July, 15 2024, 11:37am EDT
Caught up in scandal, deep sea mining debate resumes in Kingston
KINGSTON, Jamaica
Governments gather to debate the future of deep sea mining amid growing criticism against the head of the International Seabed Authority (ISA).
Greenpeace is calling delegates in Kingston to prioritise protection, agreeing a pathway to a moratorium.
The International Seabed Authority (ISA)’s 29th session resumes today with a meeting of its Council followed by an Assembly meeting with two crucial agenda items: The Secretary-General election and the debate over a moratorium on seabed mining. The debate on the protection of the deep sea reaches the final agenda after being blocked by pro-mining countries last year.
“The science is clear – there can’t be deep sea mining without environmental cost and the only solution is a moratorium. The more we know about deep-sea mining, the harder it is to justify it. Governments at the ISA must not dance to the tune of the industry and approve rushed regulations for the benefit of a few over the interests of Pacific communities and the opinion of scientists”, said Greenpeace International Stop Deep Sea Mining campaigner Louisa Casson, who is attending the meeting.
During the Council meeting, ISA Member States will continue negotiations on draft regulations for a Mining Code, picking up where States left off in March, amid growing divergent viewpoints between delegations.[1][2]
“It is time for change at the ISA. A third term for Michael Lodge would not only put the oceans under threat but also risk further damaging public trust in the regulator. Mining companies are impatient to get started and mounting evidence indicates that Lodge is overstepping his supposedly-neutral role to align with commercial interests. The ISA must listen to millions of people and the growing number of governments calling for a halt to deep sea mining. It is time to put conservation at the heart of the ISA’s work”, said Louisa Casson.
The election for the Secretary-General of the ISA will take place on the last day of the Assembly (2 August). Wrapped in scandal, British national Michael Lodge is not sponsored by the UK this time around; he will however attempt to secure a third term supported by the Pacific Island of Kiribati. Marine scientist and international diplomat Leticia Carvalho was presented as the alternative candidate by her country, Brazil.
The ISA is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year and has never had a female Secretary-General. Other candidates can be nominated until the last day of the Council meeting, 26 July.
Greenpeace is a global, independent campaigning organization that uses peaceful protest and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.
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University of Oklahoma Removes Teacher Over Failing Grade for Student's Bible-Based Gender Essay
"So if a geology student at the University of Oklahoma says in class the earth is 6,000 years young because that’s what they believe, a geology teacher can’t say squat?" asked one critic.
Dec 23, 2025
A decision from the University of Oklahoma on Monday left some asking whether the research university can still be seen as having "academic standards" after an instructor was removed from teaching duties for giving a failing grade to a student who focused on her own religious beliefs about gender in a paper for a psychology course.
The university released a statement saying the graduate teaching assistant in the course, Mel Curth, had been "arbitrary" in the grading of a paper by student Samantha Fulnecky, who wrote an assigned essay about an article the class read about gender, peer relations, sterotyping, and mental health for the course.
Fulnecky's paper cited the Bible and focused heavily on her beliefs that "God made male and female and made us differently from each other on purpose and for a purpose."
"Women naturally want to do womanly things because God created us with those womanly desires in our hearts. The same goes for men," she wrote in the essay, adding that "society pushing the lie that there are multiple genders and everyone should be whatever they want to be is demonic and severely harms American youth."
Curth, who is transgender, gave Fulnecky a zero for the essay and emphasized in her response that she was "not deducting points because you have certain beliefs," but because the paper "does not answer the questions for the assignment, contradicts itself, heavily uses personal ideology over empirical evidence in a scientific class, and is at times offensive."
"Using your own personal beliefs to argue against the findings of not only this article, but the findings of countless articles across psychology, biology, sociology, etc. is not best practice," Curth wrote.
Another instructor concurred with Curth on the grade, telling Fulnecky that "everyone has different ways in which they see the world, but in an academic course such as this you are being asked to support your ideas with empirical evidence and higher-level reasoning."
On Monday, the university suggested Curth's explanation for the grade was not satisfactory.
"What is there to say other than that the University of Oklahoma has no academic standards?" asked journalist Peter Sterne in response to the university's statement.
One civil rights advocate, Brian Tashman, added that the school's decision opens up numerous questions about how academic papers that focus on a student's religious beliefs will be graded in the future.
"So if a geology student at the University of Oklahoma says in class the earth is 6,000 years young because that’s what they believe, a geology teacher can’t say squat?" asked Tashman. "What if their religion teaches the earth is flat? Or that all of mankind’s problems can be traced back to Xenu?"
Curth had initially been placed on administrative leave earlier this month when Fulnecky filed a religious discrimination complaint with the school.
