BY YSABELLE KEMPE
The Olympian

Planned logging of a more than century-old forest near the Nooksack River’s Middle Fork has been paused, according to a Friday, Jan. 28, email the state Department of Natural Resources sent to community members who had contacted the agency regarding the sale. The nearly 89-acre “Upper Rutsatz” timber sale will not move ahead at this time as the DNR reevaluates its policies regarding older forests, wrote Angus Brodie, the agency’s deputy supervisor for state uplands. The forest near Deming is on state trust lands, managed by the DNR to bring in revenue for public schools, state universities, construction on the Olympia capitol campus and prisons. The timber sale was scheduled for auction in April 2022, according to an environmental review prepared by the DNR in May 2021.

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By Jackie Wattles and Pete Muntean
CNN
Updated 8:45 AM ET, Mon January 24, 2022

New York (CNN Business) Potentially abysmal air travel interruptions were narrowly avoided this week when wireless carriers made a last-minute change to their planned 5G rollout in response to fears that new cell service towers could interfere with a key component on passenger jets that allows them to safely land in low visibility conditions.

Warnings of mass flight cancellations came as AT&T, Verizon and the airline industry hashed out a deal to delay 5G deployment around major airports. And on Thursday, the Federal Aviation Administration cleared a greater number of commercial airliners to fly in the situations where pilots consider possible 5G interference to be the most dangerous. Now, nearly 80% of the United States' entire commercial airliner fleet has that clearance.

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BY Daniel Howley
YAHOO!FINANCE

The airline industry and wireless carriers AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ) have reached a detente in their showdown over the potential for new 5G antennas to interfere with passenger and commercial flights.

For weeks, the Federal Aviation Administration and stakeholders in the airline industry have faced off over whether the deployment of so-called C-band 5G spectrum will cause radio altimeters in aircraft to malfunction.

That’s an important part of a plane, as it allows it to land in low visibility settings, while still being able to tell how far it is from the ground. But a last minute agreement between the aviation industry and AT&T and Verizon seems to have spared the U.S. from a deluge of flight cancellations just as airlines are trying to recover from COVID-induced slowdowns.

So how did the wireless companies and airlines come so close to disaster?

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YAHOO!NEWS
By SCOTT SONNER

RENO, Nev. (AP) — The U.S. government plans to capture more wild horses on federal lands this year than ever before, drawing sharp criticism from mustang advocates who hoped the Biden administration would curtail widespread gathers of thousands of horses annually across the American West.

Bureau of Land Management Director Tracy Stone-Manning, known as an ally of conservationists on several public land fronts when she was appointed in the fall, says the agency plans to permanently remove at least 19,000 horses and burros this year.

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NPR
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

U.S. airlines and the nation's wireless carriers came to a short-term agreement this week to slow or limit the rollout of the new 5G wireless spectrum near some airports. That averted a mass cancellation of flights for now. But safety is still a concern. Airlines and the FAA are worried about how 5G can interfere with flight navigation, specifically with altitude measurements.

We're joined now by Captain Dennis Tajer of the Allied Pilots Association. They represent some 15,000 pilots who fly for American Airlines. Captain Tajer, thanks for being with us.

DENNIS TAJER: It's great to be with you. Thank you.

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By Stephen Gandel
The New York Times
Jan. 19, 2022

The potential for interference between 5G signals and the radio altimeters long used by pilots has divided the telecom and aviation industries.

A technological innovation that helped pilots fly fighter planes during World War II is now at the heart of the dispute between airlines and AT&T and Verizon over 5G, an innovative service meant to speed up mobile devices.

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By Ian Duncan and Lori Aratani

January 18, 2022 | Updated January 18, 2022 at 6:31 p.m. EST

Wireless companies AT&T and Verizon said Tuesday they would limit the rollout of new high-speed 5G networks near airports, a step the Federal Aviation Administration said should avert possible flight disruptions and much of the potential for interference with airplane safety technology.

Airlines had begun preparing employees for a wave of disruptions tied to the rollout, while some international operators canceled flights to the United States. Tuesday’s deal marked another temporary fix in a dispute that has put different parts of the federal government at loggerheads, while leaving two of the nation’s major industries at odds.

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The Guardian

Activists mourn deaths in Amazon state of Pará as bodies of José Gomes, Márcia Nunes Lisboa and their daughter found by son

Márcia Nunes Lisboa and her husband José Gomes with their two children. The family bred baby turtles to repopulate the river.

Police in the Brazilian Amazon state of Pará are investigating the killing of three members of the same family who were shot dead at the riverside home where they bred turtles.

The deaths happened on the island of Cachoeira da Mucura, on the banks of the Xingu River, in São Félix do Xingu and regional media named the victims as José Gomes, his wife Márcia Nunes Lisboa and her teenage daughter, Joane Nunes Lisboa.

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The New York Times
By Richard Sandomir

Shirley McGreal’s mission to save primates from smugglers, testing laboratories and zoos began in 1971 in Thailand when she saw crates of infant, white stump-tailed macaque monkeys piled up in the cargo area at a Bangkok airport. They were bound for New York.

“The babies looked so helpless and, rightly or wrongly, I thought they were appealing to me for help,” she told Satya, an animal advocacy and social justice magazine, in 1996. “Later, I seemed to run across primates everywhere: people on the same soi” — a side street — “with pet gibbons, primates for sale in markets.”

