Under the regulations, which a department spokeswoman said are still being finalized, health workers will need to:

•Disclose to patients that the use of puberty-blocker drugs or hormones to treat gender identity disorder or gender dysphoria is "experimental and is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration." Inform patients that the FDA has warned that puberty blockers can lead to brain swelling and blindness.

•Ensure that patients have received full psychological or psychiatric assessments of at least 15 separate hourly sessions over at least 18 months, and that such conditions have been treated and resolved.

•Adopt and follow procedures to track for 15 years any adverse effects of gender transition for all patients.

The emergency rules also require providers to screen for autism before providing treatment.

In the discussion of this on Reddit, people are pointing out that while the AG's verbal comments talk about these regulations being about trans youth, nothing in the text of the regulations specify that they are only for trans youth. So while trans youth aren't safe in Missouri (there's already an anti-GAC for youth bill approved by the Senate and will almost certainly be signed by the hillbilly GOP governor), it's very possible that Missouri is no longer safe for trans adults, either.

Not to mention the insidious stuff about mental health, basically (here's the CW for ableism - sorry it appears the "spoiler" thing isn't working):

If you are diagnosed with autism, you could be denied treatment. If you are diagnosed with any mental illnesses, you could be denied treatment. If you don't have at least 15 counseling sessions in 18 months (so puberty might have already have really kicked in) you can be denied treatment.

Rome, Italy – Thousands across Italy have been protesting against the harsh conditions of Alfredo Cospito’s imprisonment, as fears for the 55-year-old anarchist’s health grow with his hunger strike extending 150 days.

Cospito was jailed for 10 years in 2012 for shooting the chief of a nuclear energy company in the leg, in his words “to punish one of the many sorcerers of the atomic industry”, and was later handed a life sentence for setting off two bombs in front of a police academy near Turin in 2006. Both attacks were non-fatal, and while no one was injured in the bombing, investigators concluded that the explosives were designed to kill.

In May, he was moved to 41-bis, a form of solitary confinement known colloquially as “hard prison” and usually reserved for hardened criminals, such as mafia bosses, becoming the first anarchist to be punished under the regime.

He began a hunger strike in October, and has pledged to protest against 41-bis “until his last breath”.

“Today I am ready to die to make the world understand what 41-bis really is,” he wrote from prison this month. “I am convinced that my death will be an obstacle to this regime.”

Cospito has reportedly lost more than 50kg (110 pounds) and has been in and out of the hospital, raising concerns that his health could be irreparably damaged.

The Italian government says Cospito will be force-fed when it becomes necessary, based on consultation with the National Bioethics Council.

...

I haven’t flown since 2018 but… cool

lol

Iran's recently been causing some hubbub in South America. Back in early February, Panama allowed Iranian naval ships to sail through the Panama Canal so long as they abided by international norms, an act which has angered the United States. And more recently, Iranian warships were allowed to dock in Brazil - despite pressure on Lula from both Israel and the United States - with Ted Cruz making some rather lackluster threats.

Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Here is the archive of important pieces of analysis from throughout the war that we've collected.

March 6th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.

March 7th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.

March 8th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.

March 10th's update is here in the comments.

I'm gonna be researching and writing up an effortpost on rare earth elements and how China owned the West in that field over the weekend so no update on Saturday.

I'd also like to bring to your attention another effortpost I've put on the site, by @ComradeRat, in response to a question about early Marxist thinkers and terminology, like "historical materialism" and "scientific socialism", and who exactly invented these terms and were they misused by others later on, etc.

The Vietnamese Communist Party has nominated Vo Van Thuong as the country’s new president, two party sources told the Reuters news agency, following the forced resignation in January of his predecessor as part of a sweeping anti-corruption campaign in the country.

The government in a statement on Wednesday said the party’s Central Committee had agreed on a nomination for president but did not name the candidate.

...

:amerikkka-clap:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints engaged in the scheme for more than 20 years.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a nonprofit entity that it controlled have been fined $5 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission over accusations that the religious institution failed to properly disclose its investment holdings.

In an order released Tuesday, the SEC alleged that the church illicitly hid its investments and their management behind multiple shell companies from 1997 to 2019. In doing so, it failed to disclose the size of the church’s equity portfolio to the SEC and the public.

The church was concerned that disclosure of the assets in the name of the nonprofit entity, called Ensign Peak Advisors, which manages the church's investments, would lead to negative consequences in light of the size of the church’s portfolio, the SEC said.

The allegations of the illicit shell company structure first emerged in 2018, when a group formerly called MormonLeaks – now known as the Truth and Transparency Foundation – claimed that year the extent of the church's investments had reached $32 billion.

The following year, a whistleblower filed a complaint to the Internal Revenue Service, according to a 2020 Wall Street Journal report; that year, the newspaper said the church's holdings had grown to $100 billion.

“For more than half a century, the Mormon Church quietly built one of the world’s largest investment funds,” the Journal said. “Almost no one outside the church knew about it.”

The SEC accused the church Tuesday of going to "great lengths" to avoid disclosing its investments and, in doing so, "depriving the commission and the investing public of accurate market information.”

“The requirement to file timely and accurate information on Forms 13F applies to all institutional investment managers, including non-profit and charitable organizations,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, in a statement.

...

Image is from Vladimir Putin's speech that he gave on February 24th, 2022, announcing the beginning of what he called the "special military operation" in Ukraine.

On February 24th, it will be one year since Russia began the invasion of Ukraine.

