U.S. to hit Iran with fresh sanctions after Israel attack

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan at the White House last month. Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The U.S. will impose new sanctions on Iran's missile and drone program after the country's unprecedented attack on Israel over the weekend, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan announced Tuesday evening.

Why it matters: President Biden is urging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to exercise military restraint. But in the economic sphere, the administration is demonstrating a willingness to retaliate against Iran.

🔸These new sanctions and other ones Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is preparing represent a subtle message to Israel that there is more than one way to harm the ruling regime in Tehran.

Driving the news: Sullivan said in a statement that Biden is working in coordination with international partners including G7 nations and bipartisan leaders in Congress on a comprehensive response to Iran's attack.

🔸U.S. defense agencies are working on strengthening air and missile defense and early warning systems across the Middle East.

🔸The new sanctions will also target entities supporting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iran's Defense Ministry. "We anticipate that our allies and partners will soon be following with their own sanctions," Sullivan said.

🔸Meanwhile, Yellen vowed that the U.S. "will not hesitate" to inflict economic punishment in response to Iran's attack.

What's next: Yellen will press fellow finance ministers — visiting D.C. for the annual spring IMF meetings this week — to focus their governments on possible sanctions work with the U.S. on coordinated actions.

🔸"Treasury will not hesitate to work with our allies to use our sanctions authority to continue disrupting the Iranian regime's malign and destabilizing activity," Yellen is prepared to say Tuesday during her opening remarks at a press conference.

🔸"The attack by Iran and its proxies underscores the importance of Treasury's work to use our economic tools to counter Iran's malign activity," she will say, according to a copy of her remarks obtained by Axios.

🔸The G7 is also considering sanctions with the goal of isolating Iran internationally and increasing economic pressure on the regime, White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters Monday.

🔸"We now have a unified alliance of partners," he said. "That wasn't Iran's intent."

Flashback: Days after Hamas Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the Biden administration announced new sanctions against Hamas leaders and financial facilitators.

Zoom out: Republicans have criticized the Biden administration for not doing more to check the aggression of Iran and Iranian-backed forces throughout the Middle East.

🔸Biden's warning to Netanyahu to temper any possible Israeli counterattack against Iran was hit with a barrage of criticism Sunday, including from some Democrats.

🔸Last September, Republicans pilloried the president for releasing some $6 billion in Iranian oil revenue as part of a hostage swap deal.

🔸In January, after a pro-Iranian militia killed three U.S. service members in Jordan, some GOP lawmakers called for attacks on targets inside of Iran.

🔸Instead, Biden ordered strikes against Iranian groups in Iraq and Syria.

Zoom in: House Republicans have scheduled more than a dozen votes for this week on bills sanctioning Iran and its proxies in retaliation for last weekend's wide-ranging drone and missile attack on Israel.

Go deeper: Blinken: Escalation with Iran is not in U.S. or Israel's interests

Editor's note: This article has been updated with details of the White House national security adviser's announcement.

‘Playing with fire’: Ukraine’s frustration grows with US lawmakers, Europe

 ‘Playing with fire’: Ukraine’s frustration grows with US lawmakers, Europe

Ukraine is raising its standing army by 300,000, as the US stumbles and the EU lacks capacity to defend a future member.

Yuliia takes shelter inside a metro station with her daughter Varvara during a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attacks on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, April 11, 2024. REUTERS/Alina Smutko
Yuliia, a Ukrainian woman, takes shelter inside a metro station with her daughter Varvara during a Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine 

Athens, Greece – Frustration with the United States for holding back critical financial and military aid from Ukraine spilled into the open at the Delphi Economic Forum in Greece last week.

“The Russians are destroying Ukrainian power plants, which is a war crime, but unfortunately they’re getting away with it because as the collective West we have not supplied Ukraine with enough missiles,” Radoslaw Sikorski, the Polish former foreign and defence minister, told Al Jazeera on the sidelines of the meeting.

On the day he spoke to Al Jazeera, Russia unleashed a barrage of some 80 missiles that completely destroyed a thermal power plant in Kyiv, which supposedly has the best air defences in the country.

