GUANGZHOU, China — From blenders to bicycles, it could get tough for Americans to buy made-in-China products soon.

That's the message from manufacturers and exporters this week at China's oldest and biggest trade fair — the Canton Expo. Soaring U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods have sown chaos in China's manufacturing heartland. Exporters told NPR that orders to America had been halted, and many are scrambling to find revenue elsewhere.

Mini-oven maker Foshan Zero Point Intelligent Electrical Appliance Co., Ltd., got hit hard. It sells 90% of its products in America, according to sales manager Steven Zhang. Escalating tit-for-tat tariffs this month brought everything to a screeching halt.

"We told our suppliers not to deliver raw materials. Our workers were put on leave," Zhang said. "There was nothing else we could do."

I don't remember any time in my life that "brought ... to a screeching halt" has been so prevalent across industries. The billionaires will be fine; the

While Western forestry experts accept some wildfire as redemption for the landscape, they’ve also learned that out-of-control megafires can do more harm than good. Now a new study puts a spotlight on the small, cartoon-cute creatures ready to serve as a stalwart defense against raging, 100,000-acre firestorms: the humble, hardworking beaver.

River segments hosting beaver-created dams fared far better during and after megafires than riverscapes without beaver activity, leaving pockets of intact habitat crucial for wildlife, and protecting waterways from runaway erosion, a study published in The Geological Society of America in January found.

Using a combination of infrared and optical satellite imagery, as well as field observations, a team of nine scientists assessed the burn severity along streams within the fire scars. They then compared reaches of stream that had beaver dams to stretches without, and to the surrounding forest.

“Beaver-modified riverscapes are resis

The Pa. laboratory that certifies all of the country’s NIOSH-approved respirators is on the chopping block. HHS is stonewalling employees who raise questions.

US Sen. Chris Van Hollen told reporters in El Salvador Wednesday that he was unable to visit Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia in the maximum-security mega-prison where he is being held.

Van Hollen said he specifically asked Salvadoran Vice President Felix Ulloa if he could meet with Abrego Garcia or at least speak with him over the phone or via video conferencing. Again, Van Hollen said the request was denied.

Pressed on whether he had concerns about the man’s health, Van Hollen said: “I don’t know about his health status which is why I wanted to meet with him directly.”

The senator’s trip swiftly drew the ire of the White House.

Communications director Steven Cheung called Van Hollen “a complete disgrace” and the Office of Communications accused the senator in a statement of a lack of concern regarding crimes they say were committed by undocumented immigrants against his constituents. Abrego Garcia has not been charged with any crimes in the United States, according to his l

• McMahon convicted for acting as Chinese agent without notifying U.S. attorney general
• Biden administration targeted transnational repression by authoritarian adversaries
• Republican lawmakers supported McMahon, urging leniency in sentencing

The Geriatric and Medical Parole Reform bill allows some incarcerated people who are older or sick to apply for early release.

The bill will change how the Maryland Parole Commission evaluates requests for medical parole, and add a meeting between the incarcerated person and the commission.

Under the bill, the commission is required to consider the age of an incarcerated person when determining if they should be granted parole.

Lawmakers also passed the Second Look Act, a bill that allows courts to review long prison sentences for people who were convicted of a crime that occurred when they were between the ages of 18 and 25.

The Restorative Practices in Public Schools bill requires the Maryland Department of Education to create a guide to establish restorative practices in daily school activities.

The restorative approach is proactive in setting behavioral expectations that contribute to the well-being of students. The practices focus on holding students accoun

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/32891326

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The State Department has shut down its office that sought to deal with misinformation and disinformation that Russia, China and Iran have been accused of spreading.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement Wednesday that he had closed what had been known as the Global Engagement Center because it had taken actions to restrict freedom of speech in the United States and elsewhere.

The center has been a frequent target of criticism from conservatives for calling out media and online reports that it said are biased or untruthful. At times, it has identified U.S. websites and social media accounts that it argued were amplifying misinformation, particularly related to the Russia-Ukraine war.

[...]

Congress had supported the center’s work, as had pr

Property owners and landlords in New York City can now be fined $25 or more if residents are found throwing a banana peel in the trash. As of April 1, all New Yorkers must separate organic waste — that includes food scraps, food-soiled paper (like empty pizza boxes), and leaf and yard waste — from the rest of their trash, similar to how metal, glass, paper, and plastic is set aside for recycling.

This is how the city is encouraging — or indeed, mandating — participation in its curbside composting program, where food waste is collected weekly by the sanitation department, same as the trash and recycling. Mandatory curbside composting is still relatively new in New York City; the program only rolled out in all five boroughs late last year.

