An official announcement is expected very soon.

The Biden administration is considering providing Ukraine with cluster bombs and may announce this decision in early July, NBC News reports.

“We have been thinking about DPICM for a long time,” Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday at the National Press Club. “Yes, of course, there’s a decision-making process ongoing.”

Dual-purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICMs) are surface-to-surface warheads that burst and disperse deadly multiple, smaller bomblets over a wide area. Many bomblets fail to explode on initial impact, leaving duds that can indiscriminately wound and kill, like landmines, for many years.

DPICMs can be fired from the U.S.'s howitzer artillery systems already provided to Ukraine. Ukraine has asked the U.S. for DPICMs since last year, but the idea has met resistance.

Over 120 countries, including 23 NATO countries, ban them under the Convention on Cluster Munitions treaty.

The Convention on Cluster Munitions prohibits cluster munitions' use, production, acquisition, transfer, and stockpiling and requires the destruction of stockpiles.

The U.S., Ukraine, and Russia are not signatories to the treaty.

This week, in a letter obtained by POLITICO, 14 Senate Democrats wrote to Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan that “the humanitarian costs and damage to coalition unity of providing U.S. cluster munitions would outweigh the tactical benefits, and urge the president not to approve such a transfer.”

“They are indiscriminate, and they harm civilians,” said Washington director of Human Rights Watch, Sarah Yager told the Washington Post. “We are also talking about breaking a global norm against using cluster munitions, at least for countries that believe in humanity even in times of war.”

“These duds are dangerous because they are so easily triggered, making them a threat to everyone who enters an area where they have been fired,” said Brian Castner, a senior crisis adviser at Amnesty International. “It’s like scattering random booby traps across the battlefield.”

This is the text of a recent letter to President Biden:

U.S. Cluster Munition Coalition Letter to Biden

Wednesday, June 14, 2023

Dear Mr. President,

We, the undersigned organizations, write with grave concerns over the potential transfer of United States cluster munitions to Ukraine. We sincerely appreciate your Administration’s firm stance in not transferring any U.S. cluster munitions to Ukraine to date. Despite recent calls from members of Congress and Ukrainian leaders for the United States to transfer cluster munitions to Ukraine, we strongly urge you to remain steadfast.

The U.S. Cluster Munition Coalition condemns in the strongest possible terms the use, production, transfer, or stockpiling of cluster munitions by any party. Cluster munitions are among the most harmful weapons to civilians, as they are designed to disperse indiscriminately across a wide area and often fail to explode on initial use, littering communities with unstable unexploded ordnance and causing devastating harm to civilians, and especially children, years after a conflict ends.

Cluster munitions have been used repeatedly by the Russian military since its full-scale invasion in February of 2022, with devastating impacts on civilians and civilian objects, including homes, hospitals, and schools, according to Human Rights Watch. The Ukrainian military has also used cluster munitions on multiple occasions.iii On April 8, 2022, a cluster munitions attack by Russia killed at least 58 civilians and injured over 100 others in the city of Kramatorsk—this is just one of the hundreds of documented, reported, or credibly alleged, cluster munition attacks in Ukraine since the 2022 invasion. The United States must not be complicit in the use of these indiscriminate weapons.

Any claims of potential tactical benefits of the transfer and subsequent use of cluster munitions by Ukraine in the defense of its territory, dismisses both the substantial danger that cluster munitions pose to civilians, and the international consensus on their prohibition.

Were the United States to transfer these prohibited weapons, it would run counter to the global consensus, embodied in the 123 countries who are signatories or states parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which bans the use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of these weapons. While neither the Russian Federation, Ukraine nor the United States are party to the Convention, 23 NATO members are among the state parties. Beyond making the United States a global outlier, acting in contradiction to partner nations’ and NATO allies’ express ban on the transfer and use of these weapons could hurt the U.S.’ ability to forge and maintain coalitions that have been so crucial to supporting Ukraine. It would also harm efforts to promote other arms control agreements.

Although the United States is regrettably not party to the Convention, a long-standing congressional mandate prohibits the transfer of any cluster munitions with a failure rate greater than 1%, which effectively forbids the transfer of any existing U.S. stockpiled cluster munitions.iv Additionally, twice in the past year,v members of Congress have written your Administration calling for the United States to “be leading the global effort to rid the world of these weapons, not continuing to stockpile them” and urged you to “promptly order a review of U.S. policy on cluster munitions with the goal of halting their use, production, export, and stockpiling and putting the United States on a path to join the Convention on Cluster Munitions.” We urge your Administration to continue to heed this congressional mandate and intent.