SM-3 Ballistic Missile Interceptor Used for First Time in Combat, Officials Confirm

 SM-3 Ballistic Missile Interceptor Used for First Time in Combat, Officials Confirm

On Nov. 16, U.S. Missile Defense Agency and Navy sailors aboard USS John Finn (DDG 113), an Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System-equipped destroyer, fired a Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IIA guided missile that successfully intercepted and destroyed a mock Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) during a flight test demonstration in the broad ocean area northeast of Hawaii in November 2020. MDA photo.

For the first time in combat, guided-missile destroyers fired missiles developed to intercept ballistic missiles during the U.S. response to the Iranian attack on Israel, USNI News has learned.

USS Arleigh Burke (DDG-51) and USS Carney (DDG-64), in the Eastern Mediterranean, fired four to seven Standard Missile 3s to intercept Iranian ballistic missiles headed toward Israeli targets over the weekend, two defense officials confirmed to USNI News on Monday.

Carney and Arleigh Burke have versions of the Aegis combat system that were modified to track and target ballistic missiles. The SPY-1D radar on the destroyers cues the SM-3 to attack the ballistic missile. The SM-3 transports a kill vehicle outside the atmosphere to intercept a ballistic missile near the height of its path from its launch point before it reenters the atmosphere to hit its target.

Both the destroyers were placed off the coast of Israel as part of the defensive measures against a Iranian strike in retaliation for an Israeli attack on an Iranian embassy in Syria.

It’s unclear what missiles the Iranians fired toward Israel, but, according to missile analyst Chris Carlson, the fact the Navy used SM-3s points to the likelihood the Iranians used some of its medium-range ballistic missiles with a range of up to 1,800 miles.

First deployed in early 2004 on U.S. cruisers and destroyers, the SM-3s have been part of the U.S. ballistic missile defense network across the world. In 2011, the U.S. announced it would deploy four U.S. BMD destroyers in Rota as part of the European Phased Adaptive Approach to BMD along with missile defense sites based on the Aegis technology in Poland and Romania that also use SM-3s. The EPAA was specifically created during the Obama administration to protect Europe from Iranian ballistic missiles.

Burke is currently part of the U.S. destroyer contingent in Rota, and Carney had previously been stationed there as part of the mission. Likewise, BMD destroyers and cruisers patrol near Japan and South Korea as a hedge against potential North Korean ballistic missile attacks.

While variants of the missile have been in use for more than two decades and have undergone a wide range of tests, they have never been used in a real-world situation.

“Until you use it in combat, there are always questions,” Carlson told USNI News .

 

Iran launches barrage of strikes toward Israel

 Iran launches barrage of strikes toward Israel

What we covered:

🔸The Middle East has been plunged deeper into uncharted waters after Iran launched dozens of missiles and drones from its territory toward Israel in an unprecedented five-hour strike.

🔸The vast majority of missiles were intercepted outside Israel's territory by aerial defense systems, its military said. There have been no reports of injuries suffered directly through Iranian strikes, according to Israel’s emergency service.

🔸Iran's foreign ministry said the attack was in retaliation to a deadly Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, earlier this month.

🔸President Joe Biden made clear US will not participate in any offensive operations against Iran, according to a senior administration official. But he said Washington's commitment to Israel’s security against Iranian threats remains "ironclad."

🔸US forces intercepted more than 70 drones and at least three ballistic missiles, according to US officials. The US assessment is that Iran’s attacks had been largely unsuccessful.

🔸Here's how to help humanitarian efforts in Gaza and Israel.

Iran warns its response will be "stronger and more resolute" if Israel retaliates following latest strikes

Iran has warned that it will respond with more force if Israel retaliates over this weekend's strikes, which Tehran said were themselves a reply to an Israeli attack earlier this month on its embassy complex in Syria's capital Damascus.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran will not hesitate to exercise its inherent right of self-defense when required," Iran’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani, said in a statement.

