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“The law and public awareness of the creation of the law helped change behavior and norms,” Mr. McDermott said. “And 30 years later, it’s important that we reevaluate our intended goals when we passed the helmet law and the unintended consequences of passing it.”

Helmet use in the city is as high as 91 percent among private cyclists. according to one study. In nearby Portland, Oregon, repeal supporters noted: usage is equally highdespite the fact that the city does not have a helmet law for all ages.

Access to helmets is a particular problem for low-income people: according to a study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, people with the lowest incomes were about half as likely to wear a helmet on all trips as those with the highest incomes. .

But Mr McDermott said he doubted those inconsistencies accounted for the degree of disproportionate application of the rule. And he said the county can eliminate disparities without the police: The county recently provided more than $200,000 to buy helmets and expand cyclist safety education.

Across the country, other types of cycling regulations have also been found to be applied in a discriminatory manner.

A Chicago study found that cyclists were ticketed eight times more often in black-majority areas of the city. Investigation The U.S. Department of Justice found that 73 percent of bike stops in Tampa, Florida between 2014 and 2015 involved black cyclists, despite blacks making up 26 percent of the population.

“The data showed that the stops did not reduce crime or lead to any other positive outcomes,” such as a reduction in bike accidents or injuries, the report said.

“The best investment in keeping people safe while cycling is building safer streets and safer transportation systems,” said Bill Nesper, director of the League of American Bicyclists. “These are the kinds of investments that will make people safer for pedestrians and cyclists in our communities, instead of investing in laws like this that can be a barrier to people riding bikes and that can be applied in a discretionary and discriminatory way.” .

President Biden said on Friday he would extend the national emergency first declared in March 2020 in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The term of the additional powers expired on March 1.

The solution contained in Biden’s letter to Congress released by the White House comes as the wave of coronavirus cases caused by the highly contagious Omicron variant recedes in the United States and many states and localities. loosen pandemic restrictions.

But the pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the country. As of Friday, more than 75,000 Americans have been hospitalized with the virus. Deaths that are weeks behind in counting cases growing in 14 statesand remain at nearly 2,300 per day across the country.

“The Covid-19 pandemic continues to pose a significant public health and security risk to the nation,” Mr. Biden wrote in the letter. “More than 900,000 people in this country have died from this disease, and it is imperative that we continue to fight and respond to Covid-19 with the full strength and capabilities of the federal government.”

The state of emergency in the country gives special powers. This frees the federal government from some legal restrictions, allowing it to spend extra money and take certain actions more easily.

The pandemic emergency would have expired if Mr. Biden had not warned Congress of his intention to extend it.

President Donald J. Trump first announced the pandemic was declared a national emergency on March 13, 2020. Mr. Trump said more action was needed to combat the virus, which at the time was known to infect 1,645 people in the United States – a number that now exceeds 78 million.

Such losses often fuel the Chinese propaganda machine and harm US interests. “Every case that gets out of hand, especially one that involves a minority, discredits the Justice Department in the minds of the American people,” said David H. Laufman, an official at the Department of Homeland Security during the Obama administration.

In announcing the changes to the China Initiative, Mr Olsen is expected to say that the Justice Department will treat some grant fraud cases as civil cases in the future, leaving the most egregious cases of fraud to be prosecuted, according to people briefed on the matter. question. .

He is expected to note that China is not the only foreign country that has tried to establish financial and other ties with American researchers in the hope of obtaining valuable information, so the problem is wider than the name “China Initiative” might suggest. In addition, the DOJ will update the process for assessing whether a researcher has correctly disclosed foreign affiliation, which will take into account newly released guide from the White House, which describes what the researchers are to uncover.

It remains to be seen whether the Justice Department will rename the program or investigate crimes of espionage and corporate fraud committed by foreign governments, as always, but without a name. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

Various Asian American business and civil rights groups, as well as the Asia-Pacific Caucus of Americans, told the White House and the Justice Department last spring that the China Initiative gave the impression that prosecutors were more intent on cracking down on the Chinese than the Chinese. government. Cases involving researchers exacerbated this perception.

“Most of them failed to uncover the espionage, and the government instead resorted to document errors to bring charges,” said Ben Suarato, spokesman for the Asia-Pacific Caucus of the US Congress. “There are real national security issues. We’re just saying that the Chinese initiative was the wrong way to deal with them.”

Following his confirmation in October, Mr. Olsen held a series of hearings with congressional staff, universities, civil rights groups, and national security officials to address a variety of concerns, including how the initiative could have contributed to racial profiling, according to people informed about. meetings.

