Ride-share company Uber and on-demand meal delivery service Postmates have sued to block a broad new California law aimed at giving wage and benefit protections to people who work as independent contractors. 
 
The lawsuit filed Monday in federal court in Los Angeles argues that the law set to take effect Wednesday violates federal and state constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process. 
 
Uber said it would try to link the lawsuit to another legal challenge filed in mid-December by associations representing freelance writers and photographers. 
 
The California Trucking Association filed the first challenge to the law in November on behalf of independent truckers. 
 
The law creates the nation’s strictest test by which workers must be considered employees and it could set a precedent for other states. 

Worker statements

The latest challenge includes two independent workers who wrote about their concerns with the new law. 
 
“This has thrown my life and the lives of more than a hundred thousand drivers into uncertainty,” ride-share driver Lydia Olson wrote in a Facebook post cited by Uber. 
 
Postmates driver Miguel Perez called on-demand work “a blessing” in a letter distributed by Uber. He said he used to drive a truck for 14 hours at a time, often overnight. 
 
“Sometimes, when I was behind the wheel, with an endless shift stretching out ahead of me like the open road, I daydreamed about a different kind of job — a job where I could choose when, where and how much I worked and still make enough money to feed my family,” he wrote. 
 
The lawsuit contends that the law exempts some industries but includes ride-share and delivery companies without a rational basis for distinguishing between them. It alleges that the law also infringes on workers’ rights to choose how they make a living and could void their existing contracts. 
 
Democratic Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez of San Diego countered that she wrote the law to extend employee rights to more than a million California workers who lack benefits, including a minimum wage, mileage reimbursements, paid sick leave, medical coverage and disability pay for on-the-job injuries. 

Previous Uber efforts
 
She noted that Uber had previously sought an exemption when lawmakers were crafting the law, then said it would defend its existing labor model from legal challenges. It joined Lyft and DoorDash in a vow to each spend $30 million to overturn the law at the ballot box in 2020 if they didn’t win concessions from lawmakers next year. 
 
“The one clear thing we know about Uber is they will do anything to try to exempt themselves from state regulations that make us all safer and their driver employees self-sufficient,” Gonzalez said in a statement. “In the meantime, Uber chief executives will continue to become billionaires while too many of their drivers are forced to sleep in their cars.” 
 
The new law was a response to a legal ruling last year by the California Supreme Court regarding workers at the delivery company Dynamex. 

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From: MeNeedIt

The United States has designated Asaib Ahl Al-Haq as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, saying the Iraqi militia is a proxy for Iran. 
 
A U.S. State Department statement issued Friday also said two of the group’s leaders were being sanctioned. 
 
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the militia and its leaders “violent proxies of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” 
 
The State Department said Asaib Ahl Al-Haq, also known as the League of the Righteous, is backed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, which has been similarly designated by the United States. 
 
The State Department said it also designated Qais al-Khazali, leader of Asaib Ahl Al-Haq, and his brother Laith al-Khazali, another leader of the group, as specially designated global terrorists. 
 
Such designations will freeze the U.S.-related assets of the group and the two leaders, generally ban Americans from doing business with them and make it a crime to provide support or resources to the militia. 
 
The move came hours after a U.S. drone strike killed the powerful commander of the elite Quds Force in an attack in Baghdad, igniting outrage in Iran. 
 
Qassem Soleimani was killed in an attack on two vehicles at Baghdad International Airport early Friday. 
 
Tehran has vast influence and supports many Shiite militias based in neighboring Iraq. Baghdad has attempted to balance its relations between the United States and Iran, both of which provide crucial military and financial support to the struggling government. 
 
Reuters contributed to this report. 

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From: MeNeedIt

The U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State said Saturday it did not conduct any airstrikes near Camp Taji north of Baghdad.

Iraq’s military also denied Saturday that an airstrike had taken place on a medical convoy in Taji, north of Baghdad.

Earlier Saturday, Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces umbrella grouping of paramilitary groups said airstrikes near camp Taji had killed six people and critically wounded three. Iraqi state television had said they were U.S. airstrikes.

“FACT: the coalition … did not conduct airstrikes near Camp Taji (north of Baghdad) in recent days,” a spokesman said on twitter.

