federal workers who spoke to MIT Technology Review, as the Trump administration—spearheaded by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—slashes personnel, programs, and agencies. Meanwhile, the president himself has gone after relationships with US allies.

      These workers come from several agencies, including the Departments of State, Defense, and Commerce, the US Agency for International Development, and the National Science Foundation. All of them occupy scientific and technical roles, many of which the average American has never heard of but which are nevertheless critical, coordinating research, distributing funding, supporting policymaking, or advising diplomacy.

      They warn that dismantling the behind-the-scenes scientific research programs that backstop American life could lead to long-lasting, perhaps irreparable damage to everything from the quality of health care to the public’s access to next-generation consumer technologies. The US took nearly a century to craft its rich scientific ecosystem; if the unraveling that has taken place over the past month continues, Americans will feel the effects for decades to come.

      Most of the federal workers spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk or for fear of being targeted. Many are completely stunned and terrified by the scope and totality of the actions. While every administration brings its changes, keeping the US a science and technology leader has never been a partisan issue. No one predicted the wholesale assault on these foundations of American prosperity.

      “If you believe that innovation is important to economic development, then throwing a wrench in one of the most sophisticated and productive innovation machines in world history is not a good idea,” says Deborah Seligsohn, an assistant professor of political science at Villanova University who worked for two decades in the State Department on science issues. “They’re setting us up for economic decline.”
      The biggest funder of innovation

      The US currently has the most top-quality research institutes in the world. This includes world-class universities like MIT (which publishes MIT Technology Review) and the University of California, Berkeley; national labs like Oak Ridge and Los Alamos; and federal research facilities run by agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of Defense. Much of this network was developed by the federal government after World War II to bolster the US position as a global superpower.

      Before the Trump administration’s wide-ranging actions, which now threaten to slash federal research funding, the government remained by far the largest supporter of scientific progress. Outside of its own labs and facilities, it funded more than 50% of research and development across higher education, according to data from the National Science Foundation. In 2023, that came to nearly $60 billion out of the $109 billion that universities spent on basic science and engineering.

      The return on these investments is difficult to measure. It can often take years or decades for this kind of basic science research to have tangible effects on the lives of Americans and people globally, and on the US’s place in the world. But history is littered with examples of the transformative effect that this funding produces over time. The internet and GPS were first developed through research backed by the Department of Defense, as was the quantum dot technology behind high-resolution QLED television screens. Well before they were useful or commercially relevant, the development of neural networks that underpin nearly all modern AI systems was substantially supported by the National Science Foundation. The decades-long drug discovery process that led to Ozempic was incubated by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the National Institutes of Health. Microchips. Self-driving cars. MRIs. The flu shot. The list goes on and on.

      In her 2013 book The Entrepreneurial State, Mariana Mazzucato, a leading economist studying innovation at University College London, found that every major technological transformation in the US, from electric cars to Google to the iPhone, can trace its roots back to basic science research once funded by the federal government. If the past offers any lesson, that means every major transformation in the future could be shortchanged with the destruction of that support.

      The Trump administration’s distaste for regulation will arguably be a boon in the short term for some parts of the tech industry, including crypto and AI. But the federal workers said the president’s and Musk’s undermining of basic science research will hurt American innovation in the long run. “Rather than investing in the future, you’re burning through scientific capital,” an employee at the State Department said. “You can build off the things you already know, but you’re not learning anything new. Twenty years later, you fall behind because you stopped making new discoveries.”

      A global currency

      The government doesn’t just give money, either. It supports American science in numerous other ways, and the US reaps the returns. The Department of State helps attract the best students from around the world to American universities. Amid stagnating growth in the number of homegrown STEM PhD graduates, recruiting foreign students remains one of the strongest pathways for the US to expand its pool of technical talent, especially in strategic areas like batteries and semiconductors. Many of those students stay for years, if not the rest of their lives; even if they leave the country, they’ve already spent some of their most productive years in the US and will retain a wealth of professional connections with whom they’ll collaborate, thereby continuing to contribute to US science.

      The State Department also establishes agreements between the US and other countries and helps broker partnerships between American and international universities. That helps scientists collaborate across borders on everything from global issues like climate change to research that requires equipment on opposite sides of the world, such as the measurement of gravitational waves.

      The international development work of USAID in global health, poverty reduction, and conflict alleviation—now virtually shut down in its entirety—was designed to build up goodwill toward the US globally; it improved regional stability for decades. In addition to its inherent benefits, this allowed American scientists to safely access diverse geographies and populations, as well as plant and animal species not found in the US. Such international interchange played just as critical a role as government funding in many crucial inventions.

      Several federal agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, also help collect and aggregate critical data on disease, health trends, air quality, weather, and more from disparate sources that feed into the work of scientists across the country.

      The National Institutes of Health, for example, has since 2015 been running the Precision Medicine Initiative, the only effort of its kind to collect extensive and granular health data from over 1 million Americans who volunteer their medical records, genetic history, and even Fitbit data to help researchers understand health disparities and develop personalized and more effective treatments for disorders from heart and lung disease to cancer. The data set, which is too expensive for any one university to assemble and maintain, has already been used in hundreds of papers that will lay the foundation for the next generation of life-saving pharmaceuticals.

      Beyond fueling innovation, a well-supported science and technology ecosystem bolsters US national security and global influence. When people want to study at American universities, attend international conferences hosted on American soil, or move to the US to work or to found their own companies, the US stays the center of global innovation activity. This ensures that the country continues to get access to the best people and ideas, and gives it an outsize role in setting global scientific practices and priorities. US research norms, including academic freedom and a robust peer review system, become global research norms that lift the overall quality of science. International agencies like the World Health Organization take significant cues from American guidance.

      US scientific leadership has long been one of the country’s purest tools of soft power and diplomacy as well. Countries keen to learn from the American innovation ecosystem and to have access to American researchers and universities have been more prone to partner with the US and align with its strategic priorities.

      Just one example: Science diplomacy has long played an important role in maintaining the US’s strong relationship with the Netherlands, which is home to ASML, the only company in the world that can produce the extreme ultraviolet lithography machines needed to produce the most advanced semiconductors. These are critical for both AI development and national security.

      International science cooperation has also served as a stabilizing force in otherwise difficult relationships. During the Cold War, the US and USSR continued to collaborate on the International Space Station; during the recent heightened economic competition between the US and China, the countries have remained each other’s top scientific partners. “Actively working together to solve problems that we both care about helps maintain the connections and the context but also helps build respect,” Seligsohn says.

      The federal government itself is a significant beneficiary of the country’s convening power for technical expertise. Among other things, experts both inside and outside the government support its sound policymaking in science and technology. During the US Senate AI Insight Forums, co-organized by Senator Chuck Schumer through the fall of 2023, for example, the Senate heard from more than 150 experts, many of whom were born abroad and studying at American universities, working at or advising American companies, or living permanently in the US as naturalized American citizens.

