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For Immediate Release
June, 12 2014, 03:36pm EDT
Contact:
Christina DiPasquale, 202.716.1953, christina@fitzgibbonmedia.com
NARAL Pro-Choice America on Passage of Louisiana Anti-Choice Bill
LOUISIANA
Today, Gov. Bobby Jindal signed an anti-choice bill imposing burdensome admitting privileges on abortion providers throughout the state of Louisiana. It is expected to result in the closure of all but one abortion clinic in the state.
Said NARAL Pro Choice America President Ilyse Hogue:
"When Gov. Jindal heralds his newly enacted law, he is celebrating a measure that corners women into using dangerous back alley procedures, unlicensed practitioners and the black market drugs already seen peddled on the streets of New Orleans. By shuttering nearly all legal providers of abortion care in the state, Gov. Jindal is putting at risk the health and safety not only of Louisiana women, but women from the region whose access to safe medical care in their own states has also been foreclosed.
"It is appalling that such a narrow-minded politician would try to build his conservative bonafides by trampling upon a woman's constitutional rights and using the state government to restrict her freedom to make her own medical decisions. No one should have to look up her rights by zip code. We will continue to work with local groups in New Orleans, the Louisiana women ignored by Gov. Jindal today, and the majority of Americans across the country who agree that politicians should have no authority to legislate against the constituents who elected them and the courts that safeguard our essential rights."
Earlier this week, Gov. Jindal signed H.B.1262 into law, which would require that a woman seeking abortion care be isolated in a private room and forced to read biased information about abortion services. This bill also requires Gov. Jindal to establish a task force to create the biased counseling materials, which would be staffed with (among others) two "crisis pregnancy center" (CPC) counselors.
For over 50 years, Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America) has fought to protect and advance reproductive freedom at the federal and state levels—including access to abortion care, birth control, pregnancy and post-partum care, and paid family leave—for everybody. Reproductive Freedom for All is powered by its more than 4 million members from every state and congressional district in the country, representing the 8 in 10 Americans who support legal abortion.
202.973.3000LATEST NEWS
Trinidadians Sue US for Caribbean Boat Bombing That Killed Relatives 'In Cold Blood'
“People may not simply be gunned down by the government, and the Trump administration’s claims to the contrary risk making America a pariah state," said one attorney in the case.
Jan 27, 2026
Relatives of two Trinidadian men killed during the Trump administration's internationally condemned bombing spree against boats allegedly transporting drugs in the Caribbean Sea filed a wrongful death lawsuit Tuesday against the United States.
Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo, 41, were killed in one of the at least 36 strikes the Trump administration has launched against civilian boats in the southern Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean since last September. According to the lawsuit and the Trump administration's own figures, at least 125 people have been killed in such strikes, which are part of the broader US military aggression targeting Venezuela.
The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts by lawyers from the ACLU, the ACLU of Massachusetts, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School on behalf of Joseph's mother Lenora Burnley and Samaroo's sister Sallycar Korasingh. The complaint alleges that the US violated the Death on the High Seas Act, which allows relatives to sue for wrongful deaths at sea, and the Alien Tort Statute, which empowers foreign citizens to seek legal redress in US federal courts.
According to the lawsuit:
On October 14, 2025, the United States government authorized and launched a missile strike against a boat carrying six people traveling from Venezuela to Trinidad. The strike killed all six, including Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo, two Trinidadian nationals who had been fishing in waters off the Venezuelan coast and working on farms in Venezuela, and who were returning to their homes in Las Cuevas, in nearby Trinidad and Tobago.
The October 14 attack was part of an unprecedented and manifestly unlawful US military campaign of lethal strikes against small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean... The United States has not conducted these strikes pursuant to any congressional authorization. Instead, the government has acted unilaterally. And Trump administration officials, including President Donald J. Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have publicized videos of the boat strikes, boasting about and celebrating their own role in killing defenseless people.
"These premeditated and intentional killings lack any plausible legal justification," the lawsuit asserts. "Thus, they were simply murders, ordered by individuals at the highest levels of government and obeyed by military officers in the chain of command."
Burnley said in a statement announcing the lawsuit: "Chad was a loving and caring son who was always there for me, for his wife and children, and for our whole family. I miss him terribly. We all do."
“We know this lawsuit won’t bring Chad back to us, but we’re trusting God to carry us through this, and we hope that speaking out will help get us some truth and closure," she added.
Korasingh said, “Rishi used to call our family almost every day, and then one day he disappeared, and we never heard from him again."
“Rishi was a hardworking man who paid his debt to society and was just trying to get back on his feet again and to make a decent living in Venezuela to help provide for his family," she added, referring to her brother's imprisonment for taking part in the 2009 murder of a street vendor. "If the US government believed Rishi had done anything wrong, it should have arrested, charged, and detained him, not murdered him. They must be held accountable.”