The image stopped him cold. Josh Koskoff, a Connecticut lawyer, was scanning crime scene photos of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting when he noticed “taped mags” on a classroom floor, two ammunition magazines crudely duct-taped together to speed reloading.

The gunman had dropped them during his rampage that killed 20 first graders and six educators in Newtown, Conn.

That photo was a “checkmate moment,” Mr. Koskoff said, in the novel legal strategy that ultimately resulted in the $73 million settlement last week for the families of nine Sandy Hook victims from insurers for Remington, the maker of the Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle used in the massacre. It was the largest payout so far in a mass-shooting-related case against a gun manufacturer.

The settlement was also the latest in a half-dozen legal victories by the families that have renewed scrutiny of the gun industry and of the rising tide of misinformation that engulfed Sandy Hook. Left devastated nine years ago when the Senate failed to pass even modest gun control legislation after the massacre, the families have now won on two difficult fronts — against a gun manufacturer and against conspiracy theorists, including Alex Jones — through persistence, creative legal strategies and in the case of the conspiracists, the technological expertise of Lenny Pozner, a parent who foresaw the long-term danger of rampant social media falsehoods.

“We started to talk about ‘There has to be a way to get something done,’” said David Wheeler, whose 6-year-old son, Ben, perished at Sandy Hook, recalling the days after their push for gun control failed in the Senate. He now senses that for the first time, “a lot of people believe we’ve changed things.”

At the heart of the legal strategy against Remington was the families’ claim that the manufacturer had illegally marketed the military-style Bushmaster to troubled young men like the Sandy Hook gunman, Adam Lanza, 20. Remington said the families lacked proof the gunman ever saw its advertising before he killed himself inside the bullet-riddled school.

Before the shooting, Mr. Lanza had spent hours a day playing Call of Duty, a video game in which players used the Bushmaster to wage war. Mr. Koskoff, the lawyer for the families, had played Call of Duty too, introduced to it by one of his sons — and he recognized the duct-taped magazines from a contemporaneous version of the game.

“Once I saw that in that first-grade classroom, that was it for me,” Mr. Koskoff said last week. “Remington may not have known him, but they’d been courting him for years.”

In the Connecticut defamation case against Mr. Jones, the Koskoff lawyers cited the same Connecticut trade practices law used in the Remington case, saying Infowars profited from broadcasting Sandy Hook falsehoods. Two defamation cases in Texas and one in Wisconsin employ a range of strategies. Nearly all the lawyers involved are parents themselves.

‘Paths Up the Mountain’

After the defeat in the Senate, some family members began thinking about how to hold the maker of the Bushmaster to account. Several got in touch with Mr. Koskoff, from a third-generation family firm in Bridgeport, Conn.

Mr. Koskoff cautioned the families that those who joined the lawsuit were in for an arduous fight with an uncertain outcome. The families of nine victims joined Soto v. Bushmaster; others declined for reasons ranging from their views on gun policy to family needs.

“A real advantage for us was our total ignorance about the law surrounding gun litigation and all the hurdles” that had dissuaded others, Mr. Koskoff said. So they forged ahead in the face of the formidable legal shield for the gun industry that Congress had passed in 2005, which protects firearms manufacturers from most liability after gun-related crimes. Wayne LaPierre, the National Rifle Association’s chief executive at the time, hailed it as “the most significant piece of pro-gun legislation in 20 years.”

As the Koskoff team considered varying “paths up the mountain,” trying to find legal routes around the shield law, one partner, Alinor Sterling, explored a potential road in one of six exceptions to the legal immunity the legislation provides: Lawsuits against manufacturers can move forward if plaintiffs can prove that marketing of the guns violates state law.

The lawyers learned that sales of the Bushmaster had grown exponentially between 2005 and the 2012 shooting. In 2006, a New York-based private equity firm, Cerberus Capital Management, bought Bushmaster, a privately held manufacturer in Maine and one of the companies building the AR-15-style rifle. Cerberus acquired other American gun makers, rolling them into a conglomerate that after several iterations took the name of the best-known company, Remington.

Remington’s leadership sought to turn the new entity into a firearms powerhouse, Mr. Koskoff said. Staid, technical ads for the Bushmaster were replaced by an aggressive marketing campaign targeting young men admiring of the military, known in the trade as “couch commandos.”

Flashy, militaristic pitches with macho slogans like “Forces of opposition, bow down,” “Clear the room” and “Consider your man card reissued” ran in men’s magazines, but also on online marketplaces and websites frequented by young men immersed in combat weaponry, Mr. Koskoff said. The Bushmaster appeared in combat video games like Call of Duty, which “is a virtual shooting range for potential future users,” Mr. Koskoff said.