 

Should the Israeli regime commit any military aggression again, Iran's response will assuredly and decisively be stronger and more resolute,” Ambassador Iravani added.

Citing self-defense against repeated Israeli military aggressions, Iravani said the strikes were specifically in retaliation to an Israeli attack on April 1 against what Iran says were diplomatic facilities in Damascus.

Iran claims the attack violated international law and led to the death of seven Iranian military advisors, including key commanders from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The statement also criticizes the United Nations Security Council for “failing to uphold international peace,” allowing Israel to “breach” established international norms and “escalate” regional tensions.

Additional context: Israel has carried out numerous strikes on Iran-backed targets in Syria, often targeting weapons shipments allegedly intended for Hezbollah, a powerful Iranian proxy in Lebanon. 

Israel has not claimed responsibility for the April 1 attack which destroyed an Iranian consulate building in the capital Damascus, including Mohammed Reza Zahedi, a top Revolutionary Guards commander.

However an Israel Defense Forces spokesman told CNN that their intelligence showed the building was not a consulate and was instead “a military building of Quds forces disguised as a civilian building.”

China expresses 'deep concern', calls for ceasefire

China has expressed "deep concern" over the "current escalation" following Iran's attack on Israel, according to a spokesperson for its Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sunday, adding that it is a "spillover of the Gaza conflict" and a ceasefire should be implemented without delay.

In a statement, China called "on relevant parties to exercise calm and restraint to prevent further escalations."

"The ongoing situation is the latest spillover of the Gaza conflict," the spokesperson said, adding that a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas should be implemented without any more delay.

Beijing did not name or condemn Hamas in the wake of the initial October 7 attacks. Since then, it has condemned the war and been a vocal proponent of an immediate ceasefire and the implementation of a “two-state” solution.

Last month, Chinese diplomat Wang Kejian met Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Qatar, the first meeting between a Chinese and Hamas official publicly acknowledged by Beijing since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.

Wang’s visit follows efforts by Beijing to step up its profile as a peace broker in the Middle East conflict.

Airspace closures throughout the Middle East ground, divert flights as Iran launches drone attack on Israel

 Airspace closures throughout the Middle East ground, divert flights as Iran launches drone attack on Israel

KEY POINTS

🔸United Airlines and other carriers were affected by the airspace closure.

🔸Israel and Jordan closed airspace as Iran launched a drone strike on Israel, according to U.S. officials.

🔸Iran has said it would retaliate against Israel for a airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus.

Flightradar24 over the Middle East on April 14th, 2024 after Iran launched drone strikes towards Israel.

Flightradar24 over the Middle East on April 14th, 2024 after Iran launched drone strikes towards Israel.

Airspace closures through the Middle East grounded and diverted flights on Saturday as Iran launched drones toward Israel.

United Airlines, which resumed service to Tel Aviv early last month after suspending Israel flights after the Hamas attacks in October, called off its Newark to Tel Aviv flight on Saturday after Israel closed its airspace. Jordan and Iraq had also closed their airspace, according to Jordanian state-owned media news outlet Al Mamlaka.

"We are closely monitoring the situation and will make decisions on upcoming flights with a focus on the safety of our customers and crews," United said in a statement. The carrier is the only U.S. airline to have resumed service to Israel since October. Delta was scheduled to restart flights to Tel Aviv on June. 7. American Airlines has not resumed Israel service.

United also canceled its flight from Washington Dulles International Airport to Amman, Jordan on Saturday night, "due to unrest in the Middle East." United also canceled its Newark-Dubai flight on Sunday.

It was not clear when flights would resume.

Some flights avoided large swaths of airspace in the Middle East, reroutes that delayed some planes, Swiss International Airlines said.

Flight-tracking site Flightradar24 said multiple flights bound for Tel Aviv and Amman had diverted on Saturday.

Airlines also canceled service scheduled for Sunday. Israel's El Al cancelled more than 20 Sunday flights. Two El Al flights headed for Israel from Thailand diverted to Bangkok. The carrier told passengers not to come to the airport until notified.