Trump officials have offered very little concrete evidence to support their claims that the targeted vessels were smuggling drugs. Critics allege that's why attorneys at the US Department of Defense reportedly inquired about whether two survivors of an October bombing in the Caribbean could be sent to the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) maximum security prison in El Salvador, which has been described by rights groups as a "legal black hole."
The survivors were ultimately returned to their home countries of Colombia and Ecuador. Some observers said their repatriation showed the Trump administration knew that trying the survivors in US courts would compel officials to explain their dubious legal justification for the attacks, which many experts say are illegal.
Trump officials also considered sending boat strike survivors to the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, but that would allow their lawyers to sue for habeas corpus—a right granted by the US Supreme Court in its 2008 Boumediene v. Bush decision during the era of extrajudicial imprisonment and torture of terrorism suspects, as well as innocent men and boys, at the facility. The Trump administration has even revived the term “unlawful enemy combatant”—which was used by the Bush administration to categorize people caught up in the War on Terror in a way that skirts the law—to classify boat strike survivors.
The Trinidadian and Tobagonian government has also been criticized for hosting joint military exercises with the United States in the Caribbean Sea amid Trump's boat-bombing campaign.
ACLU senior counsel Brett Max Kaufman said Tuesday that “the Trump administration’s boat strikes are the heinous acts of people who claim they can abuse their power with impunity around the world."
“In seeking justice for the senseless killing of their loved ones, our clients are bravely demanding accountability for their devastating losses and standing up against the administration’s assault on the rule of law," he added.
CCR legal director Baher Azmy argued that “these are lawless killings in cold blood; killings for sport and killings for theater, which is why we need a court of law to proclaim what is true and constrain what is lawless."
"This is a critical step in ensuring accountability, while the individuals responsible may ultimately be answerable criminally for murder and war crimes," Azmy added.
Hafetz said that "using military force to kill Chad and Rishi violates the most elementary principles of international law."
“People may not simply be gunned down by the government," he stressed, "and the Trump administration’s claims to the contrary risk making America a pariah state.”
Jessie Rossman, legal director at the ACLU of Massachusetts, contended that Trump's "lethal boat strikes violate our collective understanding of right and wrong."
“Rishi and Chad wanted only to get home safely to their loved ones; the unconscionable attack on their boat prevented them from doing so," Rossman added. "It is imperative that we hold this administration accountable, both for their families and for the rule of law itself.”
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Lancet Study Warns Plastics Could Cost Humanity 83 Million Years of Healthy Life
"Systemic change is needed 'from the cradle to the grave' of plastic production, use, and disposal," said the lead author, calling for "ambitious action from governments and industry transparency."
Jan 27, 2026
A study published Tuesday in the Lancet Planetary Health highlights how humanity's continued reliance on plastics—which are primarily derived from planet-heating fossil fuels—is expected to harm global health over the next couple of decades.
"Plastics life cycles emit a range of gases and pollutants that contribute to the global burden of disease, including greenhouse gases that drive climate change, air pollutants linked to respiratory illnesses, and hazardous chemicals associated with cancers and other noncommunicable diseases," the study explains.
"These emissions occur across all stages of the plastics value chain: from oil and gas extraction, which provides the feedstocks for more than 90% of global plastics; to polymer production and product manufacturing, global transportation, recycling, and formal or informal waste management and mismanagement; to the gradual degradation of plastics in the environment," the publication continues.
Researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, as well as France's University of Toulouse, modeled various scenarios of plastics production, consumption, and disposal from 2016-40.
"The study is the first of its kind to assess the number of healthy years of life lost ('disability-adjusted life years' or 'DALYS'—a measure of harm) due to greenhouse gases, air pollutants, and toxic chemicals emitted across the life cycle of plastics at a global scale," according to LSHTM.
The team estimated that without any changes in global plastics policies and practices, annual health impacts would soar from 2.1 million DALYs in 2016 to 4.5 million DALYs by 2040—with a total of 83 million healthy years of life lost over the full study period. Under a business-as-usual scenario, 40% of the health harms would be tied to rising temperatures, nearly a third to air pollution, and over a quarter to toxic chemicals.
Because of limited data—particularly on the use stage of plastics and the chemicals they contain—lead author Megan Deeney of LSHTM told Agence France-Presse that "this is undoubtedly a vast underestimate of the total human health impacts."
new paper in @thelancet.com estimating the global health burdens of plasticsI think this is one of the first analyses that quantifies the impacts of plastics across its entire lifecycle (from extraction to waste) and highlights the pretty staggering health effects of our current economic system
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— Rob Ralston (@policyrelevant.bsky.social) January 27, 2026 at 6:54 AM
Still, the researchers were able to offer some insight into the adverse health impacts—thanks to their repurposing of modeling methods typically used to evaluate the environmental footprint of individual products and technologies.