And while it's sometimes felt like it dragged on, what a dense year it's been! We've seen the anti-hegemonic axis of Russia and China closely bind together to oppose America, with several other nations joining or aligning with them. We've seen de-dollarization go from a passive, gradual process to one that is actively taking place for the explicit purpose of weakening America's hold on global finance and trade. We've seen Europe fully subjugated, as it sacrifices cheap energy for the sake of American interests. And we've seen Latin America continue to generally shift leftwards and away from American interests.

We've also seen death and destruction on a staggering, though far from unprecedented scale. The number of soldiers killed in Ukraine has been stunning, all for the whims of NATO, and the number of refugees flooding out has only pushed Europe further into nationalism and racism. We've seen the standard and quality of living of hundreds of millions of people - if not billions - noticeably decrease as a result of the economic warfare and sanctions and price caps. We've seen massive protests and perhaps attempted color revolutions, and successful coups. We've seen earthquakes. We've seen climate change accelerate, causing droughts and heatwaves throughout entire regions - in America, in Europe, in China, and in the Horn of Africa. And the coronavirus pandemic has only gotten worse, while governments manufacture the consent of their citizens to stop caring and leave behind even basic preventative measures in the service of capital.

The old world is dying. The new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters. And balloons.

Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Here is the archive of important pieces of analysis from throughout the war that we've collected.

I am on break for the next week as I recharge my batteries. The next update will be on the 27th. I will post a few links here and there so the thread isn't just dead.

Image is of Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, with Sudanese Foreign Minister, Maryam al-Sadiq al-Mahdi, at a news conference in Khartoum.

Russia, China, and the United States have been scrambling for Africa over the last year.

Lavrov has recently been to Mali, Mauritania, and Sudan. Last year, he went to South Africa, Eswatini, Angola, Eritrea, Egypt, Ethiopia, Uganda, and the PRC. I'm actually having trouble finding consistent lists, he's been zipping around so much. He's reinforced ties with Sudan and their Russian naval base, and South Africa is holding naval exercises with China and Russia.

Qin Gang, the new Chinese Foreign Minister, has been to Angola, Gabon, Benin, Egypt, and Ethiopia - notably, the first diplomatic tour he's been on since being appointed FM, as others before him (in a 30 year tradition).

Meanwhile, Janet Yellen has gone to Senegal, Zambia, and South Africa. And, of course, Biden invited leaders from all across Africa to the US-Africa Leaders Summit in December 2022.

Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Here is the archive of important pieces of analysis from throughout the war that we've collected.

February 13th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.

February 14th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.

February 15th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.

February 17th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.

February 18th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.

The water in Ogale, a rural community in Nigeria, is so toxic and polluted with oil that it comes out brown and stinks of sulphur. Children and families get sick just trying to bathe or stay hydrated. In Bille, a fishing community of around 45 islands surrounded entirely by water, there are no fish left. Oily water seeps into people’s homes, and, without a source of income, money is scarce. The signs that once warned people of the dangers of chronic pollution are covered in rust.

These Niger Delta communities have been facing pollution caused by Shell for decades, devastating their health and livelihoods. In 2011, the United Nations Environment Programme reported that the threat to public health warranted “emergency action.” At the time, the cleanup process would have taken 30 years, if initiated immediately.

It never happened. Shell refused to cooperate, and the situation has only gotten worse, with 55 oil spills in the last 12 years. Amnesty International called the Niger Delta region “one of the most polluted places on earth.”

On January 27, over 11,300 residents from Ogale — which has a population of approximately 40,000 — and 17 local organizations, including churches and schools, filed individual claims at the High Court in London against Shell. With the existing claims from the Bille community, this brings the total number against the oil company to over 13,650.

The Ogale and Bille locals attribute environmental destruction, death, and diseases to the repeated spills. Infants in the Niger Delta, for instance, are twice as likely to die in their first month of life if their mothers live near an oil spill, according to a study published in 2017.

Local leaders are distraught and angry. “As we speak, oil is spilling in my community every day, people are dying,” King Emere Godwin Bebe Okpabi, leader of the Ogale community, told The Intercept.

...

Landlord thought they could pull a kickdoor and discovered there were consequences. Hope Watson gets off with the most lenient punishment but I doubt RI will let that happen.

Obviously Catholic church does way more harm than good but better than not doing this for sure

Pope Francis has made what many are calling a historic statement against laws that criminalize homosexuality.

In an interview with the Associated Press, the pope says that God loves everyone and told Catholic bishops to welcome queer people.

“Being homosexual isn’t a crime,” Francis told the news wire.

The pontiff still referred to homosexuality as “sin,” but criticized Catholic bishops and church leaders who were involved in pushing for the criminalization of homosexuality across the world.

He added that those sorts of sentiments stemmed from the leaders’ cultural backgrounds.

“These bishops have to have a process of conversion,” Francis told the AP, saying they needed to use “tenderness, please, as God has for each one of us.”

He said that these laws are “unjust” and that the Catholic Church should work to stop them.

“It must do this. It must do this,” Francis said. “We are all children of God, and God loves us as we are and for the strength that each of us fights for our dignity,” Francis added, quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

EDIT: Will update

Police Scanner for Burbank:

https://www.broadcastify.com/webPlayer/9942

Another one not mentioned but probably will happen - DLC content for books, where “buying” the book only gives you the most basic, barebones stuff, and you have to pay extra for anything decent.

This is fantastic news. They also said they will go to court over if WoTC try to “deauthorise” OGL 1.0a which is just epic.

Edit: The site went down lmao. Epic stuff.

Edit: BTW, Paizo is the company that also recognised their Union without requiring it to go to vote or hiring anti-union shitheads.