The PMF said the attacks hit a convoy of medics, not senior leaders as reported in some media. However, the PMF later issued another statement saying that no medical convoys were targeted in Taji.

A U.S. airstrike on Baghdad airport Friday killed Qassem Soleimani, Tehran’s most prominent military commander and the architect of its growing influence in the Middle East, and the leader of Iraq’s PMF Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

The overnight attack, authorized by U.S. President Donald Trump, was a major escalation in a “shadow war” in the Middle East between Iran and the United States and American allies, principally Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The PMF are holding an elaborate funeral procession for both men and others who died in the same airstrike starting in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, moving toward the Shiite holy city of Kerbala and ending in the Shiite holy city of Najaf.

Thousands gathered in Baghdad ahead of the start of the procession early Saturday morning, some waving Iraqi and militia flags.

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From: MeNeedIt

The death toll from floods in Indonesia’s capital rose to 47 Saturday as rescuers found more bodies amid receding floodwaters, disaster officials said.

Monsoon rains and rising rivers submerged a dozen districts in greater Jakarta and caused landslides in the Bogor and Depok districts on the city’s outskirts as well as in neighboring Lebak, where a dozen people were buried.

National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Agus Wibowo said the fatalities also included those who had drowned or been electrocuted since rivers broke their banks early Wednesday after torrential rains throughout New Year’s Eve. Three elderly people died of hypothermia.

It was the worst flooding since 2007, when 80 people were killed when Jakarta was inundated by monsoon rains for 10 days.

Poor parts of city hit hardest

Four days after the region of 30 million people was struck by flashfloods, waters have receded in many middle-class districts, but conditions remained grim in narrow riverside alleys where the city’s poor live.

At the peak of the flooding, about 397,000 people sought refuge in shelters across the greater metropolitan area as floodwaters reached up to 6 meters (19 feet) in some places, Wibowo said. Data released by his agency showed about 173,000 people were still unable to return home, mostly in the hardest-hit area of Bekasi.

More than 152,000 people remain crammed into 98 emergency shelters with sufficient supplies in Jakarta’s satellite city of Bekasi, where rivers burst their banks. Much of the city was still submerged in muddy waters up to 2 meters (6.5 feet) high, according to the agency.

Those returning to their homes found streets covered in mud and debris. Cars that had been parked in driveways were swept away, landing upside down in parks or piled up in narrow alleys. Sidewalks were strewn with sandals, pots and pans and old photographs. Authorities took advantage of the receding waters to clear away mud and remove piles of wet garbage from the streets.

Electricity was restored to tens of thousands of residences and businesses.

Jakarta’s Halim Perdanakusuma domestic airport reopened Thursday; its runway had been submerged.

Rain, flooding threat remains

The head of the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency Dwikorita Karnawati said more downpours were forecast for the capital in coming days and the potential for extreme rainfall will continue until next month across Indonesia.

The government Friday kicked off cloud seeding in an attempt to divert rain clouds from reaching greater Jakarta. Authorities warned that more flooding was possible until the rainy season ends in April.

The flooding has highlighted Indonesia’s infrastructure problems.

Jakarta is home to 10 million people, or 30 million including those in its greater metropolitan area. It is prone to earthquakes and flooding and is rapidly sinking because of uncontrolled extraction of ground water. Congestion is also estimated to cost the economy $6.5 billion a year.

 President Joko Widodo announced in August that the capital will move to a site in sparsely populated East Kalimantan province on Borneo island, known for rainforests and orangutans.

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From: MeNeedIt

Global powers warned Friday that the world has become a more dangerous place and urged restraint after the U.S. assassinated Iran’s top general, although Britain and Germany also suggested that Iran shared blame for provoking the targeted killing that dramatically ratcheted up tensions in the Mideast. 

China, Russia and France, all permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, took a dim view of the U.S. airstrike near Baghdad’s airport early Friday that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani. 

The White House said in a tweet that Soleimani, who led the elite Quds Force responsible for Iran’s foreign campaigns, “was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.”

“We are waking up in a more dangerous world. Military escalation is always dangerous,” France’s deputy minister for foreign affairs, Amelie de Montchalin told RTL radio. “When such actions, such operations, take place, we see that escalation is underway.”