Emirates Airline canceled its Dubai-Amman flight scheduled for Sunday. Air France's Israel service was canceled for Sunday and British Airways canceled its two flights to Tel Aviv on Sunday and scrubbed a flight to Amman. Lufthansa also canceled its service to Israel.

NASA unveils probe bound for Jupiter's possibly life-sustaining moon

 NASA unveils probe bound for Jupiter's possibly life-sustaining moon

NASA's Europa Clipper Spacecraft is headed for one of Jupiter's moons to see if it has the right conditions to sustain life.
US space scientists on Thursday unveiled the interplanetary probe NASA plans to send to one of Jupiter's icy moons as part of humanity's hunt for extra-terrestrial life.

The Clipper spacecraft is due to blast off in October bound for Europa, one of dozens of moons orbiting the solar system's biggest planet, and the nearest spot in our celestial neighborhood that could offer a perch for life.

"One of the fundamental questions that NASA wants to understand is, are we alone in the cosmos?" Bob Pappalardo, the mission's project scientist told AFP.

"If we were to find the conditions for life, and then someday actually find life in a place like Europa, then that would say in our own solar system there are two examples of life: Earth and Europa.

"That would be huge for understanding how common life might be throughout the universe."

The $5 billion probe is currently at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, sitting in a "clean room"—a sealed area only accessible to people wearing head-to-toe covering.

The precautions are to ensure the probe remains free of contaminants to avoid transporting Earthly microbes to Europa.

After transport to Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Clipper is set to launch aboard a Space X Falcon Heavy rocket and begin an over-five-year journey that involves a pass by Mars to pick up speed.

In 2031, it should be in orbit around Jupiter and Europa, where it will begin a detailed study of the moon scientists believe is covered in frozen water.

"We have instruments like cameras, and spectrometers, a magnetometer and a radar that can... penetrate right through ice, bounce off liquid water and back to the surface to tell us how thick is the ice and where is liquid water located," Pappalardo said.

Mission managers do not expect to find little green men swimming in the water—in fact, they're not even looking for life itself, only for the conditions that could support it.

Scientists know from extreme environments on Earth—like light-starved geothermal vents located deep under the polar ice cap—that tiny beings can find purchase almost anywhere.

And conditions on Europa, which is almost as large as Earth's moon, could provide a similar habitat, offering the tantalizing prospect we are not alone—not even in our own solar system.

"If moons around planets far away from stars could hold life, then the number of opportunities around the solar system, around the universe, where life could take hold, I think goes up dramatically," said Jordan Evans, project manager for the Europa Clipper mission.

Challenges

The science is not easy—a powerful radiation field around Europa could degrade the instruments, which will be getting the equivalent of 100,000 chest X-rays every circuit around the moon.

The vast distances involved mean that when Clipper sends its data back, the signal will take 45 minutes to arrive at Mission Control.

And despite its massive solar array, which unfurls once in space, keeping Clipper powered will be a major challenge, Evans said.

"Right after launch, (the solar panels are) putting out 23,000 watts... but when we're out at Jupiter, so far away from the sun, they're only putting out 700 watts," he said.

"Near Earth, they could power 20 houses continuously. And when we're at Jupiter, just a few light bulbs and some small appliances."

The mission, planning for which began in the late 1990s, is expected to conclude around 2034, when Clipper will likely have reached the end of its useful life.

The probe will then have one final port of call: Jupiter's largest moon, deputy project manager Tim Larson said.

"After we're done with the science mission, the way we end is by crashing into one of the other bodies in the Jovian system to dispose of the spacecraft," he said.

"Right now, the plan is to go into Ganymede."

Drug shortages reach record high in US

 Drug shortages reach record high in US

There are 323 drugs with active shortages in the US, surpassing the previous record high from 2014

There are more active drug shortages in the United States than ever, according to data from the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists and the University of Utah Drug Information Service.