In 2014, the families sued Remington on the grounds that Bushmaster’s marketing violated the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act, a consumer protection law.

“The gun conglomerate formed by Cerberus blew through two very well established lines by targeting younger users who could not be lawful purchasers, and people who presented an increased risk to public safety,” Mr. Koskoff said. “They never asked, ‘How can we market this weapon in a way that reduces the risk of dangerous use?’ It appears from all the evidence that they did the opposite.”

Years of litigation followed. Remington declared bankruptcy, emerged, then went bankrupt again, threatening to stall the suit indefinitely. The Connecticut Supreme Court affirmed the Sandy Hook lawyers’ strategy and Remington appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case. The litigation also took bizarre turns. At one point, Remington requested school report cards and disciplinary records for the murdered children, drawing public outrage.

Mr. Koskoff was still exploring legal avenues for the case in the closing days of 2013 when the Connecticut State Police released thousands of photos and records from their investigation of the shooting.

When he saw the image of duct-taped magazines lying on the floor, the leg of a small desk chair at the edge of the frame, “the hair on my arms stood up,” he said. “I knew that without a single document I could make the case that there was a connection between the marketing of the gun in the game, this kid and the shooting.”

Years later, preparing to depose Remington executives, Mr. Koskoff asked a paralegal to create a PowerPoint slide with the classroom photo on the left, and an image of the taped magazines from Call of Duty on the right. They were nearly identical.

Ms. Sterling refined the marketing argument the families took to court.

A lawyer for Remington did not respond to requests for comment. The financial settlement will be paid by the defunct company’s four insurers: Liberty Mutual’s Ironshore; Chubb; James River Insurance Company; and North American Capacity Insurance Company, a Swiss Re subsidiary.

The Sandy Hook School Massacre

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A devastating attack. On Dec. 14, 2012, a 20-year-old gunman killed his mother and then walked into the elementary school armed with semiautomatic pistols and a semiautomatic rifle. He killed 26 people there, 20 of them children, before killing himself.

The push for gun control. Then-President Barack Obama vowed to “use whatever power this office holds” to stop such massacres from happening again. Though legislative efforts to pass a ban on assault weapons and expand background checks failed, a new wave of activism focused on gun control gained traction.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearms industry’s trade association, issued a statement last week sidestepping the significance of Bushmaster’s marketing to young men. “The plaintiffs never produced any evidence that Bushmaster advertising had any bearing or influence over Nancy Lanza’s decision to legally purchase a Bushmaster rifle,” it said, “nor on the decision of murderer Adam Lanza to steal that rifle, kill his mother in her sleep and go on to commit the rest of his horrendous crimes.”

The Connecticut case could provide a legal road map for similar lawsuits. Ms. Sterling said she had received messages from lawyers across the country.

“I’ve been bringing cases against Remington since 1985,” one wrote. “You finally cracked the code.”

Battles for Truth in 3 States

As the Remington case crawled along, the families of 10 Sandy Hook victims and an F.B.I. agent implicated in the conspiracy theories sued Mr. Jones in Texas and Connecticut in four separate lawsuits in 2018. By the end of last year, judges in all four suits ruled that Mr. Jones was liable by default because he has refused to turn over documents ordered by the courts, including financial records.

In trials beginning this spring, juries will decide how much Mr. Jones must pay the families in damages.

Mr. Pozner, the father of Noah Pozner, the youngest Sandy Hook victim, is a technology consultant who understood the online conspiracy world, and how social media algorithms hasten the spread of harmful content. He has devoted his life since the shooting to battling conspiracy theorists and the social platforms that enable them. His nonprofit, the HONR Network, has succeeded in getting hundreds of thousands of pieces of harmful content removed from Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other platforms, and persuaded hosting companies to take down entire websites devoted to denying the shooting. Mr. Pozner’s efforts have made him a target. He has moved nearly a dozen times after hoaxers, his moniker for the Sandy Hook deniers, posted his address online. In 2017 a Florida woman, Lucy Richards, was jailed for threatening Mr. Pozner’s life.

Mr. Jones has repeatedly maligned Mr. Pozner and Noah’s mother, Veronique De La Rosa, on Infowars. For years Mr. Jones falsely claimed an interview Ms. De La Rosa gave to CNN’s Anderson Cooper in Newtown shortly after Noah’s death was faked before a studio “green screen.” Mr. Pozner had Mr. Jones’s shows making false claims about Noah and his family removed from YouTube. In a fury, Mr. Jones showed millions of viewers addresses and phone numbers linked to Mr. Pozner.

