Norfolk Southern Pulls Out of Ohio Train Derailment Town Hall, Citing Safety Concerns

On Wednesday evening, hundreds of community members piled into the East Palestine High School gymnasium for what was originally slated to be a town hall with representatives from Norfolk Southern, the company whose train upended the Ohio community nearly two weeks ago.

The residents came with questions about the symptoms they’re feeling, whether it’s safe to be in the community, and how they will be supported in the midst of the crisis.

But Norfolk Southern, the primary culprit of the residents’ woes, pulled out of the event last minute. Citing concerns for their employees’ safety, the company said they will “remain in East Palestine, respond to this situation, and meet with residents.”

Now, it is not out of the question that employees may have faced credible threats. (Perhaps explicitly outlining some of them may have given more credence to the notion.) Nonetheless, it is understandable that residents may feel betrayed by a company citing safety concerns as they themselves grapple with an array of concerns for their own safety after the company’s disaster.

The event on Wednesday instead proceeded, less as a town hall, and more as an open house space for members of the community to directly interface with people including Representative Bill Johnson, Ohio and U.S. EPA representatives, local and county health officials, and state natural resource and agriculture officials.

“I need help,” Mayor Trent Conaway said about being forced into national attention, and whether he has a message for U.S. EPA head Michael Regan who is visiting the town Thursday. “I’m not ready for this. I wasn’t built for this. I always thought of myself as a leader. I will do whatever it takes.”

Conaway’s constituents, however, have found him to be admirable in his commitment to indeed doing “whatever it takes” to support them.

“I’m going to be having a meeting with him soon, he asked me to come and make an appointment and come and sit and talk with him,”  said resident Ron Arter, who attended the event Wednesday. “And I think that’s stand-up.” Arter said he did not feel as warmly about Representative Bill Johnson, however. “He didn’t help the situation at all, he kind of frustrated quite a bit of people.”

The community gathering may not have gone completely smoothly—emotions were understandably high-octane, the situation itself is so massively unprecedented for both residents and officials. But it still displayed what a proper society offers: space for the community and government to directly connect and exchange information.

This kind of symbiotic relationship (the people communicating their concerns to inform officials; officials offering their guidance and shaping their action based on community input) is what should be conducted regularly, not just in the aftermath of travesty or injustice. In doing so, disasters like this might even be evaded in the future, and the whims of a corporate entity would seldom be of concern.

In the meantime, residents wonder how companies like Norfolk Southern get away with what they do, like contaminating the soil as they “cleaned up” the derailment site. “The EPA should have shut everything down when they saw it,” said Arter. Despite Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s rejection for further help from the Biden administration, some are demanding a stronger federal response. “That way the railroad just doesn’t steamroll everybody,” Arter said.

A Georgia special grand jury report into Donald Trump’s actions after the 2020 election found that at least one witness who testified before the panel lied under oath.

The report also found no evidence of “widespread fraud” in the 2020 election in Georgia, where Trump sought to overturn election results.

Parts of the highly anticipated report were released Thursday by a judge in Fulton County, Georgia, where District Attorney Fani Willis is investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to interfere with the presidential election.

“A majority of the Grand Jury believes that perjury may have been committed by one or more witnesses testifying before it,” the report said. “The Grand Jury recommends that the District Attorney seek appropriate indictments for such crimes where the evidence is compelling.”

Willis and her team have investigated and subpoenaed dozens of witnesses including Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, Michael Flynn, and Lindsey Graham. Even before the report was released, it was known Giuliani and 16 Republicans who falsely claimed to be Georgia electors could face criminal charges.

The released portions of the report did not give names for people who perjured themselves or for those who should face criminal charges.

While there is not much new information in the released parts, the report does provide more proof against Trump’s ongoing claims that the election was stolen from him.

You can read the full report release here.

The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled Thursday to keep a near-total ban on abortions in the state until a lower court can decide whether or not the law is constitutional.

Kentucky currently only allows abortions to save the life of the pregnant person, under a trigger law that kicked into effect when Roe v. Wade was overturned. A separate ban prohibits abortion after six weeks, before many people even know they are pregnant.

Judge Mitch Perry had halted both laws in July, arguing they violated the state constitution’s right to privacy and self-determination. Just weeks later, Appeals Court Judge Larry Thompson overturned the injunction. Lawyers for Planned Parenthood and EMW Women’s Surgical Center, Kentucky’s two abortion providers, filed a lawsuit asking the state Supreme Court to reinstate Perry’s injunction.

The high court heard arguments for the case a week after the midterm elections, when Kentucky residents voted against amending the constitution to explicitly say that it does not protect the right to abortion.

Justice Debra Hembree Lambert wrote in Thursday’s majority opinion that Perry’s court had “abused its discretion by granting the abortion providers’ motion for a temporary injunction.”

