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‘Biblical’ insect swarms spur Oregon push to fight pests
on June 26, 2022 at 3:28 pm
ARLINGTON, Ore. (AP) — Driving down a windy canyon road in northern Oregon rangeland, Jordan Maley and April Aamodt are on the look out for Mormon crickets, giant insects that can ravage crops. “There’s one right there,” Aamodt says. They’re not hard to spot. The insects, which can grow larger than 2 inches (5 centimeters), blot the asphalt. Mormon crickets are not new to Oregon. Native to western North America, their name dates back to the 1800s, when they ruined the fields of Mormon settlers in Utah. But amidst drought and warming temperatures — conditions favored by the insects — outbreaks across the West have worsened. The Oregon Legislature last year allocated $5 million to assess the problem and set up a Mormon cricket and grasshopper “suppression” program. An additional $1.2 million for the program was approved earlier this month. It’s part of a larger effort by state and federal authorities in the U.S. West to deal with an explosion of grasshoppers and Mormon crickets that has hit from Montana to Nevada. But some environmental groups oppose the programs, which rely on the aerial spraying of pesticides across large swaths of land. Maley, an Oregon State University Extension Agent, and Aamodt, a resident of the small Columbia River town of Arlington, are both involved in Mormon cricket outreach and surveying efforts in the area. In 2017, Arlington saw its largest Mormon cricket outbreak since the 1940s. The roads were “greasy” with the squashed entrails of the huge insects, which damaged nearby wheat crops. Rancher Skye Krebs said the outbreaks have been “truly biblical.” “On the highways, once you get them killed, then the rest of them come,” he explained. Mormon crickets are cannibalistic and will feast on each other, dead or alive, if not satiated with protein. The insects, which are not true crickets but shield-backed katydids, are flightless. But they can travel at least a quarter of a mile in a day, according to Maley. Aamodt fought the 2017 outbreak with what she had on hand. “I got the lawnmower out and I started mowing them and killing them,” she said. “I took a straight hoe and I’d stab them.” Aamodt has organized volunteers to tackle the infestation and earned the nickname “cricket queen.” Another infestation last year had local officials “scrambling,” Maley said. “We had all those high-value crops and irrigation circles,” he explained. “We just had to do what we could to keep them from getting into that.” In 2021 alone, Oregon agricultural officials estimate 10 million acres of rangeland in 18 counties were damaged by grasshoppers and Mormon crickets. Under the new Oregon initiative, private landowners like farmers and ranchers can request the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) survey their land. If ODA finds more than three Mormon crickets or eight grasshoppers per square yard it will recommend chemical treatment. In some areas near Arlington surveyed in May soon after the hatch there were 201 Mormon crickets per square yard. State officials recommend the aerial application of diflubenzuron. The insecticide works by inhibiting development, preventing nymphs from growing into adults. Landowners can be reimbursed for up to 75% of the cost. Diana Fillmore is a rancher participating in the new cost-sharing initiative. She says “the ground is just crawling with grasshoppers” on her property. ODA recommended she treat her 988-acre ranch in Arock in southeastern Oregon. As the program’s protocol calls for applying insecticide to only half the proposed area, alternately targeting swaths then skipping the next one, this means nearly 500 acres of her land will actually be sprayed. Fillmore decided to act, remembering last year’s damage. “It was horrible,” Fillmore said. “Grasshoppers just totally wiped out some of our fields.” She was forced to spend $45,000 on hay she normally wouldn’t have to buy. Todd Adams, an entomologist and ODA’s Eastern Oregon field office and grasshopper program coordinator, said as of mid-June ODA had received 122 survey requests and sent out 31 treatment recommendations for roughly 40,000 acres (16,187 hectares). Landowners must act quickly if they decide to spray diflubenzuron as it is only effective against nymphs. “Once they become adults it’s too late,” Adams said. Oregon’s new program is geared toward private landowners. But the federal government owns more than half of Oregon’s total land, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has its own program for outbreaks on Western public land. The U.S. government’s grasshopper suppression program dates back to the 1930s, and USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has sprayed millions of acres with pesticides to control outbreaks since the 1980s. APHIS National Policy Director William Wesela said the agency sprayed 807,000 acres (326,581 hectares) of rangeland across seven Western states in 2021. So far this year, it has received requests for treatment in Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Nevada and Arizona, according to Jake Bodart, its State Plant Health Director for Oregon. In a 2019 risk assessment APHIS recognized the main insecticide used, diflubenzuron, remains “a restricted use pesticide due to its toxicity to aquatic invertebrates,” but said risks are low. APHIS says it follows methods to reduce concerns. It instructs pesticide applicators