/mar

Revealed: #Monsanto predicted crop system would damage US farms | US news | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/30/monsanto-crop-system-damage-us-farms-documents

The US #agriculture giant Monsanto and the German chemical giant #BASF were aware for years that their plan to introduce a new agricultural seed and chemical system would probably lead to damage on many US farms, internal documents seen by the Guardian show.

Risks were downplayed even while they planned how to profit off farmers who would buy Monsanto’s new seeds just to avoid damage, according to documents unearthed during a recent successful $265m lawsuit brought against both firms by a Missouri farmer.

#etats-unis #pesticides #ogm

Las Vegas parking lot turned into ’homeless shelter’ with social distancing markers | Las Vegas | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/30/las-vegas-parking-lot-homeless-shelter

▻https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/7ce9f6ee642841b30b1d1904a267411431516326/0_232_3500_2101/master/3500.jpg?width=605&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=8747df967b0fb6e5

Over the weekend, authorities in Las Vegas needed to find additional sleeping space for the city’s sizable homeless population when a 500-bed overnight shelter closed after a client tested positive for the new coronavirus.

Officials turned a parking lot into a makeshift shelter, saying spaces for sleeping were drawn 6ft apart in observance of federal social distancing guidelines.
’War on the poor’: Las Vegas’s homelessness crackdown takes effect
Read more

Many white boxes were covered up with blue mats that could be more easily cleaned. But photos of the temporary shelter showing people sleeping close to each other on the ground, some within arm’s reach, sparked backlash on social media.

Jace Radke, spokesperson for the city of Las Vegas, said the city and county had worked to open the temporary shelter after Catholic Charities closed and the city’s other shelter, Courtyard Homeless Resource Center, was nearly filled to capacity.

#usa #covid-19

Teen models, powerful men and private dinners: when Trump hosted Look of the Year
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/14/teen-models-powerful-men-when-donald-trump-hosted-look-of-the-year

Three decades on, a very different picture of the competition is beginning to emerge. Over the last six months, the Guardian has spoken to several dozen former Look of the Year contestants, as well as industry insiders, and obtained 12 hours of previously unseen, behind-the-scenes footage. The stories we have heard suggest that Casablancas, and some of the men in his orbit, used the contest to engage in sexual relationships with vulnerable young models. Some of these allegations amount to sexual harassment, abuse or exploitation of teenage girls; others are more accurately described as rape.

No such allegations have been levelled against Trump, who at the time was dating Marla Maples, the woman who in 1993 became his second wife. But his close involvement in the contest raises questions for the president. Did he know that Casablancas and others were sleeping with contestants? Why would a man in his 40s, whose main business was real-estate development, want to host a beauty contest for teenage girls?

Journalists have scoured almost every corner of the 45th president’s life, but his friendship with Casablancas, and his involvement in Look of the Year in 1991 and 1992, have been largely overlooked. Yet the competition is more than a footnote in the Donald Trump story. In time, it would prove to be the foundation of his pivot into reality TV. He even married a former Look of the Year contestant: the current first lady, Melania Trump, narrowly missed out on a trip to New York in 1992, after coming second in the Slovenian heat.