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Tanya Brooks, Senior Communications Specialist at Greenpeace USA, tbrooks@greenpeace.org
WASHINGTON - Today, Jane Fonda, Jason Momoa, Joaquin Phoenix, Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern, and other actors and activists renowned for their environmental advocacy joined Greenpeace USA and its Executive Director, Ebony Twilley Martin, to issue an open letter to President Biden calling for him to strengthen the United States’ position on the Global Plastics Treaty. The letter, which comes ahead of the negotiations for the treaty that will resume in Paris from May 29 to June 2, urges the Biden Administration to support a legally binding treaty that caps and phases down plastic production, provides a just transition for workers in the plastics sectors, and protects frontline communities.
The letter states: “The decision you make on this critical issue will help define your legacy – will you be the President who helped put an end to the plastic pollution crisis or someone who let it spiral further out of control? We’re calling on you to do the right thing.”
The full letter text and list of signatories are available here.
Lisa Ramsden, Greenpeace USA Senior Plastics Campaigner, said: “Many environmental groups and frontline communities are disappointed with the US’ current position on the treaty, as it does not call for a cap on plastic production and instead focuses on recycling. Recycling will never solve the plastic waste problem. We must stop plastic waste at its source, and we’re calling on President Biden to put aside fossil fuel and plastics industry interests and lead us on the path that prioritizes human health, biodiversity, and our communities.”
On Monday, Greenpeace USA projected messages near the White House advocating for a strong Treaty and challenging the President to choose between “People or Plastic?”
Photos of the projections are available here.
Plastics, 99% of which are made from fossil fuels, are polluting and harmful at every stage of their life cycle, from extraction as fossil fuel to disposal. All over the world, marginalized communities face disproportionate health impacts from the plastics industry, including higher rates of cancer, asthma, and adverse birth outcomes, through petrochemical facilities, incinerators, landfills, polluted waterways, and the burning of illegally imported plastic. Many of these communities also bear the worst impact of the plastic-fueled climate crisis.
Plastics exported under the guise of recycling, usually from high-income countries, to the most vulnerable communities, mostly in low- and middle-income countries, are often dumped or burned, leading to environmental and food chain contamination. Plastic fragments have been found in the food we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink, and even in our blood and placenta. Approximately 6 million tonnes of plastic waste were traded internationally in 2018.
A Greenpeace USA report last year showed that less than 5% of plastics the USA ever produced have been recycled. Despite its impact on our oceans, waterways, and communities, global plastic production has increased year after year since the 1950s. The plastics industry—including fossil fuel, petrochemical, and consumer goods companies- is poised to increase plastic production, at least up to 2050.
At the Paris talks, formally known as the Second Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC2), Greenpeace is advocating for a seven-point plan that the Global Plastics Treaty should:
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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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Legal and human rights experts said that Tuesday's deadly US attack on a boat the Trump administration claimed was transporting cocaine off the coast of Venezuela violated international law.
"Drug trafficking is a crime, not an act of war," former Human Rights Watch director Kenneth Roth said on social media following the strike, which US President Donald Trump said killed 11 people. "Traffickers must be arrested, not summarily executed, which US forces just illegally did."
"Trump admits he ordered a summary execution—the crime of murder," Roth added. "Drug traffickers are not combatants who can be shot on sight. They are criminal suspects who must be arrested and prosecuted."
Declassified video showing the U.S. committing a war crime when it fired on a civilian vessel near Venezuela.Being suspected of carrying drugs does not carry a death sentence and certainly not without due process.
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— Arturo Dominguez 🇨🇺🇺🇸 (@extremearturo.bsky.social) September 2, 2025 at 4:02 PM
Michael Becker, an associate professor of international law at Trinity College, Dublin in Ireland, told the BBC Wednesday that the Trump administration's designation of the Venezuela-based Tren de Aragua and other drug trafficking groups as terrorist organizations "stretches the meaning of the term beyond its breaking point."
"The fact that US officials describe the individuals killed by the US strike as narcoterrorists does not transform them into lawful military targets," Becker said. "The US is not engaged in an armed conflict with Venezuela or the Tren de Aragua criminal organization."
"Not only does the strike appear to have violated the prohibition on the use of force, it also runs afoul of the right to life under international human rights law," Becker added.
Although the United States is not a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, US military legal advisers have asserted that the country should "act in a manner consistent with its provisions."
Luke Moffett, a professor of international law at Queens University Belfast in Northern Ireland, told the BBC that while "force can be used to stop a boat," this should generally be accomplished using "nonlethal measures."
Such action, said Moffett, must be "reasonable and necessary in self-defense where there is immediate threat of serious injury or loss of life to enforcement officials," and the US attack was likely "unlawful under the law of the sea."
"It reflects the worst of US militarism—secretive, unilateral, and contemptuous of due process, human rights, and the rule of law."
The peace group CodePink said Wednesday that "even if Washington's claims are accurate, drug trafficking does not justify a death sentence delivered by missile."