Last week, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court affirmed Mr. Pozner’s 2019 victory in a separate defamation lawsuit against James Fetzer, another conspiracy theorist who edited a 400-page book titled “Nobody Died at Sandy Hook.” The Wisconsin court dismissed Mr. Fetzer’s appeal on Wednesday.

The Fetzer case showcased another novel legal strategy, this one devised by Genevieve and Jake Zimmerman, a husband-and-wife team who were Mr. Pozner’s pro bono lawyers. Seeking to prevent Mr. Fetzer from airing his Sandy Hook theories in a courtroom, they narrowed the case to four specific statements in Mr. Fetzer’s book falsely claiming that Mr. Pozner had forged Noah’s death certificate. Then the lawyers sought a judgment without a full trial.

Securing this summary judgment required Mr. Pozner to prove that Noah had actually lived and died, and that he was Noah’s father. The lawyers gathered records related to Noah’s birth, life and death. Mr. Pozner took a blood test, and his DNA matched a sample from Noah’s post-mortem.

Mr. Fetzer produced no evidence to support his false claims, and lost the summary judgment. In a process similar to what will happen in the Jones cases later this year, a jury convened to decide on damages. They awarded Mr. Pozner $450,000, which ballooned to more than $1 million following sanctions after Mr. Fetzer leaked Mr. Pozner’s sealed deposition to other conspiracy theorists, fueling more abuse.

“We used the rules of evidence to detangle a conspiracy theory,” Mr. Zimmerman said. “It’s the same thing that happened with all the post-2020 election lawsuits. When the conspiracy theorists got to court, not a single one of their allegations survived scrutiny under the rules of evidence.”

Mr. Pozner and Ms. De La Rosa were also plaintiffs in the Remington suit. Last week, Mr. Pozner reflected on the string of successes.

“Of course the victories feel good, but they were very slow in coming,” Mr. Pozner said. “It’s a relief, but I’m kind of tired, you know?”

Kristin Hussey contributed reporting.

LAREDO, Texas. Like most of her neighbors in Laredo’s predominantly Hispanic community, Angelica Garza has voted Democratic for most of her adult life. Her longtime congressman Henry Cuellar, with his moderate views and anti-abortion views, made the choice an easy one, she says.

But as promising Democratic candidates in her South Texas area turned more liberal, Ms. Garza, a staunch Catholic, voted for Donald Trump in 2016, primarily because of his anti-abortion views.

By electing Mr. Trump that year and again in 2020, Ms. Garza has joined the parade of Hispanic voters who are changing the political fabric of South Texas. In the Laredo area, where Fr. nine out of 10 residents are Catholicsmany registered voters seem to be guided mainly by the single issue of abortion.

“I’m ready to vote for any candidate that keeps alive,” said Ms Garza, 75. “This is the most important question for me, even if it means not voting Democrat.”

With just over a week left before the crucial primary, Ms Garza is poised to turn her back on the Democrats. Pointing to a wall covered in folklore figurines of angels in her art shop in Laredo, she explained why: “They are babies, angels, and I don’t think anyone has the right to commit suicide. We have to keep alive.”

Voters like Ms. Garza worry Democratic leaders, whose once-tight grip and influence over the Texas-Mexico border region has waned in recent election cycles. The Republicans won significant victories in South Texas, capturing Zapata County, south of Laredo on the banks of the Rio Grande, and the state’s county in San Antonio. They also made headway in the Rio Grande, where the border counties cast as many votes for Trump in 2020 that they helped to nullify the influence of white voters in the urban and suburban areas of the state who voted for Joe Biden.

Much is at stake in Laredo, the most populous city in the Hispanic-majority 28th congressional district, which stretches from the eastern tip of San Antonio to the western part of the Rio Grande Valley. Since the county was elected nearly three decades ago, Democrats have taken the seat. Mr. Cuellar has represented the district since 2005. His moderate and sometimes conservative views – he was the only Democrat in Congress to vote against a U.S. House of Representatives bill that would have repealed the state’s near total ban on abortion that went into effect last September – often endeared him to social conservatives. and Republicans.

But now he finds himself embroiled in a tough fight with a much more liberal candidate backed by the party’s progressive wing, which includes Senator Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Mr. Cuellar, whose home was raided by the FBI last month as part of an investigation neither he nor the government disclosed, beat his rival Jessica Cisneros by four percentage points in 2020.