FILE - In this May 25, 2017 file photo, chemotherapy drugs are administered to a patient at a hospital in Chapel Hill, N.C. A growing shortage of common cancer treatments is forcing doctors to switch medications and delaying care, prominent U.S. cancer centers say. The National Comprehensive Cancer Network said Wednesday, June 7, 2023, that nearly all the centers it surveyed in late May 2023 were dealing with shortages of the chemotherapies carboplatin and cisplatin. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

Drug shortages may mean difference between life and death for some US patients, experts say

The organizations first started tracking drug shortages in 2001. Active shortages previously peaked in 2014, with 320 drugs in active shortage. Shortage levels have fluctuated in the decade since, but have been steadily trending up since 2021 — now reaching a record-high of 323 drugs in the first three months of 2024.

“It’s long past time to put an end to drug shortages,” Paul Abramowitz, chief executive officer of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, wrote in a blog post on Thursday.

“All drug classes are vulnerable to shortages,” he wrote. “Some of the most worrying shortages involve generic sterile injectable medications, including cancer chemotherapy drugs and emergency medications stored in hospital crash carts and procedural areas. Ongoing national shortages of therapies for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder also remain a serious challenge for clinicians and patients.”

Along with the 32 chemotherapy drugs that are in shortage, the five categories of drugs with the most shortages include central nervous system stimulants, antimicrobials, hormone agents and intravenous fluids.

The drug shortage database maintained by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists and the University of Utah is based on voluntary reports from practitioners, patients and others that are confirmed with manufacturers. This list often includes more drugs than the number considered to be in shortage by the US Food and Drug Administration because it captures broader impacts on providers and patients.

The average drug shortage lasts about a year and a half, according to government data. More than half of the treatment shortages have persisted for more than two years, according to an analysis by health consulting firm IQVIA. And the average shortage affects at least half a million patients, many of them older adults, according to the US Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, which shared its analysis with Congress in May.

Increased demand can play a role in drug shortages, as with recent shortages of weight loss drugs. But more often, manufacturing and quality problems, such as supply chain gaps and discontinuations, are at the root.

Last week, HHS published a white paper outlining policy suggestions to help prevent drug shortages and mitigate vulnerabilities. Among the key recommendations are collaborations with manufacturers and hospitals that aim to bring transparency to the drug market and incentivize investment in resilient and diverse supply chains.

But the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists has “serious concerns” about parts of this proposal, notably the financial penalties for hospitals that lack resources to comply with the recommendations.

“We all know that managing shortages isn’t enough and is not a sustainable solution to the worsening crisis,” Abramowitz wrote. “Much work remains to be done at the federal level to fix the root causes of drug shortages.”

Bitcoin Mining Braces For A Shakeout As Halving Nears

 Bitcoin Mining Braces For A Shakeout As Halving Nears

The approaching bitcoin halving is sending some bitcoin mining companies running for cover.

Others, meanwhile, are rushing out to score good deals.

"We're really paying attention to the full spectrum right now of assets and companies that might be more on that marginal cost curve so that we can ensure we're prepared for any types of opportunities that may arise," Adam Sullivan, CEO of bitcoin mining company Core Scientific (CORZ), told Investor's Business Daily.

Most industry watchers expect the reduced reward for bitcoin mining to push some out of the business. That, in turn, could lead to a glut of specialized mining hardware. "As those marginally profitable miners start to experience cash-flow issues, it can be a great opportunity for Core Scientific to buy machines at discounted prices," said Sullivan.

Sullivan says the halving will kick off a massive equipment buying frenzy in the bitcoin mining sector, driven by a need for modernized, efficient mining hardware as the reward drops. "You're going to see an acceleration on ASIC demand, people rotating into newer generation machines," said Sullivan.

The Big Bitcoin Mining Rig Demand Blowup

ASICs, or Application-Specific Integrated Circuit processors, are the type of chips powering the most modern and specialized mining rigs. The first mining-specific ASIC rigs appeared in 2013, according to CoinDesk, and are solely designed to handle the cryptographic math needed to "mine" bitcoin. ASICs soon supplanted GPUs from Nvidia (NVDA) and AMD (AMD), which had themselves replaced microprocessors in ordinary, at-home computers. But with every new wave of technology, efficiency remained the goal: more crypto calculations with less energy.