"International law is clear: The use of force is only lawful in self-defense or with explicit UN Security Council authorization," the group continued. "This strike had neither. It reflects the worst of US militarism—secretive, unilateral, and contemptuous of due process, human rights, and the rule of law."
"Under US law, it's equally indefensible," CodePink argued. "The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to authorize war. Unilateral action may only be used in emergencies or self-defense, and this strike meets neither."
CodePink continued:
With the US Southern Command assets already deployed in the region, why blow up a vessel instead of capturing and interrogating the crew? If the goal were really to uncover evidence of [Venezuelan President Nicolás] Maduro's alleged involvement, this reckless approach raises only two possibilities: Either the narrative is fabricated and Washington used it as a pretext for a deadly show of force or it's real, and the US chose extrajudicial killing over law, evidence, and humanity.
CodePink called on Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) "to lead the fight in Congress to stop this escalation," urging him to "introduce legislation to block unauthorized military force, hold hearings to expose the dangers of border militarization, insist on transparency of all relevant directives, and rally Congress to cut off funding for these reckless operations."
Tuesday's attack came amid Trump's deployment of an armada of naval warships off the coast of Venezuela, whose socialist government has long endured US threats of regime change—and sometimes more.
Infused with the notion that it has the right to meddle anywhere in the hemisphere under the Monroe Doctrine, the US has attacked, invaded, occupied, and otherwise intervened in Latin American and Caribbean nations well over 100 times since the dubious declaration was issued by President James Monroe in 1823.
Since the late 19th century, oil-rich Venezuela has seen US interventions including involvement in border disputes, help with military coups, support for dictators, and attempts to subvert the Bolivarian Revolution—including by officially recognizing opposition figures claiming to be the legitimate presidents of the country.
Critics of US imperialism highlighted Washington's hypocritical policies and practices toward Venezuela.
"Venezuela produces no cocaine, but US warships patrol its coastline under the banner of a 'drug war,'" New Hampshire Peace Action organizing director Michael "Lefty" Morrill wrote Wednesday.
Meanwhile, neighboring Colombia and nearby Peru—the world's two leading cocaine producers—get no such treatment. Nor does Ecuador, which has emerged as one of the world's leading trafficking hubs.
Morrill also briefly explored bits of the long US history of supporting narcotraffickers when strategically expedient, noting that former Panamanian President Manuel Noriega "was first a CIA asset, then branded a narco-dictator and dragged to a US prison."
"The Taliban was once a strategic partner in Afghanistan's opium trade, before being cast as the world's largest trafficker," he added. "'Drugs' are not simply powders; they are pretexts, shaped to fit the contours of empire."
"We must fight against antisemitism, but we equally need to protect our rights, including our right to free speech, and neither goal should nor needs to be sacrificed on the altar of the other," said Judge Allison Burroughs.
A Boston-based US district judge on Wednesday ruled against President Donald Trump's funding attack on Harvard University, which froze more than $2 billion in federal grants to the Ivy League institution.
When Harvard sued over the freeze in April, the university's president, Alan Garber, directly addressed the Trump administration's claims that it was responding to the school's handling of discrimination against Jewish people. Garber said that "as a Jew and as an American, I know very well that there are valid concerns about rising antisemitism," and pledged to "fight hate with the urgency it demands as we fully comply with our obligations under the law."
US District Judge Allison Burroughs, who is also Jewish, wrote in her 84-page opinion on Wednesday that "as pertains to this case, it is important to recognize and remember that if speech can be curtailed in the name of the Jewish people today, then just as easily the speech of the Jews (and anyone else) can be curtailed when the political winds change direction."
"Defendants and the president are right to combat antisemitism and to use all lawful means to do so. Harvard was wrong to tolerate hateful behavior for as long as it did," wrote Burroughs, an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama. "The record here, however, does not reflect that fighting antisemitism was defendants' true aim in acting against Harvard and, even if it were, combating antisemitism cannot be accomplished on the back of the First Amendment."
"We must fight against antisemitism, but we equally need to protect our rights, including our right to free speech, and neither goal should nor needs to be sacrificed on the altar of the other," she asserted. "Harvard is currently, even if belatedly, taking steps it needs to take to combat antisemitism and seems willing to do even more if need be."
The judge concluded that "now it is the job of the courts to similarly step up, to act to safeguard academic freedom and freedom of speech as required by the Constitution, and to ensure that important research is not improperly subjected to arbitrary and procedurally infirm grant terminations, even if doing so risks the wrath of a government committed to its agenda no matter the cost."
Stand up to the bully. Do not surrender in advance:Judge rules Trump administration cannot withhold funding from Harvard www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...
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— Jeff (Gutenberg Parenthesis) Jarvis (@jeffjarvis.bsky.social) September 3, 2025 at 5:59 PM
Burroughs is the same judge who previously ruled against the Trump administration's ban on international students at Harvard. As Harvard begins a new academic year, Abdullah Shahid Sial, a junior who is co-president of the undergraduate student body, told CNN this week that "I do think there's a big, big spike in how much people feel scared."