Russia likewise characterized the deadly U.S. strike as “fraught with serious consequences.” A Foreign Ministry statement warned that “such actions don’t help resolve complicated problems in the Middle East, but instead lead to a new round of escalating tensions.” 

China described itself as “highly concerned.”

“Peace in the Middle East and the Gulf region should be preserved,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said. “We urge all parties concerned, especially the United States, to maintain calm and restraint and avoid further escalation of tensions.”

But while echoing the concerns of other Security Council members about spiraling tensions, Britain and Germany broke ranks, voicing qualified understanding for the U.S. position. 

German government spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer described the U.S. strike as “a reaction to a whole series of military provocations for which Iran bears responsibility,” pointing to attacks on tankers and a Saudi oil facility, among other events.

“We are at a dangerous escalation point and what matters now is contributing with prudence and restraint to de-escalation,” she said. Germany currently sits on the U.N. Security Council but is not a permanent member. 

The British foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said “we have always recognized the aggressive threat posed by the Iranian Quds force led by Qasem Soleimani.” 

“Following his death, we urge all parties to de-escalate,” he said. “Further conflict is in none of our interests.” 

Montchalin, the French minister, indicated urgent reconciliation efforts are being launched behind the scenes. French President Emmanuel Macron and his foreign minister were reaching out to “all the actors in the region,” she said. 

In the Mideast, the strike provoked waves of shock, fury and fears of worse to come.

Iraq’s most powerful Shiite religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said in a speech during Friday prayers that the country must brace for “very difficult times.” 

In Iran, a hard-line adviser to the country’s supreme leader who led Friday prayers in Tehran likened U.S. troops in Iraq to “insidious beasts” and said they should be swept from the region.

 “I am telling Americans, especially Trump, we will take a revenge that will change their daylight into to a nighttime darkness,” said the cleric, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami.

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From: MeNeedIt

Haben Girma, a lawyer born deaf and blind, has advocated for accessibility from her hometown of Oakland, California, all the way to the White House. Now, she has written a book about her journey.

In a phone interview with VOA, Girma read questions on a braille keyboard after they were typed out by an interpreter. She said her parents, immigrants from Ethiopia and Eritrea, refused to listen to those who said she could not do certain things.

“One of the biggest challenges is people’s attitudes. People would say to my parents, oh, poor thing, she’ll never go to school, she’ll never get a job. And that was really hard for my parents to hear. It’s hard for me to hear, too,” she said. “Kids with disabilities want to hear that they’ll be successful. But society often tells us, from very young, that we won’t do anything.”

Girma said she was fortunate to grow up in California’s Bay Area, where disability rights are well-established and numerous resources exist. She went to public schools where braille books, typewriters, assistive software and a special resource room were available. Still, she encountered challenges. In middle school, she discovered she was failing a class because she could not hear assignments the teacher was making from the back of the classroom. Later, at Lewis Clark College in Portland, Oregon, she could not read the menu at the school cafeteria because there was no braille version available.

The challenges made her want to make a difference for others. In 2013, Girma became the first deaf and blind student to graduate from Harvard Law School.

“There’s a lot of discrimination against people with disabilities. And I wanted to help change that,” she said. “Getting a law degree, building up your advocacy skills is a great way to build up the tools to help other people.”

Taking Scribd to court

In 2014, Girma put her legal skills to use when she sued Scribd, an online publishing platform and book subscription service, for discrimination because they weren’t making texts accessible to the blind. Girma argued the service wasn’t complying with the law under the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination against those with disabilities. The company claimed that because it operates online and doesn’t provide services in a physical space, the ADA laws didn’t apply.

Ultimately, a U.S. district court ruled that the ADA applies to digital services and online businesses must make their services accessible to all.

“That was a really exciting victory to help blind people get access to more books. I love reading. Books are a powerful way to learn more about our world,” she told VOA. “I want to help make sure more people had books, and also for me, because when we remove barriers that also helps those of us with disabilities who are also advocates.”

The following year Girma was invited to the White House by then-President Barack Obama to celebrate the ADA’s 25th anniversary.

She has traveled the world, meeting with local disability advocates and sharing her story. This included a trip to Ethiopia in 2015 where she met people pushing for more access to schooling and to improve the portrayal of deaf and blind people on television and radio. She said she tells organizations and businesses to stop looking at disability access as a charity and start looking at it as an opportunity.

