World News

>Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture finalized a rule that makes a significant number of regulatory changes at pork slaughterhouses. The agency says that the changes are long overdue, and will modernize an inspection system that hasn't been updated in more than five decades. But both consumer advocacy organizations and those who advocate for worker safety have expressed concern that the new system could lead to an increase in food contamination and make conditions more dangerous for slaughterhouse employees.

>The NSIS also removes the limit on line speed, the number of pigs that can be slaughtered each hour. Processing plants have previously been limited to 1,106 pigs per hour, although the USDA says the average is actually closer to 977 per hour. Regardless, the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (COSH) says that forcing slaughterhouse workers to process more pigs even faster could cause an increase to an already overwhelming number of workplace injuries; the organization says that meatpacking workers are fifteen times more likely to suffer "occupational illness" than workers in other industries.

>Consumer advocacy organizations have expressed their own concerns about NSIS, and what effect it could have on food safety. In 1998, five pork processing plants participated in a 15-year long pilot program called the HACCP-based Inspection Model Project (HIMP), and those plants were allowed to use their own employees to perform the sorting and pre-inspection tasks that would be permissible under the NSIS. Food & Water Watch previously reviewed the food safety performance data from the five HIMP plants, and compared it to data from five "comparably sized" plants that still followed the traditional USDA inspection procedures. Of the regulatory violations that were filed during that time period, 73 percent of the carcass contamination violations and 61 percent of the equipment sanitation violations were found in the plants participating in HIMP.

>The nonprofit Consumer Federation of America is equally troubled by the new rule. "This final rule puts industry profits ahead of public health. Higher line speeds, fewer inspectors, and no microbiological pathogen performance standards are a recipe for a food safety disaster," Thomas Gremillion, the Consumer Federation of America's Director of Food Policy, said in a statement. "The stakes are simply too high to rush forward with a rule like this that introduces sweeping changes to the inspection system without reliable measures in place to assess their impact."

>The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has just updated its policy on firearms, moving from a recommendation that lethal weapons, including guns, were considered “inappropriate” on church property to an outright prohibition of them.

>This marks the latest in a series of small steps the church has taken away from the Republican Party, either by tweaking its own policies or by simply upholding its usual position to the right of center, while members of the GOP swing ever further to the right.

>Merely by doubling down on the church’s prior stance on weapons in church, changing the one word “inappropriate” to “prohibited,” LDS leaders are signaling that they’re not blindly following the direction that many in the GOP are embracing, despite the fact that a majority of U.S. Mormons identify with the Republican Party.

>Gun violence is not the only issue; Mormons are also charting their own path on immigration. The GOP in general has followed Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda. Studies by the Pew Research Center show that Republicans are statistically much more likely than Democrats to believe that immigration is a major problem facing the country and that a border wall will be an effective way to solve the problem — both key elements of President Trump’s platform. Mormons, however, are noticeably more pro-immigrant than other Republicans.

>According to research from the 2016 Next Mormons Survey, a majority of U.S. Mormons feel that immigrants “strengthen our country because of their hard work and talents,” while Pew finds that a majority of Republicans believe that immigrants “are a burden on our country because they take our jobs, housing, and health care.”

>This is evident not just in the beliefs of the rank-and-file but in recent statements of the church, such as one decrying then-candidate Trump’s proposed “Muslim ban” in favor of religious freedom for all people (December 2015). Other statements have been pressing for compassionate solutions for refugees (January 2017), recommending that the federal government allow young DACA immigrants to remain in the country (January 2018) and urging that immigrant families be allowed to stay together rather than separating parents from children at the border (June 2018, and reiterated by church President Russell Nelson in April 2019).

>Abortion is a third issue where Mormons’ views are diverging from the GOP’s.

>The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has accidentally revealed the whereabouts of a future "urban warfare" training facility that is expected to include "hyper-realistic" simulations of homes, hotels and commercial buildings in Chicago and Arizona.

>On Tuesday, ICE published an acquisition form for the procurement of "hyper-realistic training devices" for a new training facility for its expanding Special Response Team (SRT) program on the Federal Business Opportunities website.

>The immigration agency had sought to redact the location of the new training facility, but failed to do so properly.

>As a result, Newsweek was able to simply copy and paste the document's contents into a word processor and quickly establish that the facility would be built at the Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs' (OFTP) Tactical Operations Complex (TOC) at Fort Benning, Georgia, a U.S. Army post used to prepare soldiers for combat.

>Throughout the document, areas that were meant to be withheld were not redacted properly, including signature lines at the bottom of the document. Instead of names, these would-be redacted lines contain what appears to be placeholders, such as "ijunynyhhjhjhjjjjjjj," "hnjumgfrdddfffffff" and "BHMKKOOOOOO."

>Aircraft carrier sent to Middle East after indications Iran planned attack on US forces

>hThis week, a new law went into effect in Mississippi. The state now bans plant-based meat providers from using labels like “veggie burger” or “vegan hot dog” on their products. Such labels are potentially punishable with jail time. Words like “burger” and “hot dog” would be permitted only for products from slaughtered livestock. Proponents claim the law is necessary to avoid confusing consumers — but given that the phrase “veggie burger” hasn’t been especially confusing for consumers this whole time, it certainly seems more like an effort to keep alternatives to meat away from shoppers.

>“The plant-based meat alternative category is on fire right now, with consumers demanding healthier and more sustainable options,” Michele Simon, the executive director of the Plant-Based Foods Association, said in a statement. “This law, along with similar laws in several other states, is the meat lobby’s response.”

>The makers of meat alternatives are suing. In a lawsuit filed on July 2, they argue that since their products are already labeled “vegan,” no consumers are confused. If anything, the requirement that they avoid product descriptions like “veggie burger” makes things more confusing.

>“There is no evidence that consumers are confused by plant-based bacon or veggie burger labels, and federal laws are already in place that prohibits consumer deception,” said Jessica Almy, director of policy at the Good Food Institute, an organization that works on expanding access to plant-based foods. “This law is a tremendous overstep of state powers.”

>The Trump administration, with guidance from the FDA, is preparing to ban the sale of all flavored e-cigarettes across the US, the administration said in an unexpected announcement. The ban will build on former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb's proposal to ban flavored tobacco products like Juul.

>"The Trump Administration is making it clear that we intend to clear the market of flavored e-cigarettes to reverse the deeply concerning epidemic of youth e-cigarette use that is impacting children, families, schools and communities," Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement. "We will not stand idly by as these products become an on-ramp to combustible cigarettes or nicotine addiction for a generation of youth."

>Azar and acting FDA Commissioner Norman Sharpless said the ban will include all flavored vaping products including mint and menthol flavors. Flavored vape products have gained scrutiny because they seem to be marketed toward young adults.

>"She's got a son ... she feels very strongly about it," Trump said of Melania's involvement in the vaping issue.