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Some of Hollywood's "green" celebrities--Rosario Dawson, Ed Begley, Jr., and a bevy of starlets--thought they were promoting organic school gardens for inner-city kids.
But the Environmental Media Association (EMA) teamed them up with a secretive corporation, Kellogg Garden Products, whose main business is selling Los Angeles sewage sludge products!
Some of Hollywood's "green" celebrities--Rosario Dawson, Ed Begley, Jr., and a bevy of starlets--thought they were promoting organic school gardens for inner-city kids.
But the Environmental Media Association (EMA) teamed them up with a secretive corporation, Kellogg Garden Products, whose main business is selling Los Angeles sewage sludge products!
That company calls its Kellogg brand "quality organics" and deceptively labels bags sold at the garden store as "garden soil" made from "compost"--with no mention of which products are made from industrial and human waste which contains tens of thousands of contaminants such as dioxin, PCBs, medical waste, industrial solvents and chemicals, heavy metals, endocrine disruptors, and flame retardants, among others. That's why federal law bars the use of sewage sludge-based products in organic gardens.
So, when news broke that Kellogg Garden Products provided sewage sludge products to EMA's "organic" school gardens--and its spokesperson even posed with sewage sludge-derived products at the gardens--you'd think EMA and its stars would cut all ties to the sludge industry.
But you'd be wrong. Instead of denouncing the contamination of the kids' gardens and the corporation's effort to "greenwash" its brand through associating with stars devoted to organic produce, EMA is sticking with its corporate donor. So far.
Help us tell Hollywood it's not green to partner with a company that put sewage sludge on school gardens and that sells this stuff without labeling it to say "This product is derived from sewage sludge."
Click Here to Tell Hollywood to Stop Greenwashing Sewage Sludge!
The U.S. Composting Council (USCC) is pitching its annual PR campaign this week, which it calls "International Compost Awareness Week."
The USCC describes itself as a national trade organization. USCC's members include Synagro, the largest processor of sewage sludge in the United States with revenues of over $300 million annually.
The "International Compost Awareness Week" is coordinated by Jeff Ziegenbein of the giant Inland Empire Utility Agency (IEAU) in Southern California. IEUA supplies the sewage sludge "compost" that is resold by companies like Kellogg Garden Products, which supplies the sewage sludge-based products to local Home Depot and Lowe's garden centers.
But you won't find the word "sewage sludge" on the bags of "soil" "soil amendment" "compost" or "fertilzer" that are made from the sludge. Instead, you may find the word "compost" in the ingredients and even the word "organic" or "organics" on the label. Unless the material has the OMRI certification, however, it is not a certified organic product. Organic produce cannot be grown in sewage sludge under federal law.
So, this week, in honor of what really should be called "International Sewage Sludge Awareness Week," let your friends know that they should beware of any garden product that uses the word "compost" or that has a "seal" from the U.S. Compost Council, because it might be from sludge.
We need you to help spread the word on the sludge industry's effort to market sludge as "compost."
Especially as spring unfurls its glorious green leaves in the northern hemisphere, we think you have a right to know if the "compost" or "soil" or "fertilizer" marketed via your garden store is actually made from sewage sludge--industrial and human waste.
We also think you have a right to know if the fruits and vegetables you buy to eat more healthily are actually being grown in sewage sludge.
But, we think you have more than a "right to know."
You have a right to demand a stop to this deceptive practice that exposes you and your familiy to contaminants.
Sewage sludge is not just being used on so-called "conventional" produce without telling you. Sewage sludge products are increasingly being sold as "compost" and greenwashed as "organic" by the industry and its allies.
Through our newly launched project, "The Food Rights Network," we are fighting this outrageous deceit! We need your help to blow the whistle on what may be the biggest toxic scam in the United States and beyond.
Click here to make a tax-deductible donation to fight the sludge scam.
The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is a non-profit investigative reporting group. Our reporting and analysis focus on exposing corporate spin and government propaganda. We publish PRWatch, SourceWatch, and BanksterUSA. Our newest major investigation is available at ALECexposed.org. We accept no funding from for-profit corporations or the government. If you would like to make a financial contribution to support our work, please click here.
"The president has actively harmed the well-being of seniors and broken his promises... to stop inflation, not touch Social Security, and leave Medicaid alone."
US Sen. Kirsten Gillbrand on Wednesday unveiled a report detailing how President Donald Trump's attacks on Social Security, Medicaid, nutrition assistance, and other programs are harming the very senior citizens whose strong support was so instrumental in his reelection.
The report—which was authored by the minority staff of the United States Senate Special Committee on Aging at the direction of Gillibrand (D-NY), its ranking member—states that Trump "was tasked with leading a nation that is rapidly aging and facing critical decisions about the policies and resources needed to support a sizable demographic change."