In a statement to Reuters on Wednesday, White House spokesperson Liz Huston called Burroughs an "activist Obama-appointed judge" and said that Harvard "does not have a constitutional right to taxpayer dollars and remains ineligible for grants in the future."
"We will immediately move to appeal this egregious decision, and we are confident we will ultimately prevail in our efforts to hold Harvard accountable," she added.
The latest court decision comes after The New York Times reported in July that Harvard was open to spending hundreds of millions of dollars to settle its battle with the administration—as other schools have—but also aimed to protect its independence.
As the newspaper noted Wednesday:
Although the university and the administration have continued to move toward a potential agreement, they have not reached a settlement. President Trump, who has taken a special interest in the financial terms of pacts his administration has reached with universities, said last week that he wanted "nothing less than $500 million from Harvard."
"They've been very bad," Mr. Trump told the education secretary, Linda McMahon, during a televised Cabinet meeting. "Don't negotiate."
The Times added that "Harvard officials had anticipated that a favorable decision from the judge could help the university's approach to the negotiations" by boosting pressure on the government not to keep fighting until they reach the US Supreme Court and allowing the school to present any deal as a win against the Trump administration.
This article has been updated with a statement from the White House.
"Florida's decision to erase school vaccine requirements will cause preventable illness and death," said one immunologist. "Not just for kids in Florida, for whole communities, of all ages, across the country."
In a decision that has terrified medical professionals, Florida's surgeon general announced Wednesday that he would seek to end all childhood vaccine requirements in the state, which he compared to "slavery."
Currently, Florida requires children to be immunized against deadly diseases like measles, mumps, chickenpox, polio, and hepatitis in order to attend public school.
At a press conference alongside the state's anti-vaccine Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida's surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, said that he believed the decision to make these vaccinations optional would receive the blessing of "God."
"Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery," Ladapo said of the mandates. "People have a right to make their own decisions. Who am I, as a government or anyone else, to tell you what you should put in your body? Our body is a gift from God. What you put into your body is because of your relationship with your body and your God."
Many Republican-led states have rolled back requirements for residents to receive the Covid-19 vaccination and, in some cases, restricted access to it. But Ladapo, who has in the past been caught personally altering data to exaggerate the risks of the Covid-19 vaccine, is treading new ground with his pledge to eliminate "every last one" of the state's childhood vaccine mandates, something no state, red or blue, has done.
While Ladapo's decision is unprecedented, it is in step with the position of the current Republican Party, which is making health policy under the stewardship of longtime anti-vaccine influencer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, who is the secretary of Health and Human Services under President Donald Trump.
Kennedy has limited who is eligible to receive the Covid-19 vaccine and is reportedly considering pulling it from the market altogether. And alongside a handpicked panel of anti-vaccine activists, he has also launched an effort to revise the entire childhood vaccine schedule.
In April, as a measles epidemic swept through pockets of Texas with low vaccination rates and killed two unvaccinated children, Kennedy downplayed the disease's severity and hyped long-disproven claims about the dangers of the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine, which virtually eradicated the disease in the US for over 20 years.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of parents declining to vaccinate their children has soared across the US. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, during the 2019-20 school year, just three US states had rates of MMR vaccination lower than 90%. In 2025, that number had increased to 16.
As of July, 1,280 measles cases had been reported in the US—the most cases since 1992, before the MMR vaccine became part of the standard childhood vaccine schedule. In 92% of cases involving children and teenagers, the people who became infected were either unvaccinated or had unknown vaccination statuses.
Following news of Florida's decision to end childhood vaccine requirements, Dr. Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, told the Washington Post: "We can expect that measles will come roaring back. Other infectious diseases will follow. This is an unprecedented move that will only put our children at unnecessary risk."
Measles is not the only vaccine-preventable illness experiencing a resurgence. After the rate of whooping cough vaccinations dropped below the 95% threshold required for herd immunity during the 2023-24 school year, the number of cases of the disease doubled, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
"Florida will repeat what happened in West Texas, where immunization rates are low," said Dr. Peter Jay Hotez, a pediatrician who serves as Dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. "All for health freedom propaganda, and lousy Fox News sound bites."
According to CDC data, Florida has one of the lowest rates of childhood vaccination in the country, with just over 88% of kindergarteners receiving the required shots in the 2023-24 school year. But just as they did in Texas, the effects may harm people across the country.
"Florida's decision to erase school vaccine requirements will cause preventable illness and death. Not just for kids in Florida, for whole communities, of all ages, across the country," said Dr. Andrea Love, an immunologist and microbiologist, who writes a newsletter responding to medical misinformation. "Pathogens don't follow state lines."
Dr. Robert Steinbrook, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, called the plan "a recipe for disaster and exactly the wrong approach to protecting state residents from infectious diseases."
"High immunization rates against dangerous infectious diseases such as measles and polio protect individuals as well as their communities," Steinbrook said. "If this plan moves forward, Florida will terminate one of the most effective means of limiting the spread of infectious diseases and embolden [Kennedy] to wreak even more havoc on vaccinations nationally. The Florida Legislature and state residents must vociferously reject these plans."