Cluster munitions are indiscriminate weapons that disproportionately harm civilians, both at the time of use and for years after a conflict has ended. We greatly appreciate your committed stance against transferring these weapons while supporting the Ukrainian people – and we urge you to remain resolute in resisting recent calls.

Sincerely,

U.S. Cluster Munition Coalition (USCMC) Members:

American Friends Service Committee

Amnesty International USA

Arms Control Association

Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC)

Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN)

Friends Committee on National Legislation

Human Rights Watch

Humanity & Inclusion

Landmines Blow!

Legacies of War

Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns

Mines Advisory Group (MAG) US

Nobel Women's Initiative

Physicians for Human Rights

Presbyterian Church, (USA) Office of Public Witness

Proud Students Against Landmines and Cluster Bombs (PSALM)

The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft

UNICEF USA

United Church of Christ, Justice and Local Church Ministries

West Virginia Campaign to Ban Landmines and Cluster Munitions

Win Without War

Partners:

18 Million Rising

Aurora Commons

Center for International Policy

Children of Vietnam

Church of the Brethren, Office of Peacebuilding and Policy

Foreign Policy for America

No Ethics in Big Tech

Nonviolent Peaceforce

Oxfam America

Pax Christi USA

Peace Action

Plan International USA

RootsAction.org

Saferworld

Shadow World Investigations

Sisters of Mercy of the Americas - Justice Team

Spirit of Soccer

cc: National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said he would declare an emergency on Monday so the state could access federal money for repairs, which could take months.

A tanker truck fire caused a raised portion of Interstate 95 (I-95) to collapse in northeastern Philadelphia Sunday, indefinitely blocking one of the nation's busiest highways and threatening the Delaware River with an oil spill.

The fire and collapse was triggered by a crash under the northbound ramp around 6:15 am ET, The Associated Press reported. The fire then caused the northbound lanes above it to collapse and "compromised" the southbound ones, Derek Bowmer, battalion chief of the Philadelphia Fire Department, said. There have been no injuries reported at this time.

"I-95 will be impacted for a long time, for a long time," Philadelphia managing director Tumar Alexander said Sunday morning, as ThePhiladelphia Inquirer reported.

I-95 is the main East Coast artery connecting Florida to Maine, The Washington Post explained. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said he would declare an emergency on Monday so the state could access federal money for repairs, according to the Inquirer.

"With regards to the complete rebuild of the I-95 roadway, we expect that to take some number of months," Shapiro said Sunday.

Shapiro added that the length of repairs would depend on the results of a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and Pennsylvania State Police investigation into the cause of the crash.

"I found myself thanking the Lord that no motorists who were on I-95 were injured or died," Shapiro said Sunday, according to AP.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney promised to keep residents updated about detours and alternative routes.

The federal government has already pledged support to Philadelphia and Pennsylvania.

"The President has been briefed on the collapse and White House officials have been in contact with Governor Shapiro and Mayor Kenney's offices to offer assistance," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tweeted.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also said he was in contact with Shapiro, Kenney, and other regional leaders.

"This is a major artery for people and goods, and the closure will have significant impacts on the city and region until reconstruction and recovery are complete."

"This is a major artery for people and goods, and the closure will have significant impacts on the city and region until reconstruction and recovery are complete," he tweeted. "Our department will be there with support throughout the process of I-95 returning to normal."

The truck that caught fire had a capacity for 8,500 gallons of gasoline, the U.S. Coast Guard said, as The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. While it's not clear how much gasoline the truck was carrying, it was not empty.

The highway follows the Delaware River, and some of the gasoline drained into the waterway, The Washington Post reported.

"It hasn't made its way to the water that much," Ensign Josh Ledoux, a spokesperson for the Delaware Bay sector of the Coast Guard, told the Post.

The spilled oil has left a slight sheen on the river, the Inquirer reported, which authorities are attempting to contain with floating booms.

Otherwise, air and water quality have not been impacted by the crash, city agencies said.

Democratic strategist Larry Huynh pointed to the collapse as an example of why federal infrastructure funding is so important.