"The United States must decide how to ensure the independence of its seniors, how to support caregivers, and how to assist entire aging communities," the publication continues. "After one year in office, President Trump has failed at his obligations to America’s seniors. In fact, the president has actively harmed the well-being of seniors and broken his promises to them—such as his promises to stop inflation, not touch Social Security, and leave Medicaid alone."
Trump has FAILED at his obligations to America’s #seniors. The president has actively broken his promises to stop inflation, not to touch #SocialSecurity, and to "leave #Medicaid alone." READ the minority report of the Senate Committee on Aging HERE::: www.gillibrand.senate.gov/wp-content/u...
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— NCPSSM (@ncpssm.bsky.social) March 26, 2026 at 9:56 AM
Gillibrand said in a statement introducing the report that it "shows that instead of fighting for seniors, the president has attacked the very programs that help them stay afloat."
Republicans' so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Trump signed into law last July, ushered in the biggest cuts to Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in US history.
Gillibrand's report "focuses on eight harms that represent the Trump administration’s failure to support seniors during his first year in office."
According to the publication, Trump:
Other Democratic members of Congress including Sens. Patty Murray (Wash.) and Tammy Duckworth (Ill.) and Reps. Melanie Stansbury (NM) and John Larson (NJ) pointed out how Trump administration policies—including those mentioned in this piece and others like the billion-dollar-per-day war on Iran—are harming seniors by spending money that could have been allocated for their benefit or, in the case of Stansbury, by noting GOP attacks on mail-in voting, upon which many seniors rely.
"Seniors today are having a very hard time getting their benefits.Why?Social Security has pushed out 7,700 workers since Trump took office."
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— Social Security Works (@socialsecurityworks.org) March 26, 2026 at 9:03 AM
"'America first' was bullshit," Duckworth said on Bluesky. "With the $200 billion Trump wants for Iran, we could fund a decade of free, universal preschool; provide seniors with Medicare dental, vision, and hearing coverage for three years; build 2 million+ affordable homes. He promised to end wars."
The US president faces pressure to fully retract his "deeply irresponsible threats of acts that would unleash catastrophic harm on millions of civilians."
President Donald Trump on Thursday further delayed any potential US strikes on Iranian power plants to April 6, after nearly a week of critics calling him a "maniacal tyrant" for threatening to commit even more war crimes while attacking Iran with Israel.
"As per Iranian Government request, please let this statement serve to represent that I am pausing the period of Energy Plant destruction by 10 Days to Monday, April 6, 2026, at 8 P.M., Eastern Time. Talks are ongoing and, despite erroneous statements to the contrary by the Fake News Media, and others, they are going very well," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Trump initially said on the platform last Saturday night that "if Iran doesn't FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!"
Jan Vande Putte, a senior nuclear and radiation protection expert with Greenpeace International, said in a Monday statement that "bombing civilian electricity infrastructure is illegal under international law. The electricity grid is essential for hospitals, clean water, desalination, and the operation of nuclear facilities. Cutting it off puts millions of lives at risk."
"A blackout could force the Bushehr nuclear facility into depending completely on backup diesel generators, causing a heightened risk of overheating, which can lead to a Fukushima-like disaster," Vande Putte warned, pointing to the 2011 accident in Japan. "If Trump carries through with this reckless threat to knock out critical infrastructure, it could lead to cascading failures, from blackouts to nuclear danger far beyond national borders, with the potential to escalate into a wider regional crisis."
Amid mounting outrage on Monday, Trump instructed the Pentagon to "postpone any and all military strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for a five-day period, subject to the success of the ongoing meetings and discussions."
Critics continued to sound the alarm. In a Tuesday statement, Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International's senior director of research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns, called on Trump to retract his "dangerous" and "deeply irresponsible threats of acts that would unleash catastrophic harm on millions of civilians."
"By threatening such strikes, the USA is effectively indicating its willingness to plunge an entire country into darkness, and to potentially deprive its people of their human rights to life, water, food, healthcare, and adequate standard of living, and to subject them to severe pain and suffering," she warned.
"The decision to not proceed with such attacks must be based on the USA’s obligations under international humanitarian law to avoid civilian harm—not the outcome of political negotiations," the campaigner argued. "Going through with such attacks would cause devastating long-term consequences and severely undermine the international legal framework designed to protect civilians in wartime."
Guevara-Rosas also called on Iran to retract its threats to retaliate by striking power plants used by the US and Israel in Gulf states, as well as end all unlawful attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and against energy infrastructure and desalination facilities in the region.