      Federal scientists and technical experts at government agencies also work on wide-ranging goals critical to the US, including building resilience in the face of an increasingly erratic climate; researching strategic technologies such as next-generation battery technology to reduce the country’s reliance on minerals not found in the US; and monitoring global infectious diseases to prevent the next pandemic.

      “Every issue that the US faces, there are people that are trying to do research on it and there are partnerships that have to happen,” the State Department employee said.

      A system in jeopardy

      Now the breadth and velocity of the Trump administration’s actions has led to an unprecedented assault on every pillar upholding American scientific leadership.

      For starters, the purging of tens of thousands—and perhaps soon hundreds of thousands—of federal workers is removing scientists and technologists from the government and paralyzing the ability of critical agencies to function. Across multiple agencies, science and technology fellowship programs, designed to bring in talented early-career staff with advanced STEM degrees, have shuttered. Many other federal scientists were among the thousands who were terminated as probationary employees, a status they held because of the way scientific roles are often contractually structured.

      Some agencies that were supporting or conducting their own research, including the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, are no longer functionally operational. USAID has effectively shuttered, eliminating a bastion of US expertise, influence, and credibility overnight.

      “Diplomacy is built on relationships. If we’ve closed all these clinics and gotten rid of technical experts in our knowledge base inside the government, why would any foreign government have respect for the US in our ability to hold our word and in our ability to actually be knowledgeable?” a terminated USAID worker said. “I really hope America can save itself.”

      Now the Trump administration has sought to reverse some terminations after discovering that many were key to national security, including nuclear safety employees responsible for designing, building, and maintaining the country’s nuclear weapons arsenal. But many federal workers I spoke to can no longer imagine staying in the public sector. Some are considering going into industry. Others are wondering whether it will be better to move abroad.

      “It’s just such a waste of American talent,” said Fiona Coleman, a terminated federal scientist, her voice cracking with emotion as she described the long years of schooling and training she and her colleagues went through to serve the government.

      Many fear the US has also singlehandedly kneecapped its own ability to attract talent from abroad. Over the last 10 years, even as American universities have continued to lead the world, many universities in other countries have rapidly leveled up. That includes those in Canada, where liberal immigration policies and lower tuition fees have driven a 200% increase in international student enrollment over the last decade, according to Anna Esaki-Smith, cofounder of a higher-education research consultancy called Education Rethink and author of Make College Your Superpower.

      Germany has also seen an influx, thanks to a growing number of English-taught programs and strong connections between universities and German industry. Chinese students, who once represented the largest share of foreign students in the US, are increasingly staying at home or opting to study in places like Hong Kong, Singapore, and the UK.

      During the first Trump administration, many international students were already more reluctant to come to the US because of the president’s hostile rhetoric. With the return and rapid escalation of that rhetoric, Esaki-Smith is hearing from some universities that international students are declining their admissions offers.

      Add to that the other recent developments—the potential dramatic cuts in federal research funding, the deletion of scores of rich public data sets on health and the environment, the clampdown on academic freedom for research that appears related to diversity, equity, and inclusion and the fear that these restrictions could ultimately encompass other politically charged topics like climate change or vaccines—and many more international science and engineering students could decide to head elsewhere.

      “I’ve been hearing this increasingly from several postdocs and early-career professors, fearing the cuts in NIH or NSF grants, that they’re starting to look for funding or job opportunities in other countries,” Coleman told me. “And then we’re going to be training up the US’s competitors.”

      The attacks could similarly weaken the productivity of those who stay at American universities. While many of the Trump administration’s actions are now being halted and scrutinized by US judges, the chaos has weakened a critical prerequisite for tackling the toughest research problems: a long-term stable environment. With reports that the NSF is combing through research grants for words like “women,” “diverse,” and “institutional” to determine whether they violate President Trump’s executive order on DEIA programs, a chilling effect is also setting in among federally funded academics uncertain whether they’ll get caught in the dragnet.

      To scientists abroad, the situation in the US government has marked American institutions and researchers as potentially unreliable partners, several federal workers told me. If international researchers think collaborations with the US can end at any moment when funds are abruptly pulled or certain topics or keywords are suddenly blacklisted, many of them could steer clear and look to other countries. “I’m really concerned about the instability we’re showing,” another employee at the State Department said. “What’s the point in even engaging? Because science is a long-term initiative and process that outlasts administrations and political cycles.”

      Meanwhile, international scientists have far more options these days for high-caliber colleagues to collaborate with outside America. In recent years, for example, China has made a remarkable ascent to become a global peer in scientific discoveries. By some metrics, it has even surpassed the US; it started accounting for more of the top 1% of most-cited papers globally, often called the Nobel Prize tier, back in 2019 and has continued to improve the quality of the rest of its research.

      Where Chinese universities can also entice international collaborators with substantial resources, the US is more limited in its ability to offer tangible funding, the State employee said. Until now, the US has maintained its advantage in part through the prestige of its institutions and its more open cultural norms, including stronger academic freedom. But several federal scientists warn that this advantage is dissipating.

      “America is made up of so many different people contributing to it. There’s such a powerful global community that makes this country what it is, especially in science and technology and academia and research. We’re going to lose that; there’s not a chance in the world that we’re not going to lose that through stuff like this,” says Brigid Cakouros, a federal scientist who was also terminated from USAID. “I have no doubt that the international science community will ultimately be okay. It’ll just be a shame for the US to isolate themselves from it.”

      https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/21/1112274/the-foundations-of-americas-prosperity-are-being-dismantled

    • Sauver les données scientifiques de la purge numérique de l’administration Trump

      Peu après l’assermentation de Donald Trump, des milliers de pages web du gouvernement fédéral américain ont disparu. Heureusement, des chercheurs canadiens et américains avaient déjà archivé numériquement une bonne partie de ces sites.

      La Dre Angela Rasmussen n’en revient pas. Des milliers de pages des Centres pour le contrôle et la prévention des maladies (CDC) comportant des données inestimables sur la santé ont été retirées du web, à la demande de l’administration Trump.

      Cette virologue de l’Université de la Saskatchewan savait que la santé et la science seraient dans la mire de la nouvelle administration Trump.

      "Je n’aurais jamais pensé qu’on serait aussi rapidement dans une situation aussi orwellienne." (Une citation de Dre Angela Rasmussen, virologue et chercheuse à l’Université de la Saskatchewan)

      Lorsque cette chercheuse, d’origine américaine, a entendu d’un ami journaliste que les CDC retireraient sous peu des données scientifiques de son site, elle a contacté en urgence un ami bio-informaticien aux États-Unis.