"People from every political perspective in America use I-95 in Philadelphia," he tweeted. "But only one party will defend it. What does a Republican do when they see roads like this? They steal our tax dollars, and give it to billionaires. Then they DEMAND spending cuts."

He noted that most Republicans opposed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed in 2021.

"Getting Republicans out is essential for our roads. For our country. For our lives," he said.

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva has called for freedom for Julian Assange and denounced the lack of concerted efforts to free the journalist.

Lula spoke to a group of reporters in London Saturday while in town to attend the coronation of King Charles III.

Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, has spent four years in Britain’s Belmarsh Prison while fighting extradition to the United States.

"It is an embarrassment that a journalist who denounced trickery by one state against another is arrested, condemned to die in jail and we do nothing to free him. It's a crazy thing," Lula told reporters. "We talk about freedom of expression; the guy is in prison because he denounced wrongdoing. And the press doesn’t do anything in defense of this journalist. I can't understand it."

"I think there must be a movement of world press in his defense. Not in regard to his person, but to defend the right to denounce," Lula told the reporters. "The guy didn't denounce anything vulgar. He denounced that a state was spying on others, and that became a crime against the journalist. The press, which defends freedom of the press, does nothing to free this citizen. It's sad, but it’s true."

Also, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Friday he too was frustrated over the continued detention of Julian Assange: "enough is enough."

"I know it's frustrating, I share the frustration," Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. from London for the coronation of King Charles III.

"I can't do more than make very clear what my position is, and the U.S. administration is certainly very aware of what the Australian government's position is. There is nothing to be served by his ongoing incarceration."

"Enough is enough, this needs to be brought to a conclusion, it needs to be worked through," said Albanese.

Assange has battled for years to avoid being sent to the U.S., where the journalist faces 17 charges of espionage because of WikiLeaks’ publication of a trove of classified documents in 2010.

US prosecutors allege he published 700,000 secret classified documents which exposed the United States government and its wrongdoings in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wikileaks received the documents from Chelsea Manning.

Albanese said Australians cannot understand why the US would free the source who leaked the documents, Chelsea Manning, while Assange still faces life in prison.

President Joe Biden has been accused of hypocrisy for demanding the release of journalists around the world, while he actively seeks the extradition of Assange to face American espionage charges.

Assange faces a sentence of up to 175 years in a maximum security prison if extradited to the United States.

The situation at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has taken a turn for the worse as Russia has begun evacuating 18 settlements in the Zaporizhzhia region, including Enerhodar.

The BBC has cited a Ukrainian official as saying this has sparked a "mad panic" - and traffic jams have been observed as thousands of people pack up and head out of the city.

The exiled mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, wrote on Telegram that shops in the evacuated areas had run out of goods and medicine. He also said hospitals were discharging patients into the street amid fears that electricity and water supplies could be suspended.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA ) experts still at the plant site are continuing to hear shelling on a regular basis, including Friday night. Ukrainian authorities on Sunday said that a 72-year-old woman was killed and three others were wounded when Russian forces fired more than 30 shells at Nikopol, a Ukrainian-held town neighboring the nuclear plant.

The situation is “becoming increasingly unpredictable and potentially dangerous,” the head of the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog said Saturday.

International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a statement :

“The general situation in the area near the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant is becoming increasingly unpredictable and potentially dangerous."

"I’m extremely concerned about the very real nuclear safety and security risks facing the plant."

"We must act now to prevent the threat of a severe nuclear accident and its associated consequences for the population and the environment. This major nuclear facility must be protected."

"I will continue to press for a commitment by all sides to achieve this vital objective, and the IAEA will continue to do everything it can to help ensure nuclear safety and security at the plant,” he said.

The expected Ukrainian spring counter-offensive is viewed as likely to take in the Zaporizhzhia region, around 80% of which is controlled by Russian forces.

At least 58 migrants died when their overcrowded wooden boat smashed into rocky reefs and broke apart off southern Italy before dawn on Sunday, the Italian coast guard said. Survivors reportedly indicated that dozens more could be missing.

"All of the survivors are adults," AP quoted Red Cross volunteer Ignazio Mangione. "Unfortunately, all the children are among the missing or were found dead on the beach."

The Italian news agency ANSA said 20 minors are among the dead, including one newborn.