"Intentionally attacking civilian infrastructure such as power plants is generally prohibited," she stressed. "Even in the limited cases that they qualify as military targets, a party still cannot attack power plants if this may cause disproportionate harm to civilians. Given that such power plants are essential for meeting the basic needs and livelihoods of tens of millions of civilians, attacking them would be disproportionate and thus unlawful under international humanitarian law, and could amount to a war crime."
As for the Trump administration's negotiations with Iran, the president's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, confirmed Thursday that Pakistani mediators sent the United States' 15-point framework to the Iranian government—which has not fallen over nearly a month of war, despite frequent assassinations.
Citing an Iranian senior political-security official, state-run Press TV reported Wednesday that Iran had rejected Trump's 15-point plan and had a list of five conditions for ending the conflict: a halt to assassinations, concrete mechanisms to ensure that the war is not reimposed, reparations for damages, an end to the war across all fronts and for all resistance groups involved throughout the region, and recognition of Iran sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.
As The Associated Press reported Thursday:
Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in an interview on state TV that his government has not engaged in talks to end the war and does not plan to. He said the US had tried to send messages to Iran through other nations, "but that is not a conversation nor a negotiation."
Egypt is also acting as a go-between, according to Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, who said Thursday that his country sees a desire from both sides "for calm, for the exploration of negotiations."
Throughout the week, fears of Trump pursuing a ground invasion of Iran have also mounted, intenstifying pressure on congressional Democrats to force another vote on a war powers resolution intended to end the president's unauthorized Operation Epic Fury before the upcoming two-week recess.
"This may be the last opportunity for Congress to slam on the brakes before Trump launches a disastrous ground invasion of Iran," Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council, said on social media Thursday evening. "If Democratic leadership fails to force a vote and leaves town for two weeks, they will be complicit in any catastrophic escalation."
"Professional sports teams should be owned and controlled by the fans who love them, not by the multibillionaire oligarchs," Sanders said.
US Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Greg Casar on Tuesday introduced a bill that would require owners of professional sports franchises who are considering relocating to give the communities in which they are located a chance to buy the teams first.
"The American people are sick and tired of billionaires threatening to move the sports teams they own to different states unless they get hundreds of millions in corporate welfare to build new stadiums,” Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement announcing the Home Team Act.
"In my view, professional sports teams should be owned and controlled by the fans who love them, not by the multibillionaire oligarchs who are getting even richer by charging outrageous prices and getting taxpayers to pick up their extravagant costs," he continued.
"You shouldn’t have to be wealthy to take your family to a football game," Sanders added. "You shouldn’t have to fear that a multibillionaire will move your favorite team to a different city if taxpayers refuse to subsidize it. The Home Team Act is a very modest piece of legislation that begins to address this problem. I am proud to support it.”
The Home Team Act is cosponsored by Democratic Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut—which lost the National Hockey League's Hartford Whalers to North Carolina in the 1990s—and five House Democrats.
If passed as written, the bill would:
“Sports in America should be about more than just making billionaire owners even richer," Casar said Thursday.
"Far too many Americans know the pain of losing a team, and far too many communities have had to fork over billions in subsidies just to keep an already profitable team home," he added. "Our bill is about creating a level playing field so leagues work for fans and taxpayers, not just owners.”
Sanders' office acknowledged that "team relocation has plagued communities across America for decades," from the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants moving respectively to Los Angeles and San Francisco in 1958 to the Oakland Athletics—who previously called Philadelphia and Kansas City home—relocating to Sacramento and, eventually, Las Vegas.
Oaklanders have arguably felt the heartbreak of losing their beloved pro sports franchises more than any other US city, having lost the As, the NFL's Raiders, and the Warriors of the National Basketball Association in a five-year span.
"Currently, the Chicago Bears are threatening to leave the city after more than 100 years in response to the state of Indiana offering massive subsidies," Sanders' office said of the storied NFL franchise known for its passionately loyal fan base. "The bill would prevent the Bears from being moved across state lines without being offered for sale."
In his youth, Sanders—who grew up during a time when Jewish players dominated racially segregated professional basketball—was known for his killer mid-range jump shot. As a senator, he has championed professional athletes, especially baseball players, during their collective bargaining struggles against oligarch owners.
Sanders still holds a grudge against the former owner of the beloved Brooklyn Dodgers of his youth who relocated the team to Los Angeles in 1958, when he was a teenager. In 2018, he posted an old Brooklyn adage that "the three worst people in modern history were Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley—but not necessarily in that order."
Serving in the House of Representatives at the time, Sanders even had a bit part in the 1999 comedy “My X-Girlfriend’s Wedding Reception," in which he played Manny Shevitz, a rabbi who argues that the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn was the "worst thing that ever happened."