      "Je lui ai demandé s’il pouvait cloner tout le site. Il pensait que je faisais des blagues. Mais j’étais très sérieuse."

      Avec moins d’une journée de préavis, les deux ont passé de longues heures à archiver le site.

      Ils sont ensuite entrés en contact avec Charles Gaba, un analyste de données sur la santé publique du Michigan, qui lui aussi avait commencé la même tâche, quelques jours plus tôt.

      Ils ont combiné leurs efforts pour archiver un maximum de pages et de bases de données, non seulement des CDC, mais aussi de l’Agence américaine des médicaments (FDA) et une partie du site de l’USAID, le programme qui a été sabré par Elon Musk et son « département de l’Efficience gouvernementale » (DOGE).

      "Je suis fâché. J’aurais dû commencer le travail plus tôt. J’avais réalisé dès le soir de l’élection qu’il y avait un risque qu’on efface des sites gouvernementaux. Dans l’urgence, on a peut-être manqué certaines choses", dit Charles Gaba.

      Mardi, un juge fédéral américain a délivré une ordonnance temporaire obligeant les CDC et la FDA de rétablir toutes les informations publiques sur leurs sites web.

      Selon l’administration Trump, le retrait de ces pages n’est pas nécessairement définitif, et elle affirme que les informations peuvent être consultées par l’entremise de la machine Wayback de l’Internet Archive.

      D’ailleurs, s’il est possible de le faire, c’est grâce au travail exhaustif d’Internet Archive, un organisme à but non lucratif qui archive des sites web et qui rend accessibles au public des copies de ces sites.

      Depuis 2004, dans le cadre du projet de librairie démocratique, toutes les pages web des gouvernements fédéraux canadien et américain sont systématiquement archivées au début et à la fin de chaque mandat.

      Le matériel provenant des États-Unis est sauvegardé sur des serveurs en Colombie-Britannique, au Canada, et celui du Canada, sur des serveurs aux États-Unis.

      L’archivage se fait grâce à une étroite collaboration entre Canadiens et Américains, explique Brewster Kahle, le fondateur d’Internet Archive.

      Par exemple, il y a aussi des professeurs de l’Université de Guelph et de l’Université de Toronto qui travaillent avec l’Environmental Data Governance Initiative (EDGI) pour préserver les données sur les changements climatiques de l’Agence de protection de l’environnement des États-Unis, rapporte CBC News (Nouvelle fenêtre).

      Pour Brewster Kahle, il est primordial de sauvegarder le maximum de documents, même s’ils semblent peu importants. "On ne sait jamais quand et pourquoi on en aura besoin."

      Les informations contenues sur les sites web gouvernementaux relèvent du domaine public et doivent être accessibles à tous, rappelle Brewster Kahle.

      "Cette information appartient aux Américains. Personne n’a le droit de la censurer ou de la retenir." (Une citation de Brewster Kahle, fondateur d’Internet Archive)

      Une crise en santé et en science

      La disparition des données inquiète particulièrement la Dre Rasmussen, qui est virologue.

      "Je n’exagère pas quand je dis que ça sera destructeur pour la santé publique."

      Par exemple, les données sur la propagation de la grippe aviaire aux États-Unis sont particulièrement importantes en ce moment pour le monde entier. "S’il y a une pandémie de H5N1, on pourrait prévenir des millions de morts."

      Et pourtant, le rapport hebdomadaire sur la mortalité n’a pas été publié comme prévu le 15 janvier. "C’est la première fois en 80 ans que ça arrive", dit Charles Gaba.

      De plus, avec la nomination de Robert F. Kennedy Jr. à la tête de la santé, qui tient depuis des années des propos antivaccins, la Dre Rasmussen craint que les informations qui seront accessibles soient davantage politiques que scientifiques. Déjà, les recommandations du comité sur l’immunisation ont disparu du site web des CDC.

      Charles Gaba craint que certaines bases de données ne soient plus mises à jour. Et, même si des données sont publiées, il se demande si elles seront valides. "Ils ont semé un doute. Je n’ai plus confiance."
      "Des autodafés numériques"

      Le retrait de milliers de pages web des sites gouvernementaux survient après une directive de l’administration Trump d’éliminer toute mention de diversité, d’inclusion ou d’équité. Toute page avec la mention de mots provenant d’une liste préétablie doit être retirée.

      "Ils effacent tout ce qui inclut ces mots, même sans contexte et sans discrimination. Ça touche tout le monde qui n’est pas un homme blanc hétérosexuel et chrétien." (Une citation de Charles Gaba, analyste de données sur la santé publique du Michigan)

      Ainsi, des pages sur la prévention des maladies chroniques, des lignes directrices pour le traitement de maladies sexuellement transmissibles, sur les signes avant-coureurs de la maladie d’Alzheimer, sur une formation pour prévenir les surdoses et sur des recommandations sur les vaccins destinés aux femmes enceintes, ont été supprimées.

      Le retrait comprend aussi des pages sur la violence faite aux femmes et aux personnes LGBTQ+, et sur la dépression post-partum.

      La Dre Ramussen est estomaquée. "On a retiré les données sur le VIH et la variole simienne parce que ça touche principalement des personnes marginalisées, des femmes, des personnes de la communauté LGBTQ+ et les personnes racisées. Ça place ces personnes dans une situation encore plus vulnérable."

      Pour elle, la diversité, l’équité, l’inclusion sont des valeurs au cœur de la santé publique.

      Charles Gaba ne mâche pas ses mots : en procédant de la sorte, l’administration Trump procède à des autodafés comme l’avait fait le régime nazi dans les années 1930. Cette fois, "ce sont des autodafés numériques".

      "Ils effacent ces informations parce qu’ils veulent prendre des décisions en fonction de leurs politiques, plutôt qu’en fonction des données probantes", déplore-t-il.

      Pour Brewster Kahle, il s’agit d’un moment de prise de conscience. "Ce sont dans des moments comme ça que les bibliothèques souffrent. Des livres sont bannis, les subventions pour les bibliothèques et archives sont réduites, on criminalise le travail des bibliothécaires."

      Cette tendance à vouloir effacer le passé numérique se produit partout dans le monde, affirme-t-il. Il dit aussi craindre la perte de plus en plus d’archives lors de catastrophes naturelles, dont le risque est multiplié par les changements climatiques.

      Pour la Dre Rasmussen, archiver toute cette information est sa façon de s’opposer aux décisions de l’administration Trump. "C’est ma façon de résister au fascisme."

      https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/2140521/donald-trump-donnees-scientifiques-web

    • Donald Trump’s ‘war on woke’ is fast becoming a war on science. That’s incredibly dangerous

      Contrary to claims by the US president, we have found that diversity initiatives result in better scientists and greater progress.