“When you do disability accessibility you’re not doing charity. You’re giving powerful work that helps your organization grow. It helps you reach more customers and it drives revenue,” she said. “So I want all organizations including organizations in Africa to stop treating disability as a charity and treat it as an important part of your organization.”

She hopes her book, Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law, helps readers identify what she calls “ableism,” the assumption that disabled people are inferior.

“We are not inferior. But society often sends this message. Through the stories in the book, funny stories, moving stories, I teach people to identify ableism to spot it when it’s happening and then to take steps to remove ableism,” she said.

She also hopes to inspire young people who may become the next generation of disability advocates and boundary breakers.

“I wanted kids to have more role models. You can be different. You can have something considered a severe disability and still succeed,” she said.

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From: MeNeedIt

O-Town is an American boy band formed from the first season of the MTV-produced reality television series “Making the Band in 2000.”  They released their first album in years this summer, “The O.T.W.N. Album” after reuniting in 2014 after a 10-year hiatus.

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From: MeNeedIt

The U.S. airstrike that killed a prominent Iranian general in Baghdad raises tensions even higher between Tehran and Washington, after months of trading attacks and threats across the wider Middle East. 

How Iran will respond remains in question as well, though its supreme leader warned that a “harsh retaliation is waiting” for those who killed Revolutionary Guard Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani early Friday morning. That could include anything, from challenging U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf, firing ballistic missiles or deploying the asymmetrical proxy forces Iran has cultivated to cover for its long-sanctioned conventional forces. 

Soleimani’s death is the latest in a series of escalating incidents traces back to President Donald Trump’s decision in 2018 to unilaterally withdraw America from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers. However, overall enmity between Iran and the U.S. date back to its 1979 Islamic Revolution, as well as a 1953 U.S.-backed coup in Tehran that cemented the power of its ruling shah over an elected prime minister. 

Here’s where things stand now:

THE GENERAL’S KILLING

A U.S. airstrike near Baghdad’s international airport killed Soleimani, 62, as well as Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iran-backed militias in Iraq known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, and five others. The Defense Department said it killed Soleimani because he “was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.” It also accused Soleimani of approving the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad earlier this week. Soleimani led the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard’s Quds, or Jerusalem, Force.  That included overseeing forces fighting in Syria, as well as militias that targeted U.S. forces in Iraq with deadly bomb attacks after the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. 

MONTHS OF ATTACKS

Citing an unspecified threat from Iran, the White House in May ordered a U.S. aircraft carrier to rush to the Persian Gulf. Soon after, explosions the U.S. blames on Iranian-laid mines targeting oil tankers near the crucial Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of all oil passes. Iran denied being involved, though it did seize oil tankers in response to one of its tankers being seized off Gibraltar. Iran also shot down a U.S. military surveillance drone. Trump pulled back from retaliating for the attack. Meanwhile, attacks on Saudi Arabia’s energy industry escalated to a missile-and-drone strike in September temporarily halving its oil production. Israel meanwhile has repeatedly struck Iran-linked targets in Syria in recent years and has warned against any permanent Iranian presence on the frontier. The attacks culminated with American airstrikes hitting Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and those  militiamen attacking the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

IRAN’S FALTERING NUCLEAR DEAL

The attacks came after Trump’s decision in May 2018 to withdraw America from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers. The 2015 accord saw Iran agree to limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. Trump re-imposed American sanctions and levied even harsher ones, crippling its crucial oil industry. Iran initially proposed a policy called “strategic patience,” hoping to wait Trump out. But as Europe largely hasn’t been able to offer Tehran  a way around American sanctions, Iran has begun taking steps away from the deal. That has included breaking enrichment, stockpile and centrifuge limitations, as well as restarting its program at an underground facility. Tehran appears poised to take a new step away from the deal beginning from Sunday.