Italian state TV quoted survivors as saying the boat had set out five days earlier from Turkey with more than 200 passengers with people from Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan onboard.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's right-wing government-elected last year on a pledge to stop migrants from coming to Italy-has vowed to stop migrants reaching Italy's shores and in the last few days pushed through a tough new law tightening the rules on rescues.

The Guardian reported:

The prime minister Giorgia Meloni's rightwing government, which came to power in October, imposed tough measures against sea rescue charities, including fining them up to €50,000 if they flout a requirement to request a port and sail to it immediately after undertaking one rescue instead of remaining at sea to rescue people from other boats in difficulty.

Rescues in recent months have resulted in ships being granted ports in central and northern Italy, forcing them to make longer journeys and therefore reducing their time at sea saving lives. Charities had warned that the measure would lead to thousands of deaths.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries joined New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and other state Democrats at a Bronx rally Saturday, just days ahead of what is sure to be a contentious confirmation hearing in which progressive lawmakers opposed to LaSalle’s appointment to lead the state Court of Appeals could be decided.

Progressives charge that Hector D. LaSalle is too conservative, anti-abortion, anti-labor and anti-due process and his appointment would tilt the state’s top court further to the right.

Jeffries, however, voiced his support for the judge, saying LaSalle is “highly qualified to serve as the chief judge.”

“Period, full stop,” Jeffries said.

Jeffries urged an “up-or-down” vote by the full state Senate. “It’s important for the entire New York state Senate to treat this nomination with the same dignity, decency and respect that every other nomination has received,” he said.

In December, the Democratic governor announced that she'd chosen the conservative judge as the next chief judge of the state Court of Appeals. Judge LaSalle is currently the presiding justice of the Appellate Division in Brooklyn.

The nomination was described as "mystifying" and "horrible news" by legal experts, including public defender Eliza Orlins, who pointed to LaSalle's record on abortion and labor rights as reasons that he was "potentially the worst of the seven nominees" the governor chose between.

The state Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a confirmation hearing on Wednesday. Progressive lawmakers are working to let the nomination die in committee without advancing it to a full Senate vote. At least 14 Democratic senators have indicated they oppose his selection.

The confirmation fight pits the moderate Hochul against the party’s progressives. Politico reports:

Progressives and labor leaders see the pick as a betrayal after many within their ranks worked to deliver vital last-minute votes to Hochul during the final frantic days of last year’s election. Some reluctant allies are regretting their decision.

“She promised us that we would have a seat at the table,” Jimmy Mahoney, the president of a statewide iron workers union, said at the state Capitol on Monday as labor leaders rallied against the nomination. “She put us on the menu. This is not right. The way it was rolled out, it was so unprofessional and backstabbing.”Democratic leadership in the state Senate warned the newly-elected governor in early December that there would be fierce opposition to a LaSalle nomination

Common Dreams reported last month:

LaSalle is currently the presiding justice of the New York Supreme Court's Second Judicial Department, and as Alexander Sammon and Mark Joseph Stern wrote at Slate, "his record as an intermediate appeals court judge demonstrates a deep hostility to the very values that Hochul claimed she wanted to uphold with this appointment."

In 2017, LaSalle ruled that a so-called "crisis pregnancy center"—where people are pressured into carrying unwanted pregnancies instead of obtaining abortion care—should be shielded from the state attorney general's investigation into whether the facility was practicing medicine without a license. The judge invoked the First Amendment when he ruled that "advertisements and promotional literature, brochures, and pamphlets that the [center] provided or disseminated to the public" should not be investigated.

He also joined other judges in 2015 in handing down a "shocking" opinion, Sammon and Stern wrote, that allowed Cablevision to sue union leaders for criticizing the company's response to Hurricane Sandy, and ruled in 2014 that a criminal defendant should be blocked from appealing his conviction after the defendant claimed he'd been subjected to an illegal search.

Although Hochul claimed she was planning to nominate a chief justice who would help "defend against [the U.S.] Supreme Court's rapid retreat from precedent and continue our march toward progress," if LaSalle is confirmed by the state Senate to a 14-year term, he "would entrench a reactionary majority that would fight tooth and nail against the priorities of New York progressives," wrote Sammon and Stern.

As our world continues to warm up, vast areas of permafrost are rapidly melting, releasing material that's been trapped for up to a million years. This includes uncountable numbers of microbes that have been lying dormant for hundreds of millennia.