to skip swaths and apply the insecticide at lower rates than listed on the label. But environmental groups oppose the program. Last month, the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation and the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) sued APHIS in the U.S. District Court in Portland. In their filing, they accuse APHIS of harming rangeland ecosystems and not adequately informing the public about treatment areas. They also allege the agency violated the National Environmental Policy Act by not assessing all the alternatives to pesticides or analyzing the cumulative effects of the program. Federal officials declined to comment on the suit because it is pending before courts. Environmentalists say the reduction of grasshoppers diminishes the food source of other wildlife that prey on them. “We’re very concerned about the impact of these broad, large sprays to our grassland and rangeland ecosystems,” said Sharon Selvaggio, the Xerces Society’s Pesticide Program Specialist. Selvaggio added the sprays can be “toxic to a wide variety of insects” beyond grasshoppers and Mormon crickets, expressing particular concern for pollinators such as bees. The two environmental groups want the agency to adopt a more holistic approach to pest management, by exploring methods such as rotational grazing. “We’re not trying to stop APHIS from ever using pesticides again,” said Andrew Missel, staff attorney at Advocates for the West, the nonprofit law firm that filed the suit. “The point is really to reform” the program, he added. In Arlington, the “cricket queen” Aamodt said residents had experimented with pesticide alternatives. During 2017, some covered trees in duct tape to trap the insects. The following year, local officials brought in goats to graze hillsides. For now, those fighting against future infestations hope the new state program will bring much-needed support. “Keep in mind that these are people that are taking time out from their own lives to do this,” said OSU Extension Agent Maley. “The volunteers made a huge difference.” ___ Rush is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com
Former Iran conscripts say unfairly blocked from US travel
on June 26, 2022 at 3:18 pm
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Two years ago, Leili Ghazi quit studying biomedical engineering in Iran and seized the chance to travel to the United States to build a new life for herself and her parents. Now, the 22-year-old is separated indefinitely from her family because her father performed required military service more than two decades ago as a conscript for a branch of the Iranian armed forces that the U.S. government years later declared a foreign terrorist organization. The designation bars anyone associated with the group from traveling to the United States, including her dad. “He had to do office work and work on plans of buildings,” said Ghazi, who has been anxious and depressed since moving to Southern California. She expected her parents to eventually join her but later learned her father would be forced to stay behind. “He hasn’t done any activity of going to war or anything. It was not anything like that.” It has long been a challenge for Iranians to travel to the United States and visa applicants often wait months or years for background checks to clear. But since the Trump administration designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization in 2019, it has become all but impossible for anyone who served in the branch, even as a conscript and in a non-combat role, to obtain a visa to travel to the United States. Many Iranian Americans and their families hoped the Biden administration would reverse course on the designation so those who served as conscripts could still travel. They note Iranian men are compelled to serve if they want to obtain passports to leave the country, have no say over what branch they’re assigned to and largely perform basic tasks such as painting or office jobs. But their hopes were dashed when U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in late April that barring changes in Iran there was no plan to remove the designation. He acknowledged in remarks before U.S. lawmakers that those most affected are the conscripts while “the people who are the real bad guys have no intention of travel.” “There should be exceptions, and right now we don’t have exceptions,” said Ally Bolour, a Los Angeles immigration attorney whose firm has sued over how the designation is applied. “It is unfair for the U.S. government to just throw a towel over everything and just lump everybody together. That’s lazy.” The U.S. has designated a lengthy list of foreign terror organizations dating back to the 1990s, including Hamas and Peru’s Shining Path. But the groups are almost entirely private militias, not state-run entities, like IRGC, that enlist conscripts under the law. The secretary of state designates the groups in consultation with the attorney general and treasury secretary, and with congressional review, and can also revoke designations. For example, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia was listed as a foreign terror organization in 1997 and delisted in 2021. People who provide support or resources to foreign terror organizations and who aren’t U.S. citizens can’t legally enter the country and can face deportation. In addition, financial institutions that control funds for these groups must retain possession of the funds and report them to U.S. authorities. A