IRAN’S MEANS OF RETALIATION

Iran’s conventional military force is limited. The backbone of its air power remains pre-revolution American F-4s, F-5s and F-14s, with a mix of other Soviet, French and aging aircraft. That fleet is outgunned by the modern U.S.-supplied fighter jets flown by Israel and the Gulf Arab states. To counter that, Iran has put much of its money toward developing a ballistic missile program operated by the Guard. Iran could fall back on its regional militant allies or proxies to launch an attack, like Iraqi militiamen, Lebanon’s Hezbollah or Yemen’s Houthi rebels. The U.S. has blamed car bombs and kidnappings never claimed by Iran on Tehran as well. The Guard also routinely harasses U.S. Navy vessels in Persian Gulf and surrounding waterways, while Iran has surface-to-sea missile batteries along its coast as well. 

AMERICA’S BROAD MIDEAST PRESENCE

The Persian Gulf hosts a series of major American military installations. The U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, which oversees the region, is based in Bahrain, an island nation off the coast of Saudi Arabia that is home to over 7,000 American troops. Kuwait hosts over 13,000 American troops and the U.S. Army’s Central forward headquarters. Dubai in the United Arab Emirates is the largest port of call for the U.S. Navy outside of America. The UAE hosts 5,000 U.S. military personnel, many at Abu Dhabi’s Al-Dhafra Air Base, where American drones and advanced F-35 jetfighters are stationed. The forward headquarters of the U.S. military’s Central Command is at Qatar’s sprawling Al-Udeid Air Base, home to some 10,000 American troops. In Oman, the sultanate allows thousands of overflights and hundreds of landings a year, while also granting access to ports and its bases. Meanwhile, U.S. forces are in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. 

A HISTORY OF ENMITY

Tensions between Iran and the U.S. trace back decades. For Iranians, they point to the 1953 CIA-backed coup that toppled Mohammad Mosaddegh and cemented the power of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Pahlavi served as a key U.S. ally for decades after, buying billions of dollars of weapons and allowing America to spy on the Soviet Union from his country. Over time, however, he eliminated all political opposition and seized all power in the country. By 1979, the fatally ill shah fled the country. The 1979 Islamic Revolution and the hostage crisis soon followed, a history the two countries remain captive to until today.

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From: MeNeedIt

Protests over constant blackouts in southern Nigeria left a regional capital in darkness for a 10th day Thursday, after angry youths shut down the local electricity supplier.

Members of the Ijaw Youths Council occupied the offices of the main power firm in the city of Yenagoa in Bayelsa state last month to demonstrate against continual outages.

The protest forced the Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company to shut down operations and saw power cut off to the city of some 400,000 people and surrounding areas.

Oil-rich Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, is plagued by widespread power outages that leave homes without electricity for long stretches and businesses unable to work.

The crippling power problems are seen as a major impediment to economic development in a country that has more people living in extreme poverty than anywhere else on the planet.

Queues snaked out of petrol stations in Yenagoa as local residents scrambled to buy fuel for generators.

The power company insisted it was struggling with a shortfall due to unpaid bills totaling some $45 million (40 million euros).

Nigeria has the potential to produce some 13,000 megawatts of power from its current infrastructure but on most days can only reach around 4,000 megawatts.

The central government has pledged to overhaul the electricity system and struck an agreement with German giant Siemens last year aimed at tripling reliable supplies by 2023.
 

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From: MeNeedIt

For three decades, paleontologists the world over have been split over a provocative finding: Did a dwarf species of Tyrannosaurus rex really once exist?

In 1988, paleontologist Robert Bakker and his colleagues at the Cleveland (Ohio) Museum of Natural History reclassified a specimen first discovered in 1942 and displayed at the museum.

It was, they said, the first known member of a small new species they baptized as the Nanotyrannus.

Then, in 2001, another team discovered the nearly complete skeleton of a small Tyrannosaurus near the town of Ekalaka in Montana, in the rich and intensively studied fossil formation known as Hell Creek.

They named the creature — barely bigger than a draft horse — Jane and soon classified it as a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex.

But a minority of specialists continued to insist that it was part of the newly classified Nanotyrannus species. They pointed to the morphology of its skull and bones, which they said differed from T-rex adults.

Answers in the bones

In a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, researchers led by Holly Woodward of Oklahoma State University performed a microscopic analysis on samples from the interior of Jane’s tibia and femur bones, as well as from a less complete set of bones from an animal dubbed Petey.  

This technique, known as paleohistology, confirmed that the two were immature individuals — not adults, the scientists said.