Some of the currently top-rated mining chips and computers come from China-based players, including Bitmain, MicroBT and Cannan (CAN).

The influx of new mining hardware permits miners some flexibility in dealing with their energy costs. Industrial bitcoin mining also considers the cost of electricity in different locations throughout the U.S. "We're taking the most efficient machines and putting them to our highest uptime locations," said Sullivan. "We're then taking our least efficient machines and allocating them to our facilities where we can be much more selective about the power costs." Core Scientific says it currently operates facilities in Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, North Dakota and Texas.

Prior bitcoin halvings occurred in 2012, 2016 and 2020. Bitcoin's next halving appears set to occur later this month.

Bitcoin's halving is a function built into the cryptocurrency from the onset, laid out by reputed creator Satoshi Nakamoto in the original 2008 bitcoin white paper. Bitcoin is "mined" by verifying transactions across the bitcoin network, creating a block that's added to the chain of previous transactions. (This creates the so-called blockchain.) When other bitcoin miners agree that the block is valid, the block becomes a bitcoin that goes to the first miner. Meanwhile, the block is itself used to hash new transactions.

Estimates call for April's halving to reduce mining rewards to 3.125 bitcoin per block, down from 6.25 per block. Because bitcoin mining occurs at a steady rate, halvings tend to occur roughly every four years.

"Mining companies are going to be making very large purchases to ensure the long-term stability of their business and to make sure they can survive through these difficult times of the year," said Sullivan.

Weathering Difficult Times In Bitcoin Mining

Core Scientific is no stranger to lean times in crypto. The Austin, Texas-based bitcoin miner filed for bankruptcy during the 2022 drop in crypto prices popularly called the "crypto winter." Core Scientific continued its mining operations through the bankruptcy, and emerged in January, reclaiming the ticker CORZ.

Core Scientific currently has a market cap of $555.9 million, well below its $4.3 billion market debut via special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, in 2021. The mining company's stock saw its shares spike to a year-to-date high of 4.29 in March before reversing to a low of 2.95 after the company reported its first post-bankruptcy earnings. Core Scientific is unranked in its Computer Software group, although it does hold a Composite Rating of 84, according to IBD Research.

The top publicly traded miners include Riot Platforms (RIOT) and Marathon Digital (MARA).

Core Scientific remains optimistic it can weather the halving and keep its spot as one of the largest bitcoin miners. "We know we'll have an opportunity to refresh our machines post-halving, putting us in a really strong position to continue to grow to 2025," said Sullivan. "We know what it takes from a capital allocation perspective and we know what it means to put cash on the balance sheet to be able to take advantage of bear markets versus being concerned about profitability."

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The Vatican’s new statement on trans rights undercuts its attempts at inclusion

 The Vatican’s new statement on trans rights undercuts its attempts at inclusion

Pope Francis greets bishops during the weekly general audience at St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City on April 10, 2024. Massimo Valicchia/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Li Zhou is a politics reporter at Vox, where she covers Congress and elections. Previously, she was a tech policy reporter at Politico and an editorial fellow at the Atlantic.

A new Vatican document released April 8 details how the Catholic Church approaches human dignity, but it has raised concern among LGBTQ parishioners and their allies about how it describes gender-affirming surgery.

The document, entitled “Dignitas Infinita” (“Infinite Dignity”), was five years in the making and lays out the ways the Vatican believes the inherent dignity that each person possesses can be honored and protected. Though largely in line with positions the Catholic Church has expressed in the past, it’s notable for elevating some of the church’s most conservative views into doctrine — essentially, official church teachings — during a period in which the current pope has been seen as trying to steer the organization in a more progressive, inclusive direction.

Broadly, the document highlights “grave violations” of human dignity, including war, poverty, mistreatment of migrants, and abuse of women. It also lists other perceived threats, including abortion and what the Vatican describes as “gender theory” and “sex change.” In these provisions, the document criticizes gender-affirming procedures and stresses that the Vatican views gender as a clear binary between men and women.