      Donald Trump’s attacks on diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) initiatives since his January inauguration have been intense, indiscriminate and escalating. A tragic plane crash was baselessly blamed on DEI. All DEI programmes within public bodies have been ended and private contractors face cancellation if they also don’t comply. Webpages that defend religious diversity in the context of Holocaust remembrance have been taken down.

      Science and academia have been particularly targeted. Universities are threatened with losing federal funding if they support DEI. Government reports and government-funded research are being held back if they include prohibited terms such as “gender”, “pregnant person”, “women”, “elderly”, or “disabled”. Grants funded by the National Institutes of Health are being cancelled if they address diversity, equality or inclusion in any form.

      What is more, this total “war on woke” (more accurately: “fight against fairness”) is happening in the UK as well as the US. Already, British companies and British watchdogs are abandoning their diversity drives. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has described diversity initiatives as a “poison”.

      These attacks are rooted in wilful distortions of what DEI is all about. There are two big lies that need to be nailed. The first is that diversity and inclusion initiatives compromise the quality of employees by selecting incompetent candidates because of their minority group membership. The second is that DEI is a distraction that holds back success. Let’s consider each in turn, using the field of science itself as an example.

      The notion that DEI involves putting group membership before ability and leads to the appointment of incompetent candidates is a misrepresentation of what DEI initiatives are all about. Scientific ability is not restricted to one sex, ethnicity or religion, or to the able-bodied. Embracing diversity has the simple advantage of widening the pool of talent from which scientists are drawn. DEI initiatives are about ensuring that less competent members of the most privileged groups are not advantaged over more competent members of less privileged groups.

      Bias starts at school, particularly in the physical sciences, where both girls and boys consider these “boy subjects” by the time they are teenagers. Even once you start your academic career, bias affects grant funding decisions and publication rates. Women and minorities face additional barriers to career progression: for instance, both female and ethnic minority scientists receive less credit for their work than male or white scientists respectively. Bias affects whether you feel at home in the scientific workplace. Institutions that tackle the many workplace barriers for women and ethnic minorities (child-unfriendly working hours, tolerance of harassment, culturally insensitive socialisation practices) have higher retention rates among women and minority researchers. Diverse workplaces attract more diverse staff to apply for jobs – creating a positive feedback loop. And we know that scientific research teams and institutions that prioritise diversity perform better.

      As for the second myth that DEI is a barrier to success, diversity actually improves the quality of science. Evidence shows that scientific papers produced by ethnically diverse teams are more impactful than those written by homogeneous teams. Similarly, studies show that diverse teams consider more alternatives and make better decisions.

      Scientists from diverse backgrounds raise new research questions and priorities – especially questions that affect minoritised communities. The lack of women in the higher echelons of biomedical science has led to a comparative lack of research into menstrual and reproductive health problems. The lack of black scientists has led to a neglect of conditions that affect black people such as sickle cell disease. And when it comes to the intersection of “race” and sex, things are even worse. It is only in the last few years that it even became known that black and Asian women are much more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than white women.

      Medical sciences and social sciences have long suffered from a lack of diversity in research design, leading to worse medicine because findings do not apply to all populations. For example, clinical trials have tended to test treatments mainly on men and on white people, leading to poorer health outcomes for women or minorities. A diverse group of researchers makes members of minorities more willing to volunteer for trials and helps ensure diverse participant recruitment. This improves scientific validity. It also increases the trust of minorities in the outputs of research (say, the development of new vaccines) and hence the societal impact of the research (say, their willingness to get vaccinated).

      All in all, ensuring diversity and equality and inclusion among scientists makes for better scientists and better science. While our examples are drawn from science, they are true much more broadly. DEI initiatives are about ensuring that we always select the best irrespective of group membership, not about selecting by group membership irrespective of who is best. Science is fundamentally about discovering truth through rigorous, unbiased, transparent inquiry and narrow pools of talent or perspectives make that much harder. Therefore, DEI initiatives are necessary to achieving the core mission of science, not a distraction from it.

      https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/26/donald-trump-war-on-woke-science-diversity

  • Funding uncertainty threatens U.S. economic data, federal statistics : NPR
    https://www.npr.org/2025/01/24/nx-s1-5250264/unemployment-rate-cpi-inflation-census-bureau-labor-statistics

    les coups de sabre dans les budgets et les effectifs menacent les sources statistiques fédérales
    (hors recensement cf. https://seenthis.net/messages/1096342 )
    et notamment sur les enquêtes du BLS pour avoir une idée de l’étendue de leur production voir la notice WP[en]
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Labor_Statistics

    The stability of the federal government’s system for producing statistics, which the U.S. relies on to understand its population and economy, is under threat because of budget concerns, officials and data users warn.

    And that’s before any follow-through on the new Trump administration and Republican lawmakers’ pledges to slash government spending, which could further affect data production.

    In recent months, budget shortfalls and the restrictions of short-term funding have led to the end of some datasets by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, known for its tracking of the gross domestic product, and to proposals by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to reduce the number of participants surveyed to produce the monthly jobs report. A “lack of multiyear funding” has also hurt efforts to modernize the software and other technology the BLS needs to put out its data properly, concluded a report by an expert panel tasked with examining multiple botched data releases last year.

    Long-term funding questions are also dogging the Census Bureau, which carries out many of the federal government’s surveys and is preparing for the 2030 head count that’s set to be used to redistribute political representation and trillions in public funding across the country. Some census watchers are concerned budget issues may force the bureau to cancel some of its field tests for the upcoming tally, as it did with 2020 census tests for improving the counts in Spanish-speaking communities, rural areas and on Indigenous reservations.

    While the statistical agencies have not been named specifically, some advocates are worried that calls to reduce the federal government’s workforce by President Trump and the new Republican-controlled Congress could put the integrity of the country’s data at greater risk.

    “We’re getting close to the bone now,” says Erica Groshen, a former commissioner of BLS who was appointed by former President Barack Obama. “So even if [the funding situation is] exactly the same, the impact is going to be worse” because of ongoing challenges with producing reliable data.

    Why today’s government data is like “crumbling infrastructure”
    Like roads and bridges, the federal statistical system is indispensable but usually overlooked, its supporters say. Groshen compares its current state to “crumbling infrastructure” that is still doing its job but with “visible cracks.”

    “You’re still filling the potholes on the top, but you’re not repaving,” explains Groshen, now a senior economic adviser at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations. “You’re not shoring up the undergirding of the bridge. You’re not developing the new bridge that has to replace the old bridge when you discovered that its life is about to end.”

    “The economy is not becoming any simpler to measure, right? Things are getting more complex. You know, there’s lots of new things we have to learn how to measure,” said Vipin Arora, the BEA director, at a meeting last month of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics.

