Opinion

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Friday, July 18, the Board of Immigration Appeals issued a major, precedential opinion that sets U.S. asylum law back thirty years. It will make it exponentially harder for women and girls fleeing gender-based violence to obtain safety in the United States. And it all started with a case originating in the Cleveland Immigration Court during the first Trump administration. Read about it here.

Said Lynn Tramonte, Executive Director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, "This is a devastating decision for women and girls who have been failed by other countries and governments. Now they can add the United States to that list.

To a Land Unknown is a film shaped by its director’s dual allegiances.

As a man of Palestinian descent (though he now lives in Denmark), Mahdi Fleifel is devoted to telling the stories of his people. But as a cinephile, he seems equally devoted to recreating the magic of the American films he watched growing up in the 1980s.

The result is the story of two Palestinian refugees that combines the unvarnished realism of a documentary with the kind of alternately warm and testy relationship you might find in an American “buddy flick.”

The tale’s setting is Athens, Greece, where Chatila and his cousin Reda (Mahmood Bakri and Aram Sabbah, both excellent) are barely scraping by with the help of petty thefts and, in Reda’s case, paid sexual trysts. Their situation is desperate, but they see it as temporary.

If they can save up enough money, they plan to purchase fake passports and make their way to what they see as the greener pastures of Germany. Once there, they hope to open a café with the help of Chatila’s wife and son, who are now living in a refugee camp in Lebanon. 

The recent legislation passed by the United States Congress, oddly named One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB), and signed by the U.S. president, shows that Republican lawmakers in the nation’s capital don’t care about excess and premature mortality in the United States.

If these increased deaths truly mattered to the Republican representatives and senators, the OBBB would not have included such a lack of concern for its dreadful consequences on human life and wellbeing. 

In the coming months, the OBBB can be expected to result in excess and premature deaths in the United States, especially among vulnerable groups, such as low-income individuals and families, children, people with disabilities, and seniors.

The lack of concern from Republican lawmakers about the expected excess and premature mortality resulting from the OBBB is evident in the candid remark made by an Iowa Republican senator during a recent town hall meeting. 

Los Angeles is set to host the 2028 Olympic Games, with Dodger Stadium in Chavez Ravine serving as the venue for Olympic baseball. Transforming this iconic ballpark into a fully green-powered facility—and turning its vast parking lots into sources of clean energy—could position LA as a global showcase for a Solartopian future. 

It would hugely further the massive green energy conversion that’ll define human survival. 

AND…it’ll lower both the very high electric rates and soaring temperatures that threaten our city.

Here’s the bottom line: with currently available technology, solarizing Dodger Stadium could be done within three years, as canopy costs drop and electric rates rise. 

Available battery back-ups can keep the park lit for night games. AND help meet the city’s prime time power needs. 

Solar canopy technology is now widely used in both urban and agricultural settings (where it’s known as “agri-voltaic”) .

Numerous parking lots throughout the world are now being covered.