The ruling comes the day after a Republican lawmaker introduced a bill that would let the state prosecute a person who gets an illegal abortion for criminal homicide. The proposed legislation was so controversial that it even drew pushback from Kentucky’s anti-abortion Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who said it “strikes the wrong balance” and called on the state legislature to reject it.

Cameron, a Republican who is running for governor, warned the bill would wrongly target women who terminate pregnancies. However, he also defended the other two abortion bans at question in the case before the Supreme Court.

An experimental male birth control was found to be 100 percent effective in a study on mice, paving the way for more equitable contraceptive options.

The pill works by preventing sperm from swimming long enough to reach the egg. The study, published Tuesday, found the medication is 100 percent effective for up to an hour after being taken. The pill’s effectiveness dips slightly to 91 percent after three hours, and falls to 78 percent after eight hours.

Nearly all the sperm were able to move normally again after 24 hours. The pill is non-hormonal, meaning it will not affect testosterone levels, which could in turn lower sex drive or cause erectile dysfunction. It also won’t cause side effects such as mood swings, nausea, or headaches.

New drugs can take five to 10 years to hit the markets, depending on whether studies get approved and how much funding they receive. The researchers for this new male contraceptive hope to conduct more animal trials before moving on to humans.

If they are able to start selling their pill, it would be more effective than using either condoms, which are 98 percent effective for humans, or female hormonal contraceptives, which are up to 99 percent effective. The pill is also faster-acting than current female birth control pills, which must be taken for a few weeks before they start working.

The report’s co-author Melanie Balbach, a postdoctoral associate at the Weill Cornell Medical College, said that if the pill works in humans, men could take it as needed and make day-to-day decisions about fertility and family planning.

Frankly, it’s about time.

The report’s authors note that “existing family planning options are inadequate.” The burden of contraception falls disproportionately on women. So much time, energy, and stress goes into preventing pregnancy, not to mention discomfort. Hormonal birth control can cause nasty side effects both in the moment and long-term, ranging from nausea and migraines to increased risk of blood clots and cancer.

Another common option, IUDs, are incredibly painful to get inserted. Even the current abortion laws primarily target cisgender women, despite the fact that they don’t accidentally get pregnant by themselves.

The main reason, it would seem, is that many men simply don’t want to be inconvenienced. Previous experimental forms of male birth control included injections, which many men laughed off on social media.

Another trial is for a contraceptive body gel. Richard Anderson, a professor of Clinical Reproductive Science at the University of Edinburgh, is leading the trial and told the BBC in 2019 that the pharmaceutical industry has dragged its feet on male contraceptives, despite evidence that both men and their female partners wanted the option.

“I think that [the] industry has not been convinced about the potential market,” he said.

Allan Pacey, a professor of andrology at the University of Sheffield, said: “Unfortunately, so far, there has been very little pharmaceutical company interest in bringing a male contraceptive pill to the market, for reasons that I don’t fully understand but I suspect are more down to business than science.”

In short:

Former Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday that he plans to resist the subpoena issued to him by the special counsel investigating Donald Trump’s role in January 6.

It was no surprise that Jack Smith issued the subpoena last week: He has been slowly closing in on Trump and the former president’s inner circle, and Pence is a key witness to both the events of January 6, 2021, and Trump’s state leading up to them.

But Pence is refusing to play ball. “I’m going to fight the Biden DOJ’s subpoena … because it’s unconstitutional and because it’s unprecedented, and the DOJ knows that,” Pence told reporters after an event in Minnesota. “The Constitution of the United States provides the executive branch cannot summon officials in the legislative branch into a court.”

Pence is arguing that he is protected by legislative privilege under his former role as president of the Senate. He believes that position shields him from Justice Department investigations under the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause.

That clause’s purpose is to protect members of Congress from having things they say during legislative activities be used against them in lawsuits.

“For me, this is about the Constitution. If we lose the Constitution, we won’t just be losing elections. We’re going to lose our country,” Pence said.

He likened his current stance to when he refused to overturn the results of the 2020 election despite intense pressure from Trump.

Pence’s refusal to cooperate is infuriating but unsurprising. Despite the fact that the rioters wanted to hang him—which White House aides have said Trump felt was deserved—the former vice president has repeatedly refused to testify in January 6 investigations.

The reason is simple: Pence is reportedly considering running for president in 2024. If he does, he will need all the support he can get, including from Trump’s base. If Pence testifies, he’ll have to denounce Trump, alienating his former boss’s supporters in the process.

But his argument against testifying doesn’t hold that much water. As part of an effort to remain in the public consciousness, he has released a book about his time at the White House. The memoir includes many details he would be asked to testify on.