    The statistical agencies are also faced with a crisis facing the broader survey and polling industry — a shrinking rate of people willing to answer questions.

    To counter plummeting survey response rates, statistical agencies have been experimenting with using more existing government datasets and other administrative records to help take stock of the country’s population and economy. But it’s a process that takes time and money for the agencies to research and make sure the quality of the government’s statistics is not compromised, says Nancy Potok, a former chief statistician within the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, who previously served as a deputy director at the Census Bureau.

    “Without the money, they’re kind of stuck in the old model, which is getting more and more expensive and less viable. And that’s going to affect the quality of the statistics eventually,” Potok warns.

    Potok says she’s currently working on an update to an American Statistical Association report released last year to sound the alarm on the risks facing the country’s data. That report concluded that the main threats to the statistical agencies include declining public participation in surveys, not enough laws to help protect the data’s integrity from political interference and neglect from congressional appropriators.

    “What we found was very worrisome because the agencies on the whole had lost about 14% of their purchasing power over the last 15 years. And the rest of what’s called discretionary non-defense spending increased 16% at the same time,” Potok says. “And yet the mandates and the workload and the challenges for the federal statistical agencies increased significantly over that same period.”

    Why advocates see a “wise investment” in funding government data
    With the next government shutdown deadline in March, Potok says she sees an opportunity to make a pitch for more support to the statistical system.

    “If you’re really looking to cut the federal budget, you don’t want to cut the things that are working. You want to cut the stuff that’s not working,” Potok says. “And it’s not a huge investment relative to the size of the federal government to put some money into these agencies to be able to provide that information. It’s actually a wise investment.”

    William Beach, a former commissioner of labor statistics who was appointed during the first Trump administration, agrees.

    “The statistical system doesn’t need just more money. It needs modernization, the surveys part particularly. And if we did that, over the years, we would probably spend less money on the statistical system and get a better product,” says Beach, who is now a senior economics fellow at the Economic Policy Innovation Center, a conservative think tank.

    How the 2030 census and the monthly jobs report could be affected
    For now, many statistical agency heads are still faced with making hard choices.

    Some census watchers are wary of how the temporary hiring freeze Trump has ordered may affect the next phase of work for a major 2030 census field test, involving thousands of temporary workers, coming up next year.

    Terri Ann Lowenthal, a census consultant who served as the staff director of the former House oversight subcommittee for the head count, says the hiring freeze “could significantly disrupt” preparations for the test, which is designed in part to help the bureau improve its tallies of people of color, young children, renters and other historically undercounted populations.

    “A census test, like the census itself, must be carried out according to a strict timetable,” Lowenthal says in a statement. “Failure to test new methods and operations that could contain costs and improve accuracy could put a successful census — one that counts all communities equally well — at risk.”

    The bureau’s public information office declined NPR’s interview request and did not respond to a written question about the hiring freeze’s impact.

    Economic data users like Algernon Austin, director for race and economic justice at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a left-leaning think tank, are worried about what changes may be coming to the sample size for the Current Population Survey, which produces the monthly employment data.

    “If we really want to address issues of racial equity, we really need larger samples, not smaller samples,” Austin says, noting that having fewer people participating in the survey makes it difficult, if not impossible, to release detailed statistics broken down by race and geography.

    If the government were to scale back the already-limited demographic breakdowns of employment figures, Austin says researchers like him would have to scramble.

    “We may, with a considerable effort, be able to do just a tiny piece of the work that needs to be done, but have to just throw up our hands and say, ’We don’t know what’s going on in that state or that metropolitan area because we don’t have reliable data,’” Austin adds.

  • Robert Santos decides to resign as US Census Bureau director midway through a 5-year term | AP News
    https://apnews.com/article/census-bureau-robert-santos-redistricting-bac775b7251f4bfabb9026f0930a553d

    Robert Santos, who emphasized inclusivity and outreach to overlooked communities, has decided to resign as director of the U.S. Census Bureau, midway through his five-year term and in the midst of planning for the 2030 census, which will determine political power and federal funding nationwide for another decade.

    Santos, who was appointed by former Democratic President Joe Biden, said in a letter Thursday evening that he made the decision “after deep reflection.” Santos was sworn in as the bureau’s 26th director, and its first Hispanic leader, in 2022.

    His planned departure clears the way for Republican President Donald Trump to reshape the agency’s leadership as his allies in Congress and GOP state attorneys general renew efforts to exclude people in the U.S. illegally from census numbers used to divvy up congressional seats and Electoral College votes among states.

    A Republican redistricting expert wrote that using citizen voting-age population instead of the total population for the purpose of redrawing congressional and legislative districts could be advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic white people. The census numbers also guide the distribution of $2.8 trillion in federal dollars to the states for roads, health care and other programs.

    Civil rights groups on Friday urged Trump to appoint an impartial leader to head the nation’s largest statistical agency.

    “The integrity of the U.S. Census Bureau must remain above partisan influence, ensuring that data collection and reporting continue to serve the American people with accuracy, transparency, and fairness,” The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights said in a statement.

    Besides planning for the 2030 census, Santos and other bureau leaders were overseeing changes to the questionnaires for the next once-a-decade head count and the annual American Community Survey when it comes to sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as race and ethnicity.

    Queries about sexual orientation and gender identity were planned for the 2027 annual survey of American life for the first time. The bureau also was implementing a directive from the Biden administration to combine questions about race and ethnicity and add a new Middle Eastern and North African category.

    A law establishing a five-year term for Census Bureau directors was passed in 2012 to provide continuity for the amount of planning required for each census. But the three directors who have led the agency since then have all resigned before their terms expired, either right before or after changes in administrations.

    “The goal was to insulate the planning of the decennial census from presidential politics, and that is clearly not working,” said historian Margo Anderson. “The clock is ticking here.”

    During his term, Santos emphasized restoring trust to the Census Bureau following Trump’s first term. Many census-watchers felt Trump’s administration tried to politicize the 2020 census by installing large numbers of political appointees at the agency and through failed efforts to keep people in the U.S. illegally from being counted for apportionment.

    The Constitution’s 14th Amendment says that “the whole number of persons in each state” should be counted for the numbers used for apportionment.

    Howard Lutnick, Trump’s pick to be secretary of commerce, which oversees the Census Bureau, was asked during a confirmation hearing this week if he would count every person during the census. He responded, “I promise you, we will count each whole person. ... That’s what the Constitution says, and we will stick right to it rigorously.”

    Before joining the Census Bureau, Santos was a vice president and chief methodologist at the Urban Institute and had spent four decades in survey research, statistical design and analysis and executive-level management. The Texas native said in his letter that he planned to spend time with his family in retirement.