To study these emerging microbes, scientists from the French National Center for Scientific Research have now revived a number of these "zombie viruses" from the Siberian permafrost, including one thought to be nearly 50,000 years old – a record age for a frozen virus returning to a state capable of infecting other organisms.

The team behind the study, led by microbiologist Jean-Marie, says these ancient viruses are potentially a significant threat to public health, and further study needs to be done to assess the danger that these infectious agents could pose as the permafrost melts.

The researchers warned it may just be the tip of the iceberg:

'One-quarter of the Northern Hemisphere is underlain by permanently frozen ground, referred to as permafrost,' researchers wrote in the paper.
'Due to climate warming, irreversibly thawing permafrost is releasing organic matter frozen for up to a million years, most of which decomposes into carbon dioxide and methane, further enhancing the greenhouse effect. Part of this organic matter also consists of revived cellular microbes (prokaryotes, unicellular eukaryotes) as well as viruses that remained dormant since prehistorical times.'

According to Global News:

In 2014, the same researchers unearthed a 30,000-year-old virus trapped in permafrost, the BBC reported. The discovery was groundbreaking because after all that time, the virus was still able to infect organisms. But now, they’ve beaten their own record by reviving a virus that is 48,500 years old.

"If the authors are indeed isolating live viruses from ancient permafrost, it is likely that the even smaller, simpler mammalian viruses would also survive frozen for eons," virologist Eric Delwart from the University of California, San Francisco told New Scientist.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom called Friday for a windfall profits tax on oil companies that would go directly back to California residents.

While crude oil prices are down nationally, big oil companies have increased gas prices in California by a record 84 cents per gallon in just the last 10 days.

“Crude oil prices are down but oil and gas companies have jacked up prices at the pump in California. This doesn’t add up,” said Newsom. “I’m calling for a windfall tax to ensure excess oil profits go back to help millions of Californians who are getting ripped off.”

California lawmakers are not due back in session until January 2023, which would be the earliest Californians could see any movement on this.

Calls for windfall profits taxes have increased globally in recent weeks.

On Friday, the European Union agreed to impose a new windfall profits tax on fossil fuel companies reaping massive profits from the high price of oil and natural gas.

And on September 20th, in his opening remarks to the UN General Assembly, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called on "all developed economies" to tax fossil fuel companies to help those suffering from the climate and cost-of-living crises.

Guterres’ windfall tax proposal would direct those funds: "to countries suffering loss and damage caused by the climate crisis; and to people struggling with rising food and energy prices."

Guterres accused oil and gas giants of “feasting on a whole bunch of billions of {dollars} in subsidies and windfall profits whereas family budgets shrink and our planet burns.”

Also last week, a report authored by world-renowned economists and advocates called on governments to enact windfall profit taxes and other "emergency" measures to avert a global recession.

The United Kingdom, meanwhile, approved a 25% windfall tax on oil and gas firms in May—but new right-wing Prime Minister Liz Truss has made clear she opposes windfall taxes and won't support any new ones.

Hundreds of thousands people marched and rallied Saturday in over 50 towns and cities across the UK on a National Day of Action protesting the cost of living crisis in the largest wave of simultaneous protests seen in Britain for many years.

The organizers of the 'Enough is Enough' campaign lists their five demands as:

1. A real pay rise
2. Slash energy bills
3. End food poverty
4. Decent homes for all
5. Tax the rich

"The people need to be out in the streets and demanding change from this government, and if necessary, a change of government entirely," said Mick Lynch, general secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime, and Transport Workers (RMT), in a TV interview Friday, as he noted that top executives in the rail industry are expected to gain up to £60,000 ($67,000) from the "mini-budget" introduced by the Conservative government last week.

At King’s Cross rail station in central London, activists supported striking rail workers by rallying outside.

MP Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, spoke to the large crowd in London denouncing the new government’s plans to cut taxes for the richest and benefits for the poorest.

“Our strength is our organization, our strength is our unity,” Corbyn said. “So let’s stand up for what we believe in.”

Don't Pay, a campaign to encourage people to not pay their energy bills, also joined Saturday's rallies.

Glasgow

Nottingham

Sheffield

Liverpool

Birmingam

Norwich

Manchester

Newcastle

Cardiff