U.S. State Department spokesperson could not immediately say how many former Iranian conscripts have had visa applications affected by the designation. The spokesperson said applications are reviewed on an individual basis and in some cases waivers can be applied. The designations “play a critical role in our fight against terrorism and are an effective means of curtailing support for terrorist activities and pressuring groups to get out of the terrorism business,” the spokesperson said. Immigration attorneys, however, said they’re fielding tons of calls from former conscripts dealing with the issue and don’t see exceptions being made. Attorney Scott Emerick, who works with Bolour, said he has received hundreds of calls and believes the government can make exceptions for conscripts who didn’t serve voluntarily. Taher Kameli, an attorney in Chicago who has also sued, said he fields calls daily from people asking how the designation affects them. He said he doesn’t believe the U.S. government can list another country’s military as a foreign terrorist organization and notes past administrations also had issues with the branch and refrained from making the designation due to the consequences it would bring. “We are not here to say the IRGC is doing something right or wrong. We are just saying the way the designation is done is wrong,” said Kameli, who represents an Iranian-born U.S.-educated doctor affected by the rule. The fallout from the designation stretches far beyond the United States. Iranians said the U.S. shares data on travelers with countries in Europe and Canada, and they fear they’ll be blocked from traveling there as well. Several Iranian-born Canadian citizens said they’ve faced additional scrutiny during what were previously quick and easy trips across the border. Amir Abolhassani, a 41-year-old engineer, said he had traveled many times to the United States without a problem as a Canadian citizen, but he was recently stopped by authorities on a trip to North Carolina where his company planned to transfer him for a new job. Abolhassani was told he couldn’t go because of his conscription more than a decade ago, which he said consisted of two months of basic training and designing water pipelines for the branch. He said he was assigned at random and the service was necessary so he could obtain a passport and leave the country to continue his education. Now, he and his wife are in limbo because they have already sold their home to make the move but can’t get visas. “The worst part is that they tell you you are a terrorist,” Abolhassani said. “We have come out of that country because we were against their policies, because we were against their behavior, and now saying, ‘You belong to that system, you belong to that regime, you are part of the organization we have listed as a terrorist organization’ — that is very unjust. That is unbearable.” The designation also weighs heavily on Iranian citizens who have lived in the U.S. with green cards for years and want to become American citizens. Paris Etemadi Scott is legal director of PARS Equality Center in San Jose, California, which provides legal and social services to immigrants from Persian-speaking and other countries. She said she now tells most clients who have served in the contested branch — or those whose spouses did — to think twice about applying to naturalize because when they go to an interview they’ll face a barrage of additional questions and be forced to sign a detailed statement under oath about their long-ago military service. “We thought this was a Trump thing but obviously nothing has changed,” she said. “I tell them, ‘I don’t have the stamina anymore to go through this ordeal. We advise you to wait and see.’” Brought to you by www.srnnews.com
Trump’s lasting legacy grows as Supreme Court overturns Roe
on June 26, 2022 at 2:33 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden rarely mentions his predecessor by name. But as he spoke to a nation processing a seismic shift in the rights of women, he couldn’t ignore Donald Trump’s legacy. “It was three justices named by one president — Donald Trump — who were the core of today’s decision to upend the scales of justice and eliminate a fundamental right for women in this country,” Biden said Friday after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling from 1973 that provided constitutional protections for women seeking abortions. The abortion decision marked the apex in a week that reinforced the former president’s ongoing impact in Washington more than a year and a half after he exited the White House. A court that includes three Trump-appointed conservatives also decided to weaken restrictions on gun ownership. And across the street at the Capitol, which was ravaged by a mob of Trump supporters in the final days of his presidency in 2021, new details surfaced of his gross violations of democratic norms. The House’s Jan. 6 committee used a public hearing last week to spotlight the intense pressure that Trump put on top Justice Department officials to overturn the 2020 election, along with discussions of blanket pardons for cooperative members of Congress. The developments were a reminder of the awkward political bargain social conservatives embraced to achieve their grandest ambitions. In refusing to consider Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee during the final year of his presidency, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., ensured that the next president