    • Census Director Santos resigns, making way for Trump’s pick : NPR
      https://www.npr.org/2025/01/30/nx-s1-5258393/census-bureau-director-robert-santos

      […]
      Santos — a nationally recognized statistician who is the first Latino to head the bureau — joined the federal government’s largest statistical agency as a Biden appointee after years of interference at the bureau by the first Trump administration.

      Before becoming the agency’s director, Santos was a vocal opponent of how Trump officials handled the 2020 census — including a last-minute decision to end counting early during the COVID-19 pandemic and a failed push to add a question about U.S. citizenship status that was likely to deter many Latino and Asian American residents from participating in the official population tally.

      During his three-year tenure, Santos made frequent outreach trips around the country in an attempt to rebuild public trust in the bureau’s leadership.

      “It’s important for all Americans to understand that the bureau collects data for their benefit, and I think the outreach he oversaw helped rebuild confidence and interest in the Census Bureau’s work,” says Terri Ann Lowenthal, a census consultant who was once the staff director of the former House oversight subcommittee for the national tally.

      Santos helped oversee the creation of a new committee of outside advisers for the 2030 census, as well as planned changes to how the bureau produces statistics on race and ethnicity, a now-dropped, controversial proposal to transform data about people with disabilities and research into how surveys can ask about sexual orientation and gender identity.

      Many census watchers are concerned about who Trump names to be the bureau’s next director. The first director appointed by Trump, Steven Dillingham, stepped down in 2021 shortly after whistleblower complaints about an attempt to rush the release of an incomplete data report on non-U.S. citizens. Trump’s first administration also created multiple new positions for political appointees who had no obvious qualifications for serving at the bureau’s top ranks.

      “Any attempt to fill the position with someone involved in partisan political activities will undermine public confidence not only in the bureau’s work but the nation’s statistics generally,” Lowenthal says.

    • Le recensement états-unien, décennal, est un sujet éminemment politique qui a donné lieu à de nombreuses (violentes) controverses au cours de son histoire autour de la question du nombre de représentants des États (apportionment)
      Apportionment (politics) - Wikipedia
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apportionment_(politics)

      cf. p. ex. une brève synthèse sur la question des « races »
      Race and the Census : The « Negro » Controversy | Pew Research Center
      (article du 21/01/2010)
      https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2010/01/21/race-and-the-census-the-negro-controversy

      The topic of racial identification on census forms has a long, fascinating history, which has generated fresh debate as the 2010 Census begins. Why, some ask, does the form include the word “Negro,” along with “black” and “African American,” among the options that Americans can choose for their self-identification? Isn’t that term out of date?
      As you can see from the review that follows here, racial terms have come in and out of favor from one decade to the next. There was a similar debate about “Negro” in the 2000 Census, as there have been about other race terms in previous census years.

      pour le recensement de 2000, il a donné lieu à une longue controverse sur l’utilisation (ou non) d’enquêtes (non exhaustives, donc) estimant le défaut de couverture pour intégrer des corrections de sous-estimations ou sur-estimations. Ça c’est terminé devant la Cour suprême…
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_census#Adjustment_controversy

      Les discussions d’aujourd’hui évoquées dans l’article se basent sur le 14ème amendement dans lequel figurent les mots :
      counting the whole number of persons in each State
      que le trumpiste de service triture un peu pour arriver à
      we will count each whole person (sous-entendu possédant la nationalité…, donc sans les immigrés illégaux ni, semble-t-il, les détenteurs d’un visa…)
      Il s’agit de sa section 2 qui visait à régler le cas des États du Sud où l’abolition de l’esclavage faisait mécaniquement exploser leur population de whole persons gonflant ainsi leur poids à la Chambre des représentants…

      (accessoirement – on est toujours dans l’après Guerre de Sécession – la section 3 prévoit l’inéligibilité et l’interdiction d’accès à des fonctions publiques de toute personne hav[ing] engaged in insurrection or rebellion against [Constitution of the United States])
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

    • ce délicat sujet technique (!) faisait, évidemment, partie des ordres exécutifs du premier jour

      Trump rescinds Biden’s census order on apportionment : NPR
      https://www.npr.org/2025/01/20/nx-s1-5268958/trump-order-census-citizenship-question-apportionment

      Among the dozens of Biden-era executive orders that President Trump revoked on Monday was one that had reversed the first Trump administration’s unprecedented policy of altering a key set of census results.

      Since the first U.S. census in 1790, no resident has ever been omitted from those numbers because of immigration status. And after the Civil War, the 14th Amendment has called for the population counts that determine each state’s share of U.S. House seats and Electoral College votes to include the “whole number of persons in each state.”

      Biden’s now-revoked 2021 order affirmed the longstanding practice of including the total number of persons residing in each state in those census results. It was issued in response to Trump’s attempt during the national tally in 2020 to exclude millions of U.S. residents without legal status.

      That effort began with a failed push to add a citizenship question to census questionnaires, which the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately blocked from the 2020 forms.

      Biden’s order also effectively ended a Trump administration-initiated project at the Census Bureau to produce neighborhood block-level citizenship data using government records. That data, a GOP redistricting strategist once concluded, could be “advantageous to Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites” when voting districts are redrawn.

      It’s not clear yet if the second Trump administration would revive these census-related efforts. In his new order, Trump said revoking Biden’s order “will be the first of many steps the United States Federal Government will take to repair our institutions and our economy.”

      Conservative groups behind the “Project 2025” plan have included adding a citizenship question among their priorities for a conservative administration. And a growing number of Republican members of Congress, including Rep. Chuck Edwards of North Carolina, have introduced bills that call for using the next head count to tally non-U.S. citizens living in the country and then subtract some or all of those residents from what are known as the congressional apportionment counts.

      Late last week, the Republican state attorneys general of Louisiana, Kansas, Ohio and West Virginia filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to ban the bureau from including in those official numbers residents without legal status and those with visas. The timing of the case resurrects a question that hung over a similar lawsuit by Alabama during the first Trump administration — will Trump officials allow Justice Department attorneys assigned to the lawsuit to fully defend the bureau’s policy of counting all U.S. residents?

      Trump’s second term is set to end before final decisions have to be made on what questions the 2030 census will ask and who ends up getting included in the apportionment counts.

      Though it had an opportunity during the first Trump administration, the Supreme Court has yet to rule on whether the president can exclude people who are in the country without legal status from the tally that determines political power in the United States.

  • Immigration clandestine | La Chambre des représentants adopte un projet de loi | La Presse
    https://www.lapresse.ca/international/etats-unis/2025-01-07/immigration-clandestine/la-chambre-des-representants-adopte-un-projet-de-loi.php

    (Sur la photo, l’extrémiste de droite Mike Johnson)

    Le texte, qui requiert la détention par les forces de l’ordre fédérales de migrants en situation irrégulière et soupçonnés de certains délits non violents comme le vol ou cambriolage, a été adopté par la chambre basse à majorité républicaine avec 264 voix pour (dont 48 démocrates) et 159 contre.

