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( MENAFN - Jordan Times) AMMAN - Jordan's basketball team plays Palestine in Jeddah on Monday in its second match of window 2 of Group D qualifiers for the 31st FIBA Asia Cup 2025. Jordan tops Group D after overcoming Iraq 73-64 on Friday as Saudi Arabia beat Palestine 73-66 to maintain second spot ahead of their home match against Iraq. The Kingdom has an unbeaten streak after scoring two wins in window 1, when they beat Palestine 73-46 and Saudi Arabia 79-64. In other matches, Iraq beat Palestine 75-72 while Saudi Arabia overcame Iraq 64-58. Window 3 will be played in February 2025 -- Jordan vs Saudi on February 21 and Jordan vs Iraq on February 24. Jordan lately won 12th edition of the King Abdullah Cup (The King's Cup) as part of preparations for the FIBA Asia Cup qualifiers, beating beat Palestine, Syria and Qatar to retain the title. A total of 24 teams are playing Round 1 qualification matches for the 2025 FIBA Asia Cup in three windows, while also battling for qualifying spots for the 2027 FIBA Basketball World Cup alongside hosts Qatar who automatically advanced. The top two teams of each qualifying group move to the FIBA Asia Cup and the six third-placed teams will play another qualifying round for the final four places. The 31st FIBA Asia Cup will be hosted in Saudi Arabia from August 5-17, 2025. Jordan previously qualified to the FIBA Asia Cup (formerly FIBA Asia Championship) 16 times with their best position finishing runner-up in 2011. In 2023, Jordan won a historic first ever team medal when they won silver at the Asian Games. In addition, they played at the FIBA World Cup for the third time after earlier playing in 2010 and 2019. Alongside the junior men's team in 1995 and 2025, basketball has been the only Jordanian team to reach a World Cup in a team sport. MENAFN27112024000028011005ID1108934484 Legal Disclaimer: MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.Refractory Follicular Lymphoma Diagnostics Market Trends and Forecasts to 2029 - The Rise of Liquid Biopsy
Dearborn Heights, MI (Planet Detroit) A poll released Tuesday found a majority of those who voted for President-elect Donald Trump oppose efforts to weaken the Environmental Protection Agency, as local advocates warn that EPA cuts could impact Michigan environmental programs. The poll, which also found that support from all voters for the agency has increased since 2017, was commissioned by the Environmental Protection Network, a group founded by former EPA scientists and officials during the first Trump administration to support environmental agencies and communities impacted by environmental injustice. "These numbers were frankly astounding to me," said Matt George, head of research for the communications firm Seven Letter, which performed the poll. However, he noted that there has historically been strong bipartisan support for the EPA. Sean McBrearty, Michigan director for the nonprofit Clean Water Action, told Planet Detroit the poll results were similar to other surveys that found overwhelming bipartisan support in Michigan for protecting the Great Lakes and reinstating "polluter pay" legislation to hold businesses accountable for cleaning up pollution. "Holding corporations accountable was actually one of the arguments that Republicans used in their State House campaigns," he said. Despite broad support for environmental action and Trump's promises to protect air and water quality, former EPA staffers on a Tuesday press call said the President-elect will seek to roll back regulations, decline to defend established rules from corporate lawsuits and find ways to shrink the agency. The result could be weaker environmental protections and declining support for Michigan's environmental programs. "Trump tried to dismantle EPA in the past, and he seems dead set on trying again," said Michelle Roos, executive director for EPN. Roos said the poll confirms that Trump does not have a mandate to weaken the EPA. Trump won a majority of electoral votes in this year's election but secured less than 50% of the popular vote. The poll, conducted between Nov. 7 and 13, included responses from 1,000 voters. It found that 76% of Trump voters and 86% of all voters wanted to either strengthen the EPA or protect it at its current level. Sixty-four percent of Trump voters (and 88% of all voters) expressed concern that Trump would hand EPA leadership to a director who will "put the interests of polluting corporations ahead of protecting clean water, clean air, and public health." Trump has picked former U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin to lead the EPA. Zeldin has questioned whether climate change is an urgent problem and voted to expand oil and gas drilling on federal lands. He's widely seen as someone who will be loyal to Trump's agenda of shrinking the EPA and eliminating environmental protections. Former EPA officials on the Tuesday call said widespread support for the agency may not influence the incoming administration, which has discussed using a "schedule F" order to fire as many as 50,000 federal employees. Jeremy Symons, senior advisor for EPN and former climate policy advisor for EPA's Office of Air and Radiation, said the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 blueprint for radically restructuring the executive branch is a "novel plan" for dismantling the EPA and driving staff out. Although Republicans will gain control of the U.S. House and Senate next year, they could still resist the Trump administration's efforts to slash EPA's budget. However, Project 2025's chapter on the EPA proposes relocating regional offices "so that they are more accessible to the areas they serve and deliver cost savings to the American people," which could drive out EPA workers. When the Trump administration moved the Bureau of Land Management's headquarters from Washington D.C. to Grand Junction, Colorado, in 2020, it led to an exodus of workers in leadership positions. Russel Vought, former director of the Office of Management and Budget who worked on Project 2025, previously described plans to inflict "trauma" on EPA employees. "We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected," Vought said. "When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains." Recently released EPA data shows over 143 million Americans are exposed to PFAS in drinking water, which has been detected in drinking water systems across Metro Detroit. If the Trump administration proposes different PFAS regulations, the 2029 deadline for complying with the rules will automatically be pushed back by a decade, according to Elizabeth Southerland, former director of the Office of Science and Technology in the EPA's Office of Water. If Congress were to approve EPA budget cuts, it could have a dramatic impact on Michigan. The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy received roughly 35% of its funding from the EPA in the 2023-2024 fiscal year. Bentley Johnson, federal government affairs director for the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, said the president-elect and Republican lawmakers are likely to cut programs that largely serve low-income people and communities of color, such as Biden's Justice 40 Initiative, which directs climate and infrastructure funding to historically disadvantaged communities. Johnson said this would force EGLE and the state to make difficult decisions about what programs to support. Budget cuts and a loss of staff at EPA could also drain support for environmental enforcement and cleaning up contaminated sites, Johnson said. EPA administers the Superfund program, which is involved in the cleanup of over 60 highly contaminated sites in Michigan. But the agency also provides support for the cleanup of other sites that aren't on the list. "When the EPA is there, we've heard from impacted residents that it does make a difference," Johnson said. In 2017, the Trump administration sought to reduce the agency's budget by a third, although Congress resisted these cuts. If Trump finds more success securing cuts in his coming term, it would add to a long decline in agency funding. According to an EPN report, the EPA's inflation-adjusted spending decreased by 50% between 1980 and 2019, while the U.S. population increased by 44%. McBrearty stressed the need for grassroots opposition to the budget cuts and deregulation that political donors often support. He said it was important to support environmental groups and organizations like labor unions, which have previously worked collectively to push for environmental protections and workplace safety. "We need to take every step we can to build a system that makes lawmakers accountable to the people, not to the corporations funding their campaigns," he said. This story is provided as a service of the Institute for Nonprofit News’ On the Ground news wire. The Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) is a network of more than 475 independent, nonprofit newsrooms serving communities throughout the US, Canada, and globally. On the Ground is a service of INN, which aggregates the best of its members’ elections and political content, and provides it free for republication. Read more about INN here: https://inn.org/ . Please coordinate with nina@planetdetroit.org should you want to publish photos for this piece. This content cannot be modified, apart from rewriting the headline. To view the original version, visit: https://planetdetroit.org/2024/11/trump-voters-oppose-epa-budget-cuts/
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