would be able to make his mark on the court. As Trump pledged to transform the Supreme Court’s ideological leanings —- even providing a list of the judges he would choose from — reluctant conservatives Republicans and evangelical Christians rallied behind Trump, a thrice-married man who had previously described himself as “very pro-choice.” “When he ran in 2016, he promised that he would appoint conservative and pro-life judges to the federal courts starting with the U.S. Supreme Court. And he kept his word,” said Ralph Reed, an evangelical leader and chair of the The Faith and Freedom Coalition, who was criticized in some corners for his embrace of Trump. “Those in the faith community that felt it was worth taking a chance on Donald Trump in 2016 have been vindicated.” The GOP is now at something of a turning point in its relationship with a man who has fundamentally transformed the party with his populist, “Make America Great Again” agenda and his fight against the establishment Republicans who used to control the party. There’s a growing debate within the party about whether Trump’s resonance is beginning to fade as lays the groundwork for a third presidential run in 2024. Other leading Republicans, including former Vice President Mike Pence, and Trump’s former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, are taking increasingly bold steps toward White House bids of their own. And many of Trump’s own supporters are eagerly embracing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as Trump’s natural successor as they look to the future. Pence, Pompeo and DeSantis are among those who have made clear that a Trump candidacy would not influence their own decisions about whether to run. If they do run, they will all be competing for support from the same conservatives who fueled Trump’s rise. Trump himself seems somewhat uncertain about how to navigate the political fallout from the past week, particularly the abortion ruling. He has privately expressed concern to aides that the decision could energize Democrats going into the November elections, The New York Times first reported. Indeed, in a Fox News interview after the abortion opinion was released, Trump said that, “in the end, this is something that will work out for everybody.” Asked about his own role in the eventual decision, Trump responded that, “God made the decision.” Trump grew more emboldened as Friday unfolded, raising money off the decision and issuing a statement in which he took full credit for what he called “the biggest WIN for LIFE in a generation.” He said that it and “other decisions that have been announced recently, were only made possible because I delivered everything as promised, including nominating and getting three highly respected and strong Constitutionalists confirmed to the United States Supreme Court. It was my great honor to do so!” At a Saturday night rally, Trump took another victory lap to cheers from the crowd. “Yesterday the court handed down a victory for the Constitution, a victory for the rule of law, and above all, a victory for life,” he told supporters, who broke into a chant of “Thank you Trump!.” While Democrats are hoping the decision will galvanize its voters heading into November’s midterm elections, Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign and White House adviser, agued the decision would be beneficial to Trump’s future political prospects, helping to cement his standing with conservative voters if he runs again. “President Trump has been accepting his share of the credit for the Trump Court’s decision, as he should,” Caputo said “This is yet another confirmation of his transformational presidency. Suburban Republican angst is a progressive myth; real suburban Republicans know their handwringing is performative: This decision simply moves the abortion issue to the states where it has always belonged.” Meanwhile, the Jan. 6 committee and related investigations, including a special grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, looking at whether Trump and others illegally meddled in the 2020 election, continue to loom. As the committee has held a series of public hearings, few Republicans have surfaced to defend Trump’s actions, which increasingly drew comparisons to President Richard Nixon’s actions during the Watergate scandal 50 years ago. The committee last week showed how a defeated Trump tried to use the Justice Department for his own political ends, much the way Nixon fired his top ranks in the “Saturday Night Massacre” before his resignation. John Dean, who served as White House counsel to Nixon and famously testified against Nixon in hearings about the scandal, said that watching the three Trump-era Justice Department officials recount how Trump pressured them to investigate baseless allegations and threaten mass resignations brought him back to conversations he had had with Nixon. “I did fall back and was reminiscent of my March 21 ‘Cancer on the presidency’ conversation with Nixon where I kept pushing and escalating the problems. And he clearly had made up his mind,” he recounted. “Nothing I could say seemed to get through.” He said he hoped the Jan. 6 hearings would help the public “understand the seriousness of what Trump tried to do, that he is a threat to democracy and those who support him are a threat to democracy. Authoritarianism and democracy just don’t work together.” Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

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