  • C’est Noël, c’est cadeau : le 26 décembre, al-Joulani reçoit l’onction de NPR : il est désormais « Président » de la Syrie :
    https://www.npr.org/2024/12/26/nx-s1-5239759/governor-of-damascus-tells-npr-about-the-new-syrian-governments-plans-with-isra

    It’s been almost three weeks since rebel factions toppled the Assad regime. Now the new government wants to get Syria back on the international radar. Part of that is making its position clear on its next-door neighbor, Israel. The governor of Damascus, who is directly appointed by the president is the latest to explain that position.

    • Pas suprenant que les Américains le proclament « Président » lors de cette interview, puisque c’est là que le « gouverneur de Damas » annonce :

      MAHER MARWAN: (Non-English language spoken).

      AL-SHALCHI: “Israel may have felt fear,” Marwan said. “So it advanced a little, bombed a little, etc.” Israel has been striking strategic military installations in Syria since the regime fell and seized parts of the Golan Heights, stoking fears of annexation. And yet Marwan said this fear was, quote, “natural” and that, as a representative of the capitol Damascus and of the political point of view of President Ahmed al-Sharaa and the foreign ministry, he has a message.

      MARWAN: (Non-English language spoken).

      AL-SHALCHI: “We have no fear towards Israel, and our problem is not with Israel,” he said.

      MARWAN: (Non-English language spoken).

      AL-SHALCHI: “And we don’t want to meddle in anything that will threaten Israel’s security or any other country’s security,” Marwan added. He made no reference to Palestinians or the war in Gaza. This is a line in keeping with the new Syrian government. Sharaa has previously said that he does not want conflict with Israel. Marwan went a step further. He called on the United States to facilitate better relations with Israel.

  • Syria’s new leaders call for cordial ties with a resistant Israel : NPR
    https://www.npr.org/2024/12/27/g-s1-40144/syria-israel-relations-hts-damascus-governor

    The governor said it was understandable that Israel was concerned when the new Syrian government took power, because of certain “factions.”

    “Israel may have felt fear at the beginning,” Marwan said. “So it advanced a little, bombed a little.

    In addition to Israel’s strikes on military installations, it also has seized parts of the Golan Heights, stoking fears in Syria of annexation.

    And yet Marwan called Israel’s fear “natural.”

    […]

    Marwan said his views represented those of the city of Damascus, and the political views of his boss – Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa – and the foreign ministry.

    #bouffon

  • Pentagon secrets leaker Jack Teixeira is sentenced to 15 years in prison
    https://www.npr.org/2024/11/12/nx-s1-5188606/jack-teixeira-sentenced-military-documents-leak

    An artist depiction shows Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira (right) appearing in U.S. District Court in Boston on April 14, 2023. Margaret Small/AP

    La vengeance du système militaire est terrible. Voici un exemple pratique pour l’expression allemande « si la bêtise faisait mal, il y en a qui crieraient sans cesse ». La vérité est qu’un jeune accro des écrans plus ou moins autiste a suivi son besoin de partager les choses qui le touchaient. Malheureusement il s’agissait de documents secrets de son employeur, l’armée des États Unis. La guerre fait des victimes même loin des tranchées

    BOSTON — A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced a Massachusetts Air National Guard member to 15 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to leaking highly classified military documents about the war in Ukraine.

    Jack Teixeira pleaded guilty earlier this year to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act following his arrest in the most consequential national security case in years. Brought into court wearing an orange jumpsuit, he showed no visible reaction as he was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani.

    Before being sentenced, he apologized for his actions.

    “I wanted to say I’m sorry for all the harm that I brought and caused,” Teixeira said, referencing the “maelstrom” he caused to friends, family anyone affected overseas. “I understand all the responsibility and consequences fall upon my shoulders alone and accept whatever that will bring,” he said, standing as he addressed the judge.

    Afterward, Teixeira hugged one of his attorneys and looked towards his family and smiled before being led out of court.

    The security breach raised alarm over America’s ability to protect its most closely guarded secrets and forced the Biden administration to scramble to try to contain the diplomatic and military fallout. The leaks embarrassed the Pentagon, which tightened controls to safeguard classified information and disciplined members found to have intentionally failed to take required action about Teixeira’s suspicious behavior.

    Before sentencing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jared Dolan told Talwani that 200 months — or a little more than 16 1/2 years — was appropriate given the “historic” damage caused by Teixeira’s conduct that aided adversaries of the United States and hurt the country’s allies. He also said that recommendation by prosecutors would send a message to anyone in the military who might consider similar conduct.

    “It will be a cautionary tale for the men and women in the U.S. military,” Dolan said. “They are going to be told this is what happens if you break your promise, if you betray your country ... They will know the defendant’s name. They will know the sentence the court imposes.”

    But Teixeira’s attorney Michael Bachrach told the judge Tuesday that 11 years was sufficient.

    “It is a significant, harsh and difficult sentence, one that will not be easy to serve,” Bachrach said. “It will serve as an extreme deterrent to anyone particularly young servicemen. That is enough to keep them deterred from committing serious conduct.”

    Teixeira, of North Dighton, Massachusetts, had pleaded guilty in March to six counts of the willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act. That came nearly a year after he was arrested in the most consequential national security leak in years.

    The 22-year-old admitted that he illegally collected some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets and shared them with other users on the social media platform Discord.

    When Teixeira pleaded guilty, prosecutors said they would seek a prison term at the high end of the sentencing range. But the defense wrote in their sentencing memorandum earlier that the 11 years “would be essentially equal to half the life that Jack has lived thus far.”

    His attorneys had described Teixeira as an autistic, isolated individual who spent most of his time online, especially with his Discord community. They said his actions, though criminal, were never meant to “harm the United States.” He also had no prior criminal record.

    “Instead, his intent was to educate his friends about world events to make certain they were not misled by misinformation,” the attorneys wrote. “To Jack, the Ukraine war was his generation’s World War II or Iraq, and he needed someone to share the experience with.”

    Prosecutors in court filings countered that Teixeira did not suffer from any intellectual disability that would prevent him from knowing right from wrong, adding his post-arrest diagnosis of “mild, high-functioning” autism was of “questionable relevance” to the proceedings.

    Teixeira, who was part of the 102nd Intelligence Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts, worked as a cyber transport systems specialist, which is essentially an information technology specialist responsible for military communications networks. He remains in the Air National Guard in an unpaid status, an Air Force official said.