Inspired, she formed the International Primate Protection League two years later. Combining passion, outrage and relentlessness, the British-born Ms. McGreal became a formidable voice against man-made misery suffered by primates from Asia, Africa and South America.

…

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Bloomberg
By Todd Shields and Alan Levin

Airlines warned of increased flight delays after AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. brushed aside a U.S. government request to postpone new 5G service that aviation interests say risks safety because it may interfere with aircraft electronics.

The two wireless companies on Sunday said the request from Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Steve Dickson, administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, would be “to the detriment of” millions of mobile customers. The companies said they might offer a six-month pause near some airports.

…

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Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
By Susan D’Agostino | December 17, 2021

People who wear jewelry and sleep masks to “protect” themselves from 5G wireless technology may inadvertently be harming their health. That’s the conclusion of the Dutch Authority for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection, which has issued a warning about 10 consumer products that continuously emit ionizing radiation. Said differently, these items, which include the Magnetix Smiley Kids bracelet with negative ions, Energy Armor sleep mask, Quantum Pendant, and others, are radioactive.

…

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By Brian Fung
Updated 1:00 PM ET, Wed December 8, 2021

(CNN Business)The Federal Aviation Administration announced a new rule on Tuesday that forbids pilots from using auto-landing and other certain flight systems at low altitudes where 5G wireless signals could interfere with onboard instruments that measure a plane's distance to the ground.

The rule, which affects more than 6,800 US airplanes and dozens of aircraft manufacturers, could lead to disruptions in some flight routes involving low-visibility conditions where pilots typically must rely on equipment known as radio altimeters to land safely, the FAA said.

…

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Portland Tribune
by Jim Redden

March 13 2019

Mayor Ted Wheeler said federal law prevents Portland from regulating wireless technologies for health and safety reasons.

The City Council took two contradictory votes the 5G wireless technology that is being rolled out in Portland and other cities across the country.

First, the council unanimously approved a resolution calling for the Federal Communications Commission to study the health hazards of 5G technology. The resolution introduced by Commissioner Amanda Fritz said the FCC has not studied such risks, even though studies compiled and released by the European Union found cancer and other risks.

Then the council approved a new 10-year franchise for operating in the city. AT&T is one of several telecommunications working to bring 5G to Portland. The vote for 4 to 1, with only Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty voting against it.

Mayor Ted Wheeler noted the contridictions between the two measures, but said the council had no choice. Federal law and FCC rules prevent states, counties and cities from operating in their boundaries.

"We lack the authority to regulate these technologies for health and safety reasons, but of course we need to have more research." said Wheelers.

Wheeler said the AT&T franchise deal was better for Portland than the guidelines set by the federal government, especially for their 5G technologies. For example, Portland is charging AT&T a franchise fee of $1,250 per small cell tower, compared to under $300 per tower set by the FCC.

Portland is the only city that has gone to federal court so far to challenge a recent FCC order prevent jurisdiction from blocking small cell towers on public property.

The vote followed impassioned testimony from the founder, faculty members and others at the Oregon Institute for Creative Research, a Portland-based nonprofit organization. They said the OICR had recently held a workshop on the existing research into 5G health issues. They were disturbed to find how little exists, but that most of has found risks to animals, insects and people.

The Intercept
by Sharon Lerner

Internal documents from a chemical industry trade group detail an elaborate plan to defeat a local ordinance banning aerial spraying of pesticides.

THE PEOPLE WHO wrote an ordinance banning the aerial spraying of pesticides in western Oregon last year aren’t professional environmental advocates. Their group, Lincoln County Community Rights, has no letterhead, business cards, or paid staff. Its handful of core members includes the owner of a small business that installs solar panels, a semi-retired Spanish translator, an organic farmer who raises llamas, and a self-described caretaker and Navajo-trained weaver.

And yet this decidedly homespun group of part-time, volunteer, novice activists managed a rare feat: They didn’t just stop the spraying of pesticides that had been released from airplanes and helicopters in this rural county for decades. They also scared the hell out of the companies that make them, according to internal documents from CropLife America, the national pesticide trade group. Although some of the world’s biggest companies poured money into a stealth campaign to stop the ordinance, and even though the Lincoln activists had no experience running political campaigns, the locals still won.

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The Intercept
By Sharon Lerner

100,000 PAGES OF CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SECRETS GATHERED DUST IN AN OREGON BARN FOR DECADES — UNTIL NOW

Carol Van Strum didn’t set out to be the repository for the people’s pushback against toxic chemicals. Then her land was sprayed with 2,4,5-T.

FOR DECADES, SOME of the dirtiest, darkest secrets of the chemical industry have been kept in Carol Van Strum’s barn. Creaky, damp, and prowled by the occasional black bear, the listing, 80-year-old structure in rural Oregon housed more than 100,000 pages of documents obtained through legal discovery in lawsuits against Dow, Monsanto, the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Forest Service, the Air Force, and pulp and paper companies, among others.

As of today, those documents and others that have been collected by environmental activists will be publicly available through a project called the Poison Papers. Together, the library contains more than 200,000 pages of information and “lays out a 40-year history of deceit and collusion involving the chemical industry and the regulatory agencies that were supposed to be protecting human health and the environment,” said Peter von Stackelberg, a journalist who along with the Center for Media and Democracy and the Bioscience Resource Project helped put the collection online.