cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/4480913

Scattered across the United States, hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines scar the earth, posing a safety hazard to passing hikers and a health risk to nearby communities. But cached inside piles of refuse and ponds of toxic waste, there are also elements as critical for the 21st-century economy as coal was for the industrial revolution. Now, an obscure federal government program known as the Earth Mapping Resources Initiative, or Earth MRI, is identifying the high-tech minerals concealed in these mines — as well as those hidden beneath the Earth’s surface.

Developed by the U.S. Geological Survey, or USGS, during the first Trump administration, Earth MRI aims to comprehensively map the nation’s underground deposits of “critical minerals” — an ever-growing list of elements and compounds considered vital for national security and the economy. In 2021, Earth MRI received a massive funding boost through the bipartisan infrastructure law, accelerating federal scientists’ efforts to figure out which parts of the country are rich in minerals used in clean energy technologies, semiconductors, and high-tech weaponry. While the Trump administration has moved aggressively to reverse most of former President Joe Biden’s climate policies, it appears to agree with the prior administration’s desire to locate — and, eventually, mine — more of these resources.

Many Biden-era climate and energy initiatives remain in limbo following the Trump administration’s freeze on the disbursement of grant funding and mass firing of federal employees — but Earth MRI got an early greenlight to resume operations.

“This is a program that has survived both the Trump and Biden administrations,” Peter Cook, a critical minerals policy expert at The Breakthrough Institute, an environmental solutions research organization, told Grist. “They’re both definitely interested in critical minerals.”

Full Article

https://archive.ph/ICiDs

NYT: Vance Makes Quick Trip to Greenland, a Place That Doesn’t Want Him

At the South Louisiana Ice processing centre, an all-female facility that is also operated by the Geo Group and where Ozturk is now being held, the ACLU of Louisiana recently filed a complaint to the DHS’s civil rights division alleging an array of rights violations. These included inadequate access to medical care, with the complaint stating: “Guards left detained people suffering from severe conditions like external bleeding, tremors, and sprained limbs unattended to, refusing them access to diagnostic care”.

The complaint was filed in December 2024, before the Trump administration moved to gut the DHS’s civil rights division earlier this month.

https://archive.ph/Dd7nb

February 28, 2025

"On February 7, about a dozen masked men, some of them carrying AR-15 semi-automatic rifles, drove a U-Haul truck to a freeway overpass at Lincoln Heights’ edge. The men, dressed in black, shouted racist slurs and waived black flags with red swastikas on them. Enraged Lincoln Heights residents soon approached to counter protest. Local police who converged on the scene from the nearby town of #Evandale, across the highway, appeared cordial toward some of the white supremacists. As the crowd of Lincoln Heights residents swelled, the ultra rightists got back on their truck and drove off. Counter protesters burned the Nazi flags left behind. "

In photos posted on Tuesday on X, the Fox News host turned US defense secretary had what appears to be a tattoo that says “kafir”, an Arabic term used within Islam to describe an unbeliever. Hegseth appears to have also had the tattoo in another Instagram photo posted in July 2024.

Some people on social media criticized Hegseth for getting a tattoo that could be considered offensive to Muslims, especially as the US military seeks to represent a diverse pool of faiths. It is estimated that upwards of 5,000 to 6,000 US military members practice Islam.

“This isn’t just a personal choice; it’s a clear symbol of Islamophobia from the man overseeing U.S. wars,” posted Nerdeen Kiswani, a pro-Palestinian activist in New York.

She added: “‘Kafir’ has been weaponized by far-right Islamophobes to mock and vilify Muslims. It’s not about his personal beliefs. It’s about how these beliefs translate into policy – how they shape military decisions, surveillance programs, and foreign interventions targeting Muslim countries.”

Lawyers for the US government on Thursday argued in court in Boston that they had transferred a doctoral student at nearby Tufts University to immigration detention in Louisiana before a court had ordered that she should not be removed from Massachusetts without prior notice.

At a hearing on Thursday morning in federal court, a lawyer for the student, a Turkish national, withdrew an emergency motion filed the previous day requesting that the government produce her after she was shipped off to Louisiana. The motion and one from the government were sealed.

Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, was sent to detention in the south on Wednesday after being snatched off the street outside her home on Tuesday.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/27737170

By Maysa Mustafa
Published date: 26 March 2025 21:35 GMT

"After an article reported that Rachel Zegler “trashed” the production of Disney's Snow White due to her stance on Palestine, thousands online are applauding her vocal stance this week despite the pressures of working with Disney and former Israeli army soldier Gal Gadot."

Men wearing street clothes identifying themselves as “the police” whisked away an international graduate student at Tufts University in Massachusetts after she co-authored an op-ed critical of Israel.

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish citizen in the U.S. on a student visa, was detained on Tuesday in Somerville by two men wearing street clothes and masks. In a video posted on social media by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Ozturk is seen walking down a sidewalk when she is stopped by a man wearing a hat and hoodie. After saying, “Hi, ma’am,” the man – who did not appear to flash a badge of any kind – seizes her phone as a second man approaches. Those two men eventually handcuff her as others, wearing masks, stand guard.

At one point, one of the men can be heard saying, “We’re the police,” but he did not identify an agency or department.

“You don’t look like it,” a bystander can be heard saying. “Why are you hiding your faces? Why are you hiding your faces?”

One bystander told The Boston Globe that Ozturk informed the men, “I’m a student.” The paper said the bystander spoke on condition of anonymity “for fear of retaliation from the government.”

“We are unaware of her whereabouts and have not been able to contact her,” Ozturk’s attorney Mahsa Khanbabai told The New York Times. “No charges have been filed against Rumeysa to date that we are aware of.”

Here's a followup. They kidnapped her to Louisiana: https://sh.itjust.works/post/35100426

• Caitlin Johnstone: Thoughts On The Trump Team's Signal Chat About Bombing Yemen
• Aaron Maté: Uproar focuses on Trump team's Signal mishap, not bombing Yemen for Israel
• Sam Husseini: Yemen: Is the Scandal the Leak or the Slaughter? [NSFL images]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/27770288

By Azad Essa
Published date: 27 March 2025 20:05 GMT

"...in the prompts provided by the teacher, Khalil is described as a supporter of terrorism; is accused of having celebrated the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023 on southern Israel; and students who took part in the protests at Columbia University are described as "Hamas students". "