    Authorities said he first typed out classified documents he accessed and then began sharing photographs of files that bore SECRET and TOP SECRET markings. Prosecutors also said he tried to cover his tracks before his arrest, and authorities found a smashed tablet, laptop and an Xbox gaming console in a dumpster at his house.

    The leak exposed to the world unvarnished secret assessments of Russia’s war in Ukraine, including information about troop movements in Ukraine, and the provision of supplies and equipment to Ukrainian troops. Teixeira also admitted posting information about a U.S. adversary’s plans to harm U.S. forces serving overseas.

    #USA #justice #militaire

  • Satellite images show dozens of Iranian missiles struck near Israeli air base : NPR
    https://www.npr.org/2024/10/04/nx-s1-5140058/satellite-images-dozens-iranian-missiles-struck-near-israeli-air-base

    Israel and the U.S. have downplayed the attack, which Israel says consisted of roughly 180 ballistic missiles. Israel said many were intercepted by its missile defenses. Two U.S. destroyers also fired about a dozen interceptors to try and blunt the strike.

    “This attack appears to have been defeated and ineffective,” U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said shortly after the missiles fell.

    “Our air force and air force bases remain operational,” an Israeli military spokesperson, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, said in a briefing on the social media platform X.

    The Israeli military says no planes were destroyed in the attack.

    But Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey who led the analysis, says his work “complicates the picture a lot.”

    “We see more than 30 craters and damaged buildings,” Lewis says, “suggesting that more than 30 missiles hit the base.”

    Iranian missiles also struck another base, Tel Nof Airbase in central Israel, and a smaller number of missiles fell near the headquarters of Israeli’s intelligence agency, known as Mossad.

    Based on preliminary calculations of what happened at Nevatim, Lewis believes a substantial number of Iranian missiles may have reached their targets.

    “If Nevatim is representative, that would suggest that more than half got through,” he says.

    There are several reasons why so many Iranian missiles may have penetrated Israel’s air defenses. Israel’s vaunted Iron Dome missile defense system can only intercept low-flying, short-range missiles of the type used by Hezbollah and Hamas. To intercept Iran’s medium-range ballistic missiles requires Israel’s more powerful and expensive Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 missile defense systems.

    It is possible that the Arrow system failed to perform as expected, Lewis says, but he thinks it’s more likely that Israel may have decided not to defend Nevatim, in order to save its interceptors to protect population centers like Tel Aviv.

    “It may be that they just don’t have that many Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 missiles,” Lewis says. If that were true, then “the Iranians have succeeded in overwhelming the system and the Israelis have had to pick and choose.”

  • How U.S. satellite rules are different only for Israel : NPR
    https://www.npr.org/2023/11/16/1212889717/satellite-images-us-israel-gaza

    It’s a unique situation: For years, federal law has limited the quality of commercial satellite imagery U.S. companies can sell — if the images depict Israel and Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories such as Gaza.

    It’s not unusual for countries to attempt to restrict satellite imagery of sensitive locations on their own soil. But in this case, the law seeks to protect an entire — and separate — country.

    “This restriction doesn’t even apply to the U.S.” homeland and territories, satellite imagery analyst Matt Korda of the Federation of American Scientists told NPR.

  • Infinity Times ⭐ Global News Democracy Now ! Top U.S. & World Headli...
    https://diasp.eu/p/17139143

    Infinity Times ⭐ Global News

    Democracy Now! Top U.S. & World Headlines - September 20, 2024 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ0QZFBUWF8

    Democracy Now! Top U.S. & World Headlines - September 19, 2024 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqwEolvv7O0

    Democracy Now! Top U.S. & World Headlines - September 18, 2024 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2UXzxtkZPA

    Dr. Stacey Patton Responds: A Statement on Gender, Data, and Child Abuse - Black Liberation Media https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYh5du7IOJ4

    Tracking the exploding pagers used in apparent Israeli attack on Hezbollah https://www.npr.org/2024/09/18/g-s1-23547/tracking-the-exploding-pagers-used-in-attack-on-hezbollah

    “Open Minds in Dialogue” Annual Conference - Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching (HILT) (...)

    • https://www.npr.org/2024/09/20/nx-s1-5120581/three-mile-island-nuclear-power-plant-microsoft-ai

      Three Mile Island, the power plant near Middletown, Pa., that was the scene of the worst commercial nuclear accident in U.S. history, will reopen to power #Microsoft's #data_centers, which are responsible for powering the tech giant’s cloud computing and artificial intelligence programs.

      Constellation #Energy, which bills itself as America’s largest producer of “clean, #carbon-free energy,” announced Friday that it had signed its largest-ever power purchase agreement with Microsoft.

      “Powering industries critical to our nation’s global economic and technological competitiveness, including data centers, requires an abundance of energy that is carbon-free and reliable every hour of every day, and #nuclear_plants are the only energy sources that can consistently deliver on that promise,” said Joe Dominguez, Constellation Energy’s president and CEO.

      The deal will create approximately 3,400 jobs and bring in more than $3 billion in state and federal taxes, according to the company. It also said the agreement will add $16 billion to Pennsylvania’s GDP.

      The agreement will span 20 years, and the plant is expected to reopen in 2028. It will be renamed the Crane Clean Energy Center in honor of Chris Crane, who died in April and served as the CEO of Constellation’s former parent company.

      #Pennsylvania’s nuclear energy industry plays a critical role in providing safe, #reliable, #carbon_free #electricity that helps reduce emissions and grow Pennsylvania’s economy,” Gov. Josh Shapiro said.

      Unlike power plants using fossil fuels, like coal or natural gas, nuclear plants do not directly release carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming.

      The partial nuclear reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island happened on March 28, 1979, when one of the plant’s two reactors’ cooling mechanisms malfunctioned. The #reactor that will be reopened to power Microsoft’s data centers was not involved in the accident.

      #AI #IA
      #Intelligence_artificielle #Consommation_énergétique

    • “Before it was prematurely shuttered due to poor economics, this plant was among the safest and most reliable nuclear plants on the grid, and we look forward to bringing it back with a new name and a renewed mission to serve as an economic engine for Pennsylvania," Dominguez said.

      Ben tiens. Il a juste une conception des générateurs de vapeur foireuse qui fait qu’en cas de brèche sur le circuit primaire ils se vident en quelques dizaines de secondes, privant le dit circuit d’une source d’évacuation de l’énergie. Précisément un des problèmes lors de l’accident.

  • 162 lies and distortions in a news conference. NPR fact checks former President Trump
    https://www.npr.org/2024/08/11/nx-s1-5070566/trump-news-conference

    But there was so much more. A team of NPR reporters and editors reviewed the transcript of his news conference and found at least 162 misstatements, exaggerations and outright lies in 64 minutes. That’s more than two a minute. It’s a stunning number for anyone – and even more problematic for a person running to lead the free world.