The best use of food, of course, is to feed people. When it can’t do that, composting is one tool to help reduce emissions from organic waste — the methane released as food decays in landfills is a major driver of global warming. As a whole

A federal judge has ruled that there is “probable cause” to hold the Trump administration in contempt over its removal of hundreds of migrants from the United States to a notorious prison in El Salvador despite an order to halt their deportation.

On Wednesday, D.C. U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg ruled that the Trump administration’s “willful and knowing” actions — and their stonewalling during subsequent hearings — constitute “probable cause for a finding of contempt.”

The president of El Salvador said in a meeting with Donald Trump in the White House on Monday that he would not order the return of a Maryland man who was deported in error to a Salvadoran mega-prison.

“The question is preposterous,” Nayib Bukele said in the Oval Office on Monday, where he was welcomed by Trump and spoke with the president and members of his cabinet. “How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I’m not going to do it.”

He added: “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States,” and said he would not release the man, Kilmar Abrego García, into El Salvador either. “I’m not very fond of releasing terrorists into the country.”

The comments came a day after the Trump administration claimed it is not legally obligated to secure the return of the Abrego García, despite the US supreme court ruling that the administration should “facilitate” bringing him back.

Well, fuck. This is such petty bullshit when these two guys could easily get him

Federal scientists responsible for monitoring the health of West Coast fisheries are cleaning office bathrooms and reconsidering critical experiments after the Department of Commerce failed to renew their lab’s contracts for hazardous waste disposal, janitorial services, IT and building maintenance.

Trash is piling up at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, staffers told ProPublica. Ecologists, chemists and biologists at Montlake Laboratory, the center’s headquarters in Seattle, are taking turns hauling garbage to the dumpster and discussing whether they should create a sign-up sheet to scrub toilets.

The scientists — who conduct genetic sampling of endangered salmon to check the species’ stock status and survival — routinely work with chemicals that can burn skin, erupt into flames and cause cancer. At least one said they’d have to delay mission-critical research if hazardous waste removal isn’t restored.

On the surface, following a TikTok account might seem like a minor infraction for a young private in the 1st Infantry Division. But not only has that private followed the Base, a violent neo-Nazi terrorist organization once the target of an FBI investigation, there are directives issued under Joe Biden that discourages that kind of social media activity.

But in February, the DoD issued a memo halting a major counter-extremism initiative rooting out white nationalists and far-right influences among servicemen, citing that it was not in line with Donald Trump’s executive orders. Since, the efficacy of rooting out the far right within the ranks remains unclear.

More than 50 people stood outside the Enoch Pratt Library’s Southeast Anchor branch on a recent spring morning in Baltimore. Parents with small children, teenagers, and senior citizens clustered outside the door and waited to hear their ticket numbers called.

They weren’t there for books—at least, not at that moment. They came to shop for groceries.

Connected to the library, the brightly painted market space is small but doesn’t feel cramped. Massive windows drench it in sunshine. In a previous life, it was a café. Now, shelves, tables, counters, and a refrigerator are spread out across the room, holding a mix of produce and shelf-stable goods.

That day, as staff and volunteers took their stations, shoppers walked in and filled their bags with what was in stock. On any given day, there’s a range of produce, like collard greens, apples, onions, radishes, potatoes, and cherry tomatoes, plus eggs, orange juice, rice, bread, and treats like cookies and peanut butter crackers.

Arch asked her insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana, for approval to go to the center for her care, and the company granted it, a process known as prior authorization. Then, a week or so before her surgery, Arch was wrangling child care and meal plans when she got a call from the insurer. The representative on the line was trying to persuade her to have the surgery elsewhere. She urged Arch to seek a hospital that, unlike the center, was in network and charged less. “Do you realize how much this is going to cost?” Arch remembered the agent asking. Arch did not need more stress, but here it was — from her own health plan. “I feel very comfortable with my decision,” she replied. “My doctor teaches other doctors around the world how to do this.” Over the next year, Arch underwent five operations to rid herself of cancer and reconstruct her breasts.

It's unnecessary to point out the glaring issues with U.S. health insurance.

Now, as the government races to carry out President Donald Trump’s campaign promise of mass deportations, Deployed is shifting its business once more — from holding people who are trying to enter the country to detaining those the government is seeking to ship out.

In Trump’s second term in office, the government is poised to spend tens of billions of dollars on immigration detention, including unprecedented plans to hold immigrants arrested in the U.S. in massive tent camps on military bases. One recently published request for contract proposals said the Department of Homeland Security could spend up to $45 billion over the next several years on immigrant detention. The plans have set off a gold rush among contractors. All this spending is unfolding at the same time the government has made sweeping cuts to federal agencies and shed other contracts.

Among those seeking a windfall is Deployed Resources, which, along with its sister company, Deployed Services, has adapted to