Today’s comic by Matt Bors is Where's the 'free speech' Right when you need them?
• Ban on bottled water in National Parks worked. So they got rid of it: Last month, the National Park Service ended a six-year experiment prohibiting the sale of water in disposable bottles inside park boundaries.
In 2011, the NPS started allowing parks to voluntarily phase out the sale of disposable plastic water bottles and install water fountains instead. As of this year, 23 out of 417 parks were in the program—including Mount Rushmore, Bryce Canyon, Zion, and Grand Canyon. In a report completed in May, the NPS found that the ban had prevented the use of between 1.3 and 2 million bottles—or between 73,000 and 112,000 pounds of plastic—per year in the participating parks. That’s as if up to 12,000 Americans stopped using disposable plastic water bottles for a year.
The report wasn’t made public until the end of the day on Friday, after a Freedom of Information Act request called for its release. The NPS is overseen by Department of the Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who has plans for our national monuments as well.
• Poverty stays the same for American Indian children:
Despite a small increase in Native American median household income over the year, 1 in 3 Native American children were in poverty in 2016—completely unchanged from 2015. Native Americans are the only ethnic or racial group where child poverty did not go down this year.
• Will Trump approve release of classified JFK assassination papers?
The anticipated release of thousands of never-seen government documents related to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination has scholars and armchair detectives buzzing. Now, they’re waiting to see whether President Donald Trump will block the release of files that could shed light on a tragedy that has stirred conspiracy theories for decades.
The National Archives has until Oct. 26 to disclose the remaining files related to Kennedy’s 1963 assassination, unless Trump intervenes. The CIA and FBI, whose records make up the bulk of the batch, won’t say whether they’ve appealed to the Republican president to keep them under wraps.
• According to the New York State Board of Elections, Jared Kushner is a woman.
• Mandatory arbitration agreements bar court access for more than 60 million U.S. workers:
In a trend driven by a series of Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1991, American employers are increasingly requiring their workers to sign mandatory arbitration agreements. Under such agreements, workers whose rights are violated can’t pursue their claims in court but must submit to arbitration procedures that research shows overwhelmingly favor employers. This study finds that since the early 2000s, the share of workers subject to mandatory arbitration has more than doubled and now exceeds 55 percent. In October 2017, the Supreme Court is expected to hand down a decision on three cases that could have wide-reaching implications for the future of mandatory arbitration and workers’ rights.
• Police misrepresented Dakota Access Pipeline protesters as violent to get FAA to prohibit civilian drone sites over months-long protest in North Dakota. The information was contained in 100 pages of documents that Motherboard at Vice sought it a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request it made last October.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Joan McCarter & Greg Dworkin round up news on Puerto Rico relief efforts, the latest “death” of Zombie Trumpcare, Moore’s win, McConnell’s loss, the Gop tax “plan” & how they’ll next stick it to consumers. Plus, outrageous, next-level Facebook fake news.