“While Pope Francis has made greater strides in affirming LGBTQ+ Catholics than any of his predecessors, his endorsement of ‘Dignitas Infinita’ will be seen as turning the clock back by transgender individuals, both within and outside the church,” R. Andrew Chesnut, the Bishop Sullivan Chair in Catholic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, told Vox.

The release of “Dignitas Infinita” comes amid a larger political, cultural, and social discourse about trans rights and medical care, including a recent UK report on the subject. LGBTQ Catholics and advocates fear, too, that it will worsen a climate in which some governments have enacted laws that attack trans people — including numerous GOP bans on gender-affirming care for children in the US — and be used to fuel more discrimination.

“The document should not be dismissed as simply an abstract theological conversation with few human consequences,” Francis DeBernardo, the executive director of New Way Ministries, an LGBTQ Catholic group, said in a statement. “Rather, the Vatican is again supporting and propagating ideas that lead to real physical harm to transgender, nonbinary, and other LGBTQ+ people.”

The Vatican document challenges attempts at inclusion

Under Pope Francis, the Vatican has sought to lead a more inclusive Catholic Church, including approving blessings for same-sex couples and allowing women to vote in a major bishops’ meeting for the first time.

Francis has also personally made overtures to the trans community, approving the baptizing of trans parishioners and welcoming a group of trans women to a weekly gathering. However, as “Dignitas Infinita” exemplifies, such progress toward inclusivity has been halting, with the church still declining to permit marriage for same-sex couples and barring women from becoming priests.

The document’s treatment of trans people continues this pattern by emphasizing the need to acknowledge every person’s human dignity while offering “limited dignity” to trans people, DeBernardo said.

In particular, it argues that gender-affirming procedures threaten the dignity that a person is born with at conception, claiming that such medical care interferes with “the need to respect the natural order of the human person.” The document also broadly denounces “gender theory,” which includes “argu[ing] that a person’s gender can be different from the sex that person was assigned at birth,” NPR’s Jason DeRose explains.

“That ‘Dignitas Infinita’ rebukes gender transition interventions as a rejection of God’s plan of human life implies that those individuals who have elected to transition ... have violated divine will,” said Chesnut.

Jason Steidl, a professor of religious studies at St. Johns University who specializes in Catholicism, put it more bluntly. “This is the Newsmax version of Catholic theology,” he said.

The Vatican’s statements have been widely lambasted by trans members of the Catholic Church who view them as undermining their experiences and their place in the church. “Transgender people are beloved, intentional creations of God the same as cisgender men and women are,” Michael Sennett, a trans man and practicing Catholic in Massachusetts, told the Associated Press.

Steidl and others, however, see the doctrine as satisfying a more conservative arm of the Catholic Church.

The pope’s announcement in late 2023, for example, that the Vatican would support priests blessing same-sex couples in certain contexts drew ire from numerous clergymen globally. Those opposed to Francis’s more progressive actions included some in Africa, one of the places where the Catholic Church has seen high growth in recent years, who called it “contrary to the will of God.”

According to Steidl, who is also the author of LGBTQ Catholic Ministry, the provisions going after trans people in the Vatican’s document were likely an attempt to appease this segment of the church. “Cardinal Fernandez, the head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith, had essentially said that they were going to be throwing traditionalists a bone,” Steidl told Vox.

The church doctrine adds to policies attacking trans people

LGBTQ advocates worry the Vatican’s document will only be further ammunition for conservatives in the political and social spheres as they advance discriminatory policies, particularly as political attacks on trans people have surged in recent years.

At least 19 GOP-led state legislatures in the US have passed laws either restricting or outright banning access to gender-affirming care, even though major physician organizations have deemed such care medically necessary. As the number of anti-trans laws has spiked, a report from the National Center for Transgender Equality has documented an increase in homicides of transgender people in the US between November 2022 and November 2023.