If he loses the March 1 primary to Ms. Cisneros, a 28-year-old immigration lawyer who supports abortion rights, the path to a House coup could well run through South Texas, as Republicans have vowed all-in. The campaign focused on religious and other conservative values.

In Laredo, a city that has one of the busiest land ports of entry in North America and where Catholic masses have become an integral part of daily life, anti-abortion calls abound. The problem of polarization seems to be firmly resolved in this part of the state, as evidenced by sermons in 34 Catholic parishes, graphic billboards at intersections, and the fact that the last abortion clinic in the area closed almost 20 years ago.

“My priest doesn’t tell people how to vote, but he reminds us to vote with a Catholic conscience,” said Betty Flores, the city’s mayor from 1998 to 2006. Miss Flores, a longtime friend of the Bush family, also considers himself a Democrat—an “old blue dog,” she said, referring to her moderate views. Although she sees herself in an anti-abortion column, she has said that she does not believe in the adoption of policies to regulate the female body.

Even Sylvia Bruni, Democratic Party leader in Webb County, which includes Laredo, said she’s come to terms with her anti-abortion ambivalence and a broader Democratic mandate to expand women’s health care, including pregnancy termination.

“I speak for myself,” said Ms. Bruni, a Catholic, “but as opposed to abortion as I am, I don’t think I have the right to tell others what to do.”

Mr. Cuellar has kept the seat since 2005 largely because of his moderate views. When voting in September last year against Women’s Health Actmeasure aimed at protecting the right to abortion, he referred to his Catholic upbringing.

The passed measure appears be doomed to the Senate. But Mr. Cuellar’s voice was a symbolic nod to his socially conservative constituency, whose members drive past fetal banners saying “God says ‘All lives matter'” every day, or the dejected Virgin Mary praying for those who thinking about abortion. .

Given that Texas law bans most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, and the Supreme Court may be on the verge of passing a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeksmany South Texas voters will do everything they can to keep those gains going, said Eddie Lucio Jr., a state senator often compared to Mr. Cuellar because of his moderate views.

“There is no such thing as a Catholic for abortion rights,” Mr. Lucio said. “There is a silent majority that says nothing. But when they go to vote, they vote for the anti-abortion candidate.”

Outside of Laredo, Texans remain deeply divided on this issue. According to a recent survey conducted Texas Policy Project at the University of Texas at Austin, about 46 percent of the 1200 respondents believe that the current legislation on abortion should either be made more stringent or left unchanged; 43 percent said they should be less strict.

On a recent afternoon at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church in Laredo, Jose Brizuela, 73, a former businessman, said he has always voted for the Democrats, including Mr. Cuellar, driven by their desire to offer help to the poor. But if the next Democratic nominee supports abortion rights, he said, “I’m ready to vote Republican.”

With Mr. Cuellar’s seat in jeopardy, Republicans are poised to take on their first real challenge in the county in decades. Republican leaders say if news of Mr. Cuellar’s investigation keeps many of his supporters at home, Ms. Cisneros’ progressive values, especially when it comes to abortion, may prove too far a bridge for a broader religious constituency. Seven Republicans are vying for the candidacy in the primary.

Learn Texas Abortion Law

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The strictest in the country. Texas abortion law, known as Senate Bill 8, means a near total ban on abortion in the state. It forbids most abortions after about six weeks and makes no exception for pregnancies resulting from incest or rape. The law has been in effect since September 1.

“It used to be that, ‘Oh, that’s the only way we vote,’” said Luis De La Garza, chairman of the Webb County Republican Party. “We show them that they can vote for what they really believe. I think voters are starting to see that we have the same religious and family values.”

Indeed, the Republicans have made gains in the 28th district. In November 2020, the Republican Party won 39 percent votes compared to 31% in 2016.

Also in 2020, the Democratic presidential candidate received 487 fewer votes than four years earlier. By contrast, the Republican presidential candidate received almost 13,000 more votes in 2020 than in 2016, according to data compiled by the Democratic Party.

Last November, Republicans upended a once solidly Democratic district. in San Antonio 286 ballots in the special round of elections. Voters also turned out for the Republicans en masse in Hidalgo and Zapata counties, traditional Democratic strongholds along the Rio Grande. In 2020, Joe Biden won McAllen’s Hidalgo County by 17 percentage points, a narrower win compared to Hillary Clinton’s 40-point win four years earlier. And in neighboring Zapata CountyMr. Trump won by five points.

The state, while becoming more diverse and progressive, has not resulted in more Democratic votes. In Webb County, only half of registered voters voted in 2020.