By extension, the study’s authors said, the existence of the Nanotyrannus seems very unlikely.

“The really cool thing about fossil bones is that a whole bone fossilizes even down to the microscopic size,” Woodward told AFP.

“We can infer growth rate, age (and) maturity level.”

The researchers took extremely fine slices from the bone samples — so thin that light could pass through them — and then studied them under powerful microscopes.

The size of the blood vessel openings revealed that the two dinosaurs were still in a phase of rapid growth at the time of death. Had they been adults, this vascularization would have been less prominent.

Only a half-dozen specimens

The team was also able to count the growth rings in each animal’s bones, much as one can do to determine the age of a tree: 13 years for Jane, and 15 for Petey.

The study adds to scientists’ still limited knowledge of the 20-year period between a dinosaur’s hatching and its adulthood.

Jane, who weighed only one ton, died before reaching the phase of exponentially rapid growth that normally would have brought her to an adult weight of just under 10 tons.  

“Everyone loves T-rex, but we don’t really know much about how it grew up,” Woodward said. “It’s probably the most famous dinosaur in the world, and we mostly just have really large skeletons of it.”

That is partly due to the obsession of collectors and the public with finding and displaying the most enormous T-rex skeletons possible — unearthed sometimes to the detriment of smaller specimens.

Unfortunately, Woodward said, only five to seven fossils of young T-rex dinosaurs are known to exist in the world, and some of those are in private collections not accessible to researchers.

…

From: MeNeedIt

U.S. health officials will ban most flavored e-cigarettes popular with underage teenagers, but with major exceptions that benefit vaping manufacturers, retailers and adults who use the nicotine-emitting devices.

The Trump administration announced Thursday that it will prohibit fruit, candy, mint and dessert flavors from small, cartridge-based e-cigarettes that are popular with high school students. But menthol and tobacco-flavored e-cigarettes will be allowed to remain on the market.

The flavor ban will also entirely exempt large, tank-based vaping devices, which are primarily sold in vape shops that cater to adult smokers.

Together, the two exemptions represent a significant retreat from President Donald Trump’s original plan announced four months ago, which would have banned all vaping flavors, including menthol, from all types of e-cigarettes. The new policy will preserve a significant portion of the multibillion-dollar vaping market. And the changes are likely to please both the largest e-cigarette manufacturer, Juul Labs, and thousands of vape shop owners who sell the tank-based systems, which allow users to mix customized flavors.

E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that typically heat a flavored nicotine solution into an inhalable aerosol. They have been pitched to adults as a less-harmful alternative to traditional cigarettes, but there is limited data on their ability to help smokers quit.

The Food and Drug Administration has struggled for years to find the appropriate approach to regulating vaping. Under current law, all e-cigarettes are supposed to undergo an FDA review beginning in May. Only those that can demonstrate a benefit for U.S. public health will be permitted to stay on the market.

“We have to protect our families,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday, ahead of the announcement. “At the same time, it’s a big industry. We want to protect the industry.”

The flavor ban applies to e-cigarettes that use pre-filled nicotine cartridges mainly sold at gas stations and convenience stores. Juul is the biggest player in that market, but it previously pulled all of its flavors except menthol and tobacco after coming under intense political scrutiny. Many smaller manufacturers continue to sell sweet, fruity flavors like “grape slushie,” “strawberry cotton candy” and “sea salt blueberry.”

The flavor restrictions won’t affect the larger specialty devices sold at vape shops, which typically don’t admit customers under 21. These tank-based systems allow users to fill the device with the flavor of their choice. Sales of these devices represent an estimated 40% of the U.S. vaping business, with sales across some 15,000 to 19,000 shops.

Still, the new policy represents the federal government’s biggest step yet to combat a surge in teen vaping that officials fear is hooking a generation of young people on nicotine. In the latest government survey, more than 1 in 4 high school students reported using e-cigarettes in the previous month, despite federal law banning sales to those under 18. Late last month Trump signed a law raising the minimum age to purchase all tobacco and vaping products from 18 to 21 nationwide.

“We will not stand idly by as this crisis among America’s youth grows and evolves, and we will continue monitoring the situation and take further actions as necessary,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement. Companies that don’t stop making and distributing the restricted products within 30 days risk penalties by the FDA, including fines and seizures.

