July 2018 – Page 2 – Bridge Agents

Chaos at Port Isabel: Kids Held Overnight and Parents in Limbo

July 25, 2018 Bridge Agents

United States (TexasTribune) – Editor’s note: This story contains language that may be offensive to some readers. In a chaotic bid to reunite separated migrant families by Thursday’s court-imposed deadline, an adult-only detention center in deep South Texas wound up keeping children overnight and later held their parents in a bureaucratic limbo where they were denied access to phone calls and medical care, sources and advocates told The Texas Tribune. The Port Isabel Service Processing Center, designated a primary “reunification and removal” site, also went on lockdown for several hours Sunday…

Information disorder: The essential glossary

July 25, 2018 Bridge Agents

Trying to follow the national conversation about “fake news” and the spread of bad information online can be confusing because not everybody is using the same vocabulary. Claire Wardle, a research fellow at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, has created a glossary to help everyone understand certain words and phrases and how terms that may seem quite similar actually have very different meanings. For example, disinformation is false information meant to cause harm while misinformation is false information that might cause harm, although not deliberately. Below,…

Banning Sex Work Advertising Online Will Put Sex Workers in Danger

July 24, 2018 Bridge Agents

United Kingdom (Conversation) – Just months after the US government introduced an outright ban on advertising for sexual services, an unlikely coalition of politicians fronted by the Labour MP Sarah Champion held a House of Commons debate calling for similar measures in Britain. Following a report from Champion and her colleagues on the all-party parliamentary group for prostitution, the debate took aim at websites and online adult platforms offering sexual services. Yet the majority of sex work experts argue that, as research has demonstrated, banning online sites would drive commercial…

Living Without Men: Women-Only Organising is as Old as Time

July 23, 2018 Bridge Agents

World Wide (OpenDemocracy) – Women-only space has always been important. From the political meetings where women share their experiences, plan for change, or rally together for Reclaim the Night marches against male violence, to the personal ‘girls night out’, they have the potential to be transformative, safe spaces, enabling us to speak up and express ourselves. I’ve often treasured the support and solace that can be found in women-only spaces, and have long been intrigued by the history of women forming single-sex communities – from Lesbos in 600 BC, to 1790s Wales and…

Baltimore Police Department Under Scrutiny over ‘Excessive Overtime Spending’

July 22, 2018 Bridge Agents

Baltimore, MD (PT) – In recent days the Baltimore Police Department has come under sustained criticism for what its critics view as excessive expenditure on overtime, according to a groundbreaking report by Baltimore based TRNN Journalist Stephen Janis, broadcast on Thursday. For some considerable time now the BPD has been justifying the allocation of tens of millions of dollars in public expenditure on overtime payments, due to what it claims is a shortage of Patrol Officers. The principal bone of contention, according to this report, is that with one in every…

Could drug legalization counter violence and corruption in Mexico?

July 21, 2018 Bridge Agents

Mexico City (TD) – Drug prohibition has fueled corruption and brutal violence across Mexico for decades. As a radical new president prepares to take office, could legal regulation be the answer? According to Transparency International, Mexico is ranked among the most corrupt countries in the world. A recent report by the Washington Office on Latin America found that at least 14 former or current state governors are currently under investigation for corruption, some of whom are alleged to have colluded with criminal syndicates. The same report also cited evidence of the diminishing trust…

19 Survival Uses for Water besides Drinking

July 20, 2018 Bridge Agents

World Wide (SurvivalSullivan) – According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the estimated amount of water used by an American family is over 300 gallons per day. When you consider all the uses for water in daily life, it’s clear that water is truly one of our most crucial resources. Without water, many functions that we’ve come to rely on daily would be so much more difficult. Watering the Garden is one of the more obvious survival uses for water besides drinking it. Following a SHTF situation, stores will likely be shut…

Why Oregon Should Keep its Landmark Sanctuary Law

July 20, 2018 Bridge Agents

(HRW) – The Mexican farmworker was only 23 years old and working in an almond orchard in California when the foreman began to offer her food and drink, while reminding her of his power and telling her he could get her more work. This made her uncomfortable, so she always refused, but on the third day, she told me he took her alone to a remote field and raped her. She told no one. She could not afford to leave the job, and he continued to rape her. She did not even…

US citizens can now publish models of 3D printed firearms online. What does it mean for us?

July 19, 2018 Bridge Agents

US (Conversation) – A landmark case in the United States has been settled out of court, giving gun rights advocate Cody Wilson the right to publish instructions on the web that explain how to 3D print firearms. The suit was filed by the Second Amendment Foundation on behalf of Wilson and his company, Defense Distributed, which was previously instructed by the US government to remove such blueprints. The company will resume publishing the files at the end of the month. The Defence Distributed website now shows a landing page that celebrates the victory…

Everyday Terrorism: A Woman or Girl is Killed Every Other Day in Canada

July 19, 2018 Bridge Agents

Canada (Conversation) – One woman or girl is killed every other day in Canada. This is not a new fact nor does it represent a new trend. For 40 years, this fact has varied little; similarly, rates of other forms of violence against women and girls have remained persistently stable. Violence is a product of our culture. So, too, are our responses to violence when it occurs. Therefore, systemic and cultural transformation is required. This is a daunting task, but can be achieved with small steps. We can begin by…