Fulnecky's allegations drew the attention of the school's chapter of Turning Point USA, the right-wing group that advocates for conservative political views on college and high school campuses. The group is closely aligned with the Trump administration. Vice President JD Vance spoke at Turning Point's AmericaFest last weekend—and used the appearance to tell young conservatives that their movement should not root out antisemitism with "purity tests"—and the assassination of its founder, Charlie Kirk, earlier this year, was followed by the White House's efforts to crack down on what it called left-wing extremism, with President Donald Trump directly blaming the "radical left" for Kirk's killing before a suspect was identified.
While Fulnecky garnered support from the Turning Point chapter, hundreds of her fellow students rallied in support of Curth in recent weeks, chanting, "Protect Our Professors!" at a recent protest.
A lawyer for Curth said Monday that she is "considering all of her legal remedies, including appealing this decision by the university."
“Ms. Curth continues to deny that she engaged in any arbitrary behavior regarding the student’s work," Brittany M. Stewart told the Washington Post.
The university did not release its findings of the religious discrimination investigation it opened into Fulnecky's case.
The school's decision to remove Curth from teaching duties, said author Hemant Mehta, "is what academic cowardice looks like."
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State AGs Sue Vought Over 'Unlawful' Scheme to Bankrupt Consumer Protection Bureau
"By refusing to fund the CFPB, even when legal and appropriate funding mechanisms are available, the Trump administration has sharpened its message that it does not care about affordability."
Dec 23, 2025
A coalition of attorneys general from across the US sued White House budget chief Russell Vought on Monday over his effort to completely starve the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau of funding, a ploy that—if successful—would eliminate a key path of recourse for Americans harmed by corporate abuses.
The lawsuit was filed in a federal court in Portland, Oregon by the top law enforcement officials of 20 states—including New York, California, Maine, and Hawaii—and the District of Columbia. The suit notes that Vought, in his capacity as acting director of the consumer bureau, "has worked tirelessly to terminate the CFPB’s operations by any means necessary—denying plaintiffs access to CFPB resources to which they are statutorily entitled."
The attorneys general specifically challenge Vought's "unlawful" refusal to request CFPB funding from the Federal Reserve. Under the law that established the consumer bureau, the agency receives funding from the Fed rather than congressional appropriations.
Vought has advanced a tortured definition of "earnings" to argue the Fed lacks funds from which the CFPB can draw, leaving him with no choice but to allow the agency he and his far-right allies have long opposed to languish.
The new lawsuit argues that Vought's position violates the Administrative Procedure Act and the US Constitution. If allowed to stand, Vought's refusal to seek CFPB funds would "make it all but certain that the CFPB will run out of funding completely in January 2026."
California Attorney General Bonta said in a statement Monday that the Trump administration’s "latest effort to destroy the CFPB means that hundreds of thousands of consumer complaints will fall on deaf ears."
"By refusing to fund the CFPB, even when legal and appropriate funding mechanisms are available, the Trump administration has sharpened its message that it does not care about affordability, that it does not care to be on the side of families and working Americans," said Bonta.
The CFPB has been a target of big banks and other powerful corporations since its creation in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The agency's success—it has returned more than $21 billion to consumers since 2011—has only intensified efforts by corporate-friendly lawmakers and right-wing bureaucrats to gut it.
Since taking control of the CFPB earlier this year, Vought has effectively shut down bureau operations and signaled a lax approach to enforcement.
US Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), an architect of the CFPB, applauded the state attorneys general for taking legal action against Vought.
“The Trump administration’s latest illegal attempt to shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will hurt families in every state across the country—and now states are fighting back," said Warren. "Today’s new lawsuit underscores how illegally starving the agency of funding would turn off the consumer complaint database that has helped millions of Americans at the end of their rope after getting scammed."
"If courts uphold the law," she added, "they’ll reject this attempt to sideline the financial cop on the beat that has returned more than $21 billion directly to Americans cheated by big banks or giant corporations.”
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Watch 60 Minutes 'Inside CECOT' Segment Blocked by CBS News Chief Bari Weiss
"Watch fast, before Corus gets a call from Paramount Skydance."
Dec 22, 2025
A social media user on Monday shared at least part of a "60 Minutes" segment about a prison in El Salvador—where the Trump administration sent hundreds of migrants—after CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss controversially blocked its release.
"Canadians, behold! (And Americans on a VPN.) The canceled '60 Minutes' story has appeared on the Global TV app—almost certainly by accident," Jason Paris wrote on Bluesky, sharing a link to download a nearly 14-minute video of the segment, which has since been uploaded to various places on the internet.
The segment is titled "Inside CECOT," the Spanish abbreviation for El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center.
Watch:
"Watch fast, before Corus gets a call from Paramount Skydance," Paris added. Corus Entertainment owns Global TV. Paramount and Skydance merged earlier this year, after winning approval from the Trump administration. Weiss, a right-wing pundit, was then appointed to her position.
In a leaked email, "60 Minutes" correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi wrote that "Bari Weiss spiked our story," and "in my view, pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one."
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