Still, progressive Democrats are working overtime to inspire young first-time voters, both to defeat Mr. Cuellar in the primary and for the Republican nominee in November. During a recent visit to San Antonio to campaign for Ms. Cisneros, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive Congresswoman from New York, called the 28th district a “battlefield.”

Democrats have stepped up their outreach efforts over the past few months and attracted more than 2,300 voters, Ms Bruni said.

“We have been solid Democrats, but we are more conservative than the traditional liberal enclaves,” said Sergio Mora, former chairman of the Democratic Party. “We are more socially conservative. We may lose our place.”

Sarah Smith, 40, is among the voters who only see the county turn red over the abortion issue. Ms Smith, who advocates a smaller government – she describes herself as a 19th-century liberal – and is of both Mexican and British descent, said she supported Democratic priorities such as prison reform, but added that keeping the abortion ban was her priority.

“Maybe it’s time for this area to go Republican,” she said. “Everything you need to save a life.”

Susan S. Beachy contributed to the study.

bald eagle, whose revival Considered one of the greatest conservation successes of the 21st century, it faces a major threat: lead poisoning.

Researchers who studied the feathers, bones, livers and blood of 1,200 bald eagles and golden eagles, another bird of prey in the Northern Hemisphere, found that nearly half of them had been repeatedly exposed to lead, which could lead to death and slow population growth. .

Scientists believe that the main source of lead comes from the spent ammunition of hunters who shoot the animals, which the eagles then harvest, usually in winter. which was published on Thursday in the journal Science.

Almost a third of the birds tested also showed signs of acute poisoning or short-term exposure to lead. according to researchled by scientists from the US Geological Survey, Conservation Science Global, Inc. and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

The effects of lead poisoning are devastating, said Vincent A. Slabe, the study’s lead author and wildlife research biologist at Conservation Science Global in Montana.

According to him, lead poisoning can prevent the eagle from properly digesting food, eventually leading to starvation. According to him, this can lead to such a serious loss of mobility that the eagle will lose the ability not only to fly, but to move at all.

“Lead can affect every system in an eagle’s body – their respiratory system, their digestive system, their reproductive system,” Dr. Slabe said.

The study, which examined bald eagles and golden eagles from 38 states, is the first to look at the impact of lead poisoning on bird populations on such a large scale, said Todd E. Katzner, a wildlife research biologist with the USGS. .

The study also found that the poisoning slowed the population growth rate of bald eagles by about 4 percent and golden eagles, which number about 35,000, by 1 percent. According to researchers, the population of bald eagles currently exceeds 300,000 individuals.

“These percentages seem small, but over time, thousands and thousands of individuals disappear from the population” due to lead poisoning, Dr. Katzner said.

Bald eagles were extirpated a few decades ago mainly due to widespread use Synthetic insecticide DDT. A ban on DDT in 1972 and conservation efforts helped the population recover, and the bald eagle disappeared. excluded from protection under the Endangered Species Act in 2007.

Dr. Slabe said he hopes the report’s findings will help educate hunters and encourage more hunters to switch to lead-free ammunition.

“This is 100 percent human-caused and completely preventable,” said Laura Hale, president of the Badger Run Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Klamath Falls, Oregon, whose organization has hosted bald eagles, golden eagles and various species of hawks. poisoned lead.

In 2018, the group tried to save an eagle that a hunter had found in the forest, unable to fly and suffocating. When Ms. Hale told the hunter that the eagle most likely got sick from feeding on piles of infected intestines – the remains left after the hunter removed the meat from the animal carcass – she said that he was amazed.

“He was terrified,” Miss Hale recalled. “He wanted to stop hunting.”

Miss Hale said she told him he didn’t have to stop hunting; he only needed to stop using lead ammunition.

Many hunters, concerned about the consequences not only for wild animals, but also for game meat consumed by people, move away from lead ammunition and started using copper bullets.

Sporting Lead-Free, a Wyoming hunting and fishing group that seeks to raise awareness of the adverse effects of lead ammunition. posted a short film with reviews from hunters who stopped using it.

“Hunters are conservationists,” said Brian Bedrosian, co-founder of Sporting Lead-Free and a raptor biologist. “It shouldn’t be a polarizing issue.”

According to him, some hunters are hesitant to change ammunition because of tradition, the misconception that copper bullets are less effective, or because they have a supply of lead bullets.

“Besides, there are still people who just don’t know,” said Mr. Bedrosyan, who says he uses lead bullets at a shooting range where he knows the ammunition won’t come into contact with wildlife.