European countries are also taking a more restrictive approach to health care for trans people — particularly for minors. Recently, a report commissioned by the United Kingdom’s National Health Service questioned current transition practices in pediatrics and reiterated recommendations to reduce the use of puberty blockers, a treatment the NHS has already stopped offering for minors with gender dysphoria.

LGBTQ advocates are concerned that the Vatican’s document will just add to rhetoric globally that has sought to curtail trans rights.

“This document … tells trans people that they are a threat to the world, that they are a threat to order, to the systems that God has set up,” Steidl told Vox. “Unfortunately, the Vatican is contributing to these movements that seek to hurt trans people, that seek to eliminate them.”

 

Hollywood Guilds Come Out Strong For “Ethical & Transparent” AI Bill From Adam Schiff  

SAG-AFTRA, IATSE the WGA, and even the DGA have united behind a legislative move to put up some new and slightly punitive guardrails around Artificial Intelligence.

“Everything generated by AI ultimately originates from a human creative source, says Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator, of a new bill proposed today by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA). “That’s why human creative content—intellectual property—must be protected. SAG-AFTRA fully supports the Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act, as this legislation is an important step in ensuring technology serves people and not the other way around,” 

Deep into his race to be California’s new junior Senator, Schiff introduced the Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act into the 118th Congress (read it here) Tuesday. If passed by the House and Senate and signed by President Joe Biden, the succinct act would require companies and corporations that use copyrighted works in the training of their generative AI systems training datasets to submit a public notice with the Register of Copyrights.

In short, before you put that AI created material out there, you’ve got to pull back the veil and reveal where you scooped up the info and datasets from. Now, with its $5,000 civil penalty for violations, the bill doesn’t exactly hit the tech overlords and studios that hard where it counts.

However, with the fears and harsh realities that AI itself generates among below-the-line workers and creators, the fact is the introduction of the legislation alone sees Schiff tossing some blue meat to his base. In a Senate bid that is his to lose against a Republican challenger he promoted, Schiff, who is commonly known as the Congressman from Hollywood for the number of studios in and around his Burbank district, is putting an issue of vital importance to unions and guild members on the table.

The use and implications of AI was a very big part of last year’s strikes by the WGA and SAG-AFTRA. Despite the handwringing of those who predicted it would sink any deal, protections around AI for guild members ended up being a major part of the agreements the scribes and the actors came to with the studios and streamers.

Now with the long anticipated introduction of Schiff’s new bill , leadership is responding again.

“This bill is an important first step in addressing the unprecedented and unauthorized use of copyrighted materials to train generative AI systems,” states WGA West chief Meredith Stiehm. “Greater transparency and guardrails around AI are necessary to protect writers and other creators.”

Stiehm’s East Coast partner, WGA East president Lisa Takeuchi Cullen added: “The Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act is an important piece of legislation that will ensure companies use this new and rapidly advancing technology in ethical and transparent ways. Given the scope and potential threat of AI, enforceable regulations are urgently needed to keep companies from implementing this technology in the shadows, without people’s consent or knowledge.”

Schiff’s bill follows up on the momentum began by President Biden’s Executive Order on AI from last October and the subsequent three-pillar strategy Vice President Kamala Harris and the administration rolled out late last month.

On a state level, there are two bills moving through the Assembly in Sacramento that also hope to curb AI’s reach and power, especially in relation to Hollywood.

Currently in the early stages of the legislative process, the SAG-AFTA backed and MPA opposed AB 2602 would cement protections for performers that digital recreations of them or their work could only be used with permission and compensation. Another bill, AB 1836, would put contextual and creatives limits on the AI or digital use of deceased performers, from a Sidney Poitier to a Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, a Heath Ledger and many more. At its core, AB 1836 would make use of a dead star’s likeness and performance only allowable if the 21st century use is within the context of what the performer actually did when they were alive – – AKA no Jane Wyman and Marilyn tag-team wrestling.

As Adam Schiff said today of the Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act: “This is about respecting creativity in the age of AI and marrying technological progress with fairness.”