These methods "are an increasingly important tool to tackle sustainability questions at a much larger scale," study co-author and Exeter professor Xiaoyu Yan said in a statement. "Our study shows that this approach can help uncover the massive impacts of plastics on human health throughout the life cycle. We now need urgent action to reduce the impacts of plastics on the environment and ultimately human health."
Deeney stressed that such action can't be restricted to consumers. As she put it, "Our research shows that the adverse health impacts of plastics stretch far beyond the point at which we buy a plastic product or put plastic items in a recycling bin."
In the US alone, government data suggests that just 5% of plastic waste is recycled annually, according to a Greenpeace report published last month. The advocacy group also noted that only a fifth of the 8.8 million tons of the most commonly produced types of plastics are even recyclable.
"Often the blame is put on us as individual consumers of plastics to solve the problem, but while we all have an important role to play in reducing the use of plastics, our analysis shows systemic change is needed 'from the cradle to the grave' of plastic production, use, and disposal," Deeney said Tuesday. "Much more ambitious action from governments and industry transparency is needed to curb this growing global plastics public health crisis."
The lead author said that the most effective measure is slashing the production of "unnecessary" plastic. She also pointed out that lack of data doesn't just impact studies like this one: "Industry nondisclosure and inconsistent reporting of plastics' chemical composition is severely limiting the ability of life cycle assessments (LCAs) to inform effective policy to protect humans, ecosystems, and the environment."
The study comes after the latest round of global plastics treaty negotiations stalled in August—which environmentalists called an "abject failure" that should be blamed on the Trump administration, Saudi Arabia, and other major governments opposed to curbing production.
"The inability to reach an agreement in Geneva must be a wake-up call for the world: Ending plastic pollution means confronting fossil fuel interests head-on," Greenpeace USA's Graham Forbes said at the time. "The vast majority of governments want a strong agreement, yet a handful of bad actors were allowed to use process to drive such ambition into the ground."
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'We Know You Live Right Here': Federal Agents Threaten Legal Observers in Maine
"It's hard to believe that this is our country... that people driving home from their jobs live in that much terror."
Jan 27, 2026
Legal observers in Maine who have been documenting the actions of federal immigration officials say they've been receiving threats from masked agents at their own homes.
In a report published last week by the Portland Press Herald, activists who have been tracking the agents described encounters in which they have been threatened with arrests for conducting activities that courts have repeatedly ruled are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
Liz Eisele McLellan, a resident of Westbrook, told the Press Herald that she opened her door one evening and found a masked agent standing there with at least three vehicles behind him barricading her street.
According to McLellan, the agent told her "this is a warning" and then added, "We know you live right here.”
Bob Peck, a retiree who lives in South Portland, filmed an encounter with a masked federal agent who threatened him with arrest if he continued following them to document their actions.
In a video recorded by Peck and posted on social media, the unidentified agent can be seen accusing Peck of "impeding" federal law enforcement by following them. Peck countered, however, that merely trailing them in his car was not impeding their ability to track and apprehend suspects.
“If you keep doing it, we’ll pull you back out and arrest you," the agent told him.
In an interview with the Press Herald, Peck said he interpreted this action as a threat.
Despite the threats from immigration agents, Maine residents so far appear undeterred in their determination to fight back against the actions of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Maine Public reported on Monday that a group of volunteers has been gathering every day at American Roots, a Westbrook-based apparel manufacturer that employs dozens of immigrant workers, to stand watch for ICE and CBP agents.
Although American Roots says that it has ensured all of its workers have documented legal status, many community members have still expressed concern about agents grabbing them as they arrive at or exit from their jobs.
"We are forming a barrier," Rabbi Rachel Simmons, one of the organizers of the watch sessions, told Maine Public. "We are standing between the workers who are being targeted and those who want to do them harm."
Reverend Jane Field, executive director of the Maine Council of Churches, told Maine Public that she assembled a "God squad" that swooped in when American Roots put out a notice asking for help.
However, Field also said that she and her team cannot look after the factory's workers all the time, and that she worries about them when they drive home at the end of the day.
"I mean, it's hard to believe that this is our country, that that you have to say that, that people driving home from their jobs live in that much terror," she said.
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that similar watch efforts have sprung up at schools in Portland, where many immigrant students have been staying home to avoid being apprehended by ICE and CBP.
Katie Mears, a parent who has helped organize a watch at a local elementary school, said her goal is to help families whose kids "no longer feel safe coming to school."
"If we can use our privilege in a useful way, and stand out in the cold for an hour or two to make people feel safer," said Mears, "it’s 1,000% worth it."
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