Hannah Leonard, the group’s outreach coordinator, said she hunted with lead bullets until she came across an emaciated golden eagle waddling on the ground four years ago while hunting in Anaconda, Montana.

“Her claws were really clenched and her wings were down,” Ms Leonard said. You could tell she was in danger.

The eagle later died and Ms Leonard said the animal rescue team she called in to try and save the bird told her lead poisoning was the cause of death.

“It was not difficult for me to change the type of ammunition,” she said.

In January 2017, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released a policy to phase out the use of lead ammunition and fishing tackle used in national wildlife sanctuaries, one of the latest moves by the Obama administration. Trump administration reversed the decision in less than two months.

On Friday, the service declined to say if the policy would be reinstated as a result of a new study.

The country has a ban on the use of lead shot for waterfowl hunting since 1991, according to the service.

California bans lead munitions statewide, including on federal lands, primarily to prevent adverse effects of lead on the endangered California condor.

“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service uses the best available science to conserve wildlife populations and evaluate compatible uses for the land we manage, and in accordance with applicable local, state, and federal laws,” a spokeswoman for the agency said. Vanessa Kaufman. said Friday.

Dr. Slabe said that hunters, once educated, would voluntarily stop using lead ammunition.

“Hunters are very receptive to this issue,” he said. “Hunters are the solution to this problem.”

BRUNSWICK, Ga. — Defense attorneys in a hate crime trial involving three white men convicted of the murder of Ahmad Arbery dropped their case Friday, calling just one witness.

None of the defendants – Travis McMichael, his father Gregory McMichael and their neighbor William Bryan – spoke in their defense.

Last year, these men were convicted in state court for stalking Mr. Arbery around their South Georgia neighborhood and killing him. All three were sentenced to life imprisonment. In federal court, they are accused of stalking and killing Mr. Arbery precisely because he was black.

On Friday, Gregory McMichael’s attorney alone presented evidence to the jury in an attempt to bolster the defense’s main argument that the men were harassing Mr Arbery because they suspected him of burglary in the area, not because of his race.

The only defense witness, a woman who lived in the area of ​​Satilla Shores where the defendants lived and where Mr. Arbery died, testified that one day in 2019 she saw a suspicious white man under a bridge at the entrance to the area. A.J. Balbo, Mr. McMichael’s attorney, played a tape of Mr. McMichael’s call to authorities that summer after he too saw a white man under a bridge who he believed was suspicious and possibly responsible for the burglary. The defendants claimed in both trials that they were on alert because of a string of break-ins.

The lawyer for Mr. Arbery’s family was skeptical of this line of reasoning.

“The defense tried to use this witness to show that their clients were not racists, that they called the police on a white person and were concerned about crime, but just because you called the police on a white person doesn’t mean you are.” I am not a racist,” said Lynn Whitfield, a senior lawyer with the Coalition for Transformational Justice, who was present with Mr. Arbery’s family during the trial. “They didn’t chase the white man around the neighborhood with guns and kill him.”

The jury was tasked with determining whether Mr. Arbery’s men disqualified him from using the public street because he was black, not whether they committed the murder. The men are also charged with attempted kidnapping, and the McMichaels are charged with one count of using a weapon during a violent crime. If found guilty, they face life imprisonment. The convictions would have practical implications if the men’s state convictions were overturned on appeal.

The defense witness on Friday came after prosecutors called 20 witnesses and presented dozens of evidence over the course of three and a half days, including text messages, WhatsApp and Facebook messages and racist comments the men posted and sent to others.

Among the witnesses for the prosecution was Christy Ronquill, who testified on Friday morning.

Ms. Ronquil said that in 2011, when she was serving with the Coast Guard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, Travis McMichael, then her boss, spoke disparagingly of black people after learning that she had previously dated a black man. Crying on the stand, Ms. Ronquil said Mr. McMichael had called her “H-word lover” more than once since then.

Asked by Travis McMichael’s attorney, Amy Lee Copeland, why she didn’t report him, Ms. Ronquil replied that she was new to the Coast Guard.

“This is my boss – it’s like talking about your boss,” she said. Who are you denouncing your boss to?

On Friday, the prosecution also called Kim Ballesteros, a neighbor of the McMichaels, who said she remembers standing at the end of her driveway telling Gregory McMichael she has a new rental property. Mr. McMichael told her about his tenant, a black woman who had rented the house from him. He said that in the summer he turned off the woman’s air conditioner to force her to pay the rent.

Understand the murder of Ahmad Arbery

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Filming. February 23, 2020 Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man, was shot to death after being chased by three white men while jogging near his home on the outskirts of Brunswick, Georgia. Mr. Arbery’s murder was captured on graphic video, which was widely viewed by the public.