Incoming FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said the government’s approach attempts to balance the problem of underage vaping with “the potential role that e-cigarettes may play in helping adult smokers transition completely away” from regular cigarettes.

But the decision to permit menthol and exempt tank-based vapes was immediately condemned by anti-tobacco advocates who have lobbied the Trump administration to follow through on its initial pledge to ban all flavors except tobacco.

“Only the elimination of all flavored e-cigarettes can end the worsening youth e-cigarette epidemic and stop e-cigarette companies from luring and addicting kids with flavored products,” said Matthew Myers, of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, in a statement.

Myers’ group and others have long opposed all flavors in tobacco products, including menthol in traditional cigarettes. They argue that teenagers who vape will simply shift to using menthol if it remains on the market.

When Trump officials first sketched out their plans at a White House event in September they specifically said menthol would be banned. But that effort stalled after vaping proponents and lobbyists pushed back and White House advisers told Trump that a total flavor ban could cost him votes.

Industry groups including the Vapor Technology Association launched an aggressive social media campaign — (hash)IVapeIVote — contending that the plan would force the closure of vaping shops, eliminating jobs and sending users of electronic cigarettes back to traditional smokes.

Trump’s initial announcement came amid an outbreak of unexplained lung illnesses tied to vaping. But since then health officials have tied the vast majority of the cases to a contaminating filler added to illicit THC vaping liquids. THC is the chemical in marijuana that makes users feel high. Makers of legal nicotine-based vaping products have tried to distance themselves from the problem.

Trump suggested ahead of the announcement that the flavor restrictions might be temporary.

“Hopefully, if everything’s safe, they’re going to be going very quickly back onto the market,” he told reporters at his Mar-a-

…

From: MeNeedIt

Israel’s Supreme Court on Thursday declined to weigh in on whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can return to his post now that he has been indicted, postponing any ruling on his political future until after March elections.

A three-judge panel said the question of whether an indicted member of parliament can be tapped to form a government is important, but that it would be premature to decide the issue before the vote.

The court had been widely expected to delay any ruling. Judging Netanyahu ineligible would have triggered a major political crisis and exacerbated already strained ties between the government and the judiciary.

Netanyahu was indicted in November on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Israeli Cabinet members are required to resign if indicted, but the rule does not apply to the prime minister. He has continued serving as caretaker prime minister after failing to form a government after unprecedented back-to-back elections last year.

Netanyahu has dismissed the corruption cases against him as an “attempted coup” and warned against any judicial intervention, saying only the voters can choose the country’s leader.

There are no restrictions on Netanyahu running in the March 2 election, the third in less than a year. But the petition, filed by good government groups, contended that having a prime minister under indictment would constitute a conflict of interest. Others have argued that voters have the right to know before the election if Netanyahu is eligible to be prime minister.

The court said that the election campaign period is “a realm of uncertainty” and that it remains to be seen who the president will select to form a government after the March 2 vote. The judges said that in light of the “most sensitive and complicated period the state of Israel is in at this time,” it decided to “act with restraint and moderation” and dismiss the petition for the time being.

The court’s decision came the day after Netanyahu announced that he would seek immunity from prosecution, effectively delaying any trial until after a new government is formed.

Netanyahu hopes to win big in March and assemble a 61-seat majority in favor of immunity. But polls predict another split decision that would prolong the country’s political limbo.

September’s election left Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party in a virtual tie with the centrist Blue and White, led by former army chief of staff Benny Gantz. Neither was able to assemble a majority with its natural allies, and efforts to form a unity government collapsed in large part because of Netanyahu’s legal woes.

Netanyahu, who was re-elected leader of the ruling Likud party last week, has long accused judicial and law enforcement officials of trying to drive him from office. His allies have issued stern warnings against what they call an “activist” court overstepping its authority and a few dozen pro-Netanyahu protesters convened outside the court in Jerusalem.

Netanyahu has been in power for more than a decade and is Israel’s longest-serving leader. He is also Israel’s first sitting prime minister to be charged with a crime. His predecessor, Ehud Olmert, was forced to resign a decade ago ahead of a corruption indictment that later sent him to prison for 16 months.

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From: MeNeedIt