A smaller but determined crowd attends the 2018 Boston-Cambridge Women’s March

Miriam Wasser

If the theme behind last year’s Boston Women’s March was one of symbolic defiance and solidarity, this year’s message focused on resolve, resilience, and the tactical groundwork of electoral politics.

Though smaller than the city’s 2017 gathering, which drew about 175,000 people, the estimated 10,000 people who showed up on Cambridge Common on Saturday displayed no shortage of enthusiasm or energy. Long before the event began, crowds of pink pussy-hat wearing women, men, and children poured out of the Harvard Square subway stop and into the soggy and muddy park.

They posed for photographs and selfies, signed petitions, and complemented each other’s posters. (Like last year, the signs were great: DUST SETTLES, GIRLS DON’T; WE ARE THE GRANDDAUGHTERS OF THE WITCHES WHO DIDN’T BURN; WATCH OUT, I CAN VOTE IN SIX YEARS; and, a crowd favorite, 8-year-old Tallula Sullivan’s homemade TRUMP IS A STUPID BUTTHEAD.Prior to the official start of the rally, a choir and a marching band entertained the crowd—there was a giant pink pussy hat on the tuba—while stirring people could be overheard lamenting President Donald Trump’s behavior. They talked about programs like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), both of which are front and center in the heated debate over the federal government shutdown. They spoke about the importance of winning Democratic majorities in the US Senate and Congress in November, and about the need to address major systemic issues like race, sex, and gender discrimination. …Continue reading in DigBoston

Experts Say The Risk of Uranium Mining Near the Grand Canyon Is Not Worth The Reward

Miriam Wasser

If you didn’t know what you were looking for, you’d probably never come across Canyon Mine, an active uranium mine near the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. To get there, you turn off Highway 64, about 11 miles before the South Ranger Station entrance, and follow Forest Service Road 305 through a forest of ponderosa pine, pinyon, and juniper trees.

After five miles, the bumpy unpaved road ends at a metal fence with a few security cameras and “no trespassing” signs mounted on it. Canyon Mine, which is owned and operated by Energy Fuels Resources, isn’t particularly impressive from the outside. Aside from the tall green headframe, there’s a squat building, a few trucks, some rock piles, and a large black plastic-lined storage pool filled with water.

Unlike the big, hellish-looking open pit coal mines of Appalachia, uranium mines tend to leave a much smaller physical imprint on the surface of the earth. In fact, there’s a good chance that if you were visiting the Grand Canyon during the mine’s extraction phase, which is expected to start in the next few years, you’d never know anything was happening.

But Canyon Mine is just one mine. What if there were hundreds of them in the area? …Continue Reading in the Phoenix New Times