Victim. Mr Arbery was former outstanding high school football player and avid runner. At the time of his death, he lived with his mother outside of a small coastal town in South Georgia.

Suspects. Three white men — Gregory McMichael, 67, his son Travis McMichael, 35, and their neighbor William Bryan, 52 — accused of murdering Mr Arbery. They told authorities that they suspected Mr. Arbery of committing a series of break-ins.

“You should have seen how quickly her big fat black ass arrived with the rent check,” Ms. Ballesteros recalled Mr. McMichael’s words. Ms Ballesteros said Mr McMichael called the woman a “walrus” because she was “big and black”.

“I was surprised,” Ms. Ballesteros said. “It was racist and inconvenient and I was frankly disappointed.”

Mr. Balbo, Gregory McMichael’s lawyer, noted that Ms. Ballesteros continued to speak with Mr. McMichael after the incident and that his client was renting out the apartment to African Americans.

Another witness, Carol Sears, said she remembered Gregory McMichael “ranting” about black people after learning that Julian Bond, the leader of the civil rights movement, had died. At the time, Mr. McMichael was an investigator with the local district attorney’s office, and she was in his car because of her involvement in a court case in Brunswick, Georgia. Mrs. Sears was upset by Mr. Bond’s death, while Mr. According to her, McMichael was pleased. “I wish this guy was in the ground years ago,” Ms. Sears recalls Mr. McMichael’s words. “All these blacks are some trouble, and I want them all died.”

Miss Sears said she didn’t speak for the rest of the trip because she was afraid.

In their opening statements this week, defense lawyers criticized the racist language used by their clients, but they also insisted that the use of such language was not proof that the men killed Mr Arbery because he was black.

Men harassed Mr. Arbery “not because he was black, but because he was a man,” Mr. Balbo said in his opening statements.

The jury will hear closing arguments from the government and the defendants on Monday.

Abbott Nutrition, a popular baby food maker, announced on Thursday that it is voluntarily recalling three types of infant formula after four children developed bacterial infections after eating the products.

review includes choose from many Similac, Alimentum and EleCare formulas which were manufactured at Abbott’s facility in Sturgis, Michigan. This comes after the Food and Drug Administration received four consumer complaints of formula-related bacterial infections.

Three of the complaints concerned Cronobacter sakazakii, a bacterium that can cause severe, life-threatening infections or inflammation of the membranes that protect the brain and spine. Cronobacter infection can also cause damage to the intestines and can spread through the blood to other parts of the body. according to FDA.

On Thursday, the FDA issued an advisory to parents warning them about the products after illnesses in Minnesota, Ohio and Texas led to four babies being hospitalized. The bacterium may have contributed to death in one case, agency said.

“We value the trust that parents have in us for the quality and safety of our food, and we will do everything we can to maintain that trust and resolve this situation,” said Vicki Assardo, Senior Director of Global Communications at Abbott Nutrition. Application Friday night.

review, what happens during a severe shortage of baby food, affects certain batches of Similac, Alimentum, and EleCare with an expiration date of April 1, 2022 or later. Products affected by the recall will also have a long sequence of numbers on the bottom of the container that starts with the first two digits from 22 to 37 and contains K8, SH, or Z2.

The recall does not apply to Abbott products made at other facilities, the company said.

In its statement, Abbott did not specify how many units were affected by the recall, but Similac infant formula is very popular in the United States and abroad.

In its recall statement, Abbott said it was conducting “routine testing for Cronobacter sakazakii and other pathogens.”

The company said that during testing at the Sturgis facility, it “detected the presence of Cronobacter sakazakii at the plant in non-product contact areas” but found no sign of Salmonella Newport, the bacterium cited in the fourth consumer complaint.

“No product distributed has tested positive for the presence of any of these bacteria,” Abbott said.

But FDA said he initiated an on-site inspection of the plant during which environmental samples tested positive for Cronobacter. The inspectors also identified potential manufacturing issues, and an internal document review revealed that the company had destroyed products in the past due to bacterial contamination, the agency said.

Frank Yannas, FDA Deputy Commissioner for Food Policy and Response, said he was “deeply concerned” by the reports because formula is “a product used as the sole source of nutrition for many newborns and infants in our country.”

The FDA is working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as federal and local authorities in Minnesota, Ohio, and Texas, in its investigation.

The FDA recommends that parents and caregivers of infants who have used recalled products contact their child’s primary care physician if they are concerned about their child’s health.