Headlines June 22, 2023 from Democracy Now!

A court in Montana has heard closing arguments in a landmark lawsuit brought by 16 young people who say their state violated their constitutional rights to a clean environment, as it pushed policies promoting the burning of coal, oil and gas. A witness for the plaintiffs testified that Montana has never denied a permit for a fossil fuel project. A ruling from a Montana state district judge is expected sometime in July; it could set an important precedent for similar lawsuits pending in other states.

Meanwhile, a coalition of more than 250 groups delivered a petition to Attorney General Merrick Garland Wednesday, demanding the Department of Justice end its opposition to allowing a youth climate lawsuit against the U.S. government to proceed in court. The petition was signed by over 50,000 people. This is John Beard Jr., executive director of the Port Arthur Community Action Network in Texas, which is supporting the children’s climate lawsuit.

John Beard Jr.: “Our youth will be living here long after us. Therefore, we must support their quest to secure climate justice and protect their constitutional rights. The youth across the nation, especially youth living in environmental justice communities, like the frontline Gulf Coastal communities of color in my own part of the country, Port Arthur, Texas, continue to suffer harm from the climate crisis, including pollution, and also from social and environmental injustice.”

In news from Guantánamo, prosecutors have discovered there are videos of guards forcing a Saudi prisoner to leave his cell around the time the man reportedly admitted to plotting the attack on the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen in 2000, which killed 17 sailors. Attorneys for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri have said his admission of guilt was tainted by years of torture, first at CIA black sites and later at Guantánamo. The U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention recently called for the immediate release of al-Nashiri due to his mistreatment.

In news from Atlanta, opponents of a proposed massive police training center known as Cop City are hoping to begin collecting signatures soon to force a citywide referendum on the project in November. On Wednesday, the Atlanta city clerk approved the language of the referendum petition to stop the $90 million project. Meanwhile, The Intercept reports Georgia’s Attorney General Chris Carr has played a key role in the case of a legal observer with the Southern Poverty Law Center who faces domestic terrorism charges after being arrested in March. The DeKalb County district attorney had recommended dropping charges against the legal observer, Thomas Webb Jurgens, but Georgia’s attorney general overruled them.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved the sale of lab-grown meat for the first time. The USDA’s approval on Wednesday came after the Food and Drug Administration in March cleared “cultured chicken cell material” made by the company GOOD Meat as safe for use as human food. Proponents say lab-grown meat provides a humane option for people who wish to consume meat but don’t want to contribute to animal suffering, greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental damage caused by factory farming.