HIGHLIGHTS

JUMP

EDUCATION | PUBLIC SERVICES | INFRASTRUCTURE | THE REST

First, the Good News

1) National: Questions are emerging over the scope and transparency of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, ABC News reports. “An executive order signed by President Donald Trump on Monday said that DOGE will be established within the Executive Office of the President, as a temporary 18-month organization under the repurposed United States Digital Service, now called the United States DOGE Service (USDS). Notably, the executive order laid out only a narrow role for DOGE: to modernize “federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity,” contrary to the sweeping mission to gut the federal government that Trump and Musk have promoted for months. (…) ‘One thing that needs to be focused on is whether DOGE operates in a way that is consistent with that narrow executive order,” said ethics director Kedric Payne of the Campaign Legal Center watchdog group. ‘The executive order makes it look like their mission is very narrow, but in reality, the DOGE agenda seems to be much broader. And if they start fulfilling that true DOGE agenda, then that will indicate that they may not be operating within the compliance of the executive order. It may be subject to the federal law that applies to advisory committees, which will trigger other disclosure requirements,’ he said.”

The administration was sued by AFGE, Public Citizen, and State Democracy Defenders Fund (SDDF) immediately over the creation of the entity. “‘The advice and guidance that Mr. Trump has charged DOGE with producing is sweeping and consequential: DOGE is to ‘pave the way for [his] Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies’,” said the lawsuit. ‘At the same time, DOGE—the members of which currently do not represent the interests of everyday Americans—will be recommending cuts to government agencies and programs that protect health, benefits, consumer finance, and product safety. Its work and recommendations thus may endanger Plaintiffs and the hundreds of thousands of everyday people whom they represent.’”

AFSCME identified “4 anti-worker executive actions, and how they will hurt you.” AFSCME President Lee Saunders said workers deserve better. ‘Donald Trump began his presidency by signing executive orders that undermine public service workers’ voice on the job and the very principles of civil service which have been established for more than a century to keep politics out of public service,’ Saunders said. ‘Putting the job security of nonpartisan, dedicated public service workers in the hands of billionaires and anti-union extremists is unacceptable.’”

2) National/Think Tanks: The Rand Corporation has published an article reassessing existing national and local systems for fighting wildfires. One of their observations is that “We need [the firefighting] workforce to be stable, year-round and localized. This means exploring options such as perpetual National Guard activations with a focus on firefighting. It might even mean implementing voluntary local or national service models that funnel Americans’ desire to help into these overdrawn and overwhelmed systems. None of this would substitute for the mutual aid we see when communities share resources; those systems should be expanded as well.

Whatever the new system looks like, it can’t just keep doing the same thing we have done every fire season—because if the usual response didn’t work in L.A., it won’t work anywhere.” But there is another solution: dedicated, well-paid union jobs supported by adequate taxation. And where would prison labor fit into the Rand picture?

3) National: The ACLU has filed a 253-page FOIA request for information on “Multi.-State Immigration Detention Services El Paso, Seattle, and San Francisco Areas of Responsibility.” It deals with the GEO Group and CoreCivic.

4) National: As diversity, equity and inclusion policies have come under attack by Trump, kudos to those corporations that are standing firm. “Costco is one of several large public companies that are publicly maintaining D.E.I. efforts despite the mounting pressure. At many of those companies, commitments to diversity have been in place for more than a decade. This month, Apple opposed a similar proposal from the think tank. ‘We strive to create a culture of belonging where everyone can do their best work,’ its board wrote to shareholders. In October, Satya Nadella, the chief executive of Microsoft, wrote in the company’s annual report on diversity and inclusion that these values “ensure our work force represents the planet we serve, and that the products we build always meet our customers’ needs.” And on Monday, Pinterest’s chief legal officer, Wanji Walcott, wrote on LinkedIn that the company’s ‘investments in a diverse and inclusive work force with equitable opportunities” create “immense value for users and advertisers alike.’”

5) California: Monterey Bay Aquarium workers have announced plans to unionize with AFSCME. “The aquarium workers are organizing as Monterey Bay Aquarium Workers United (MBAWU). The new union would cover more than 300 workers across the aquarium, including workers in animal care, guest experience, education, marketing and more. The workers are forming their union to advocate for fair pay, workplace flexibility, comprehensive benefits and better accessibility accommodations. MBAWU believes that the aquarium can better serve the community and inspire ocean conservation when employees are treated with respect and equity.

‘The aquarium is a wonderful place to work with a strong mission, but we have seen many of our colleagues leave due to wages not keeping up with the local cost of living,’ said Cristie Beilby, an aquarist at Monterey Bay Aquarium and member of the union’s organizing committee.”

6) New Mexico: Here’s what the largest female legislative majority in U.S. history can accomplish. “In a mostly bleak election for American women and their rights, New Mexico was an unexpected bright spot. Even as Harris lost her historic bid for the White House, voters in the state elected 60 women to fill the legislature’s 112 seats, giving New Mexico the largest female legislative majority in US history. With the addition of 11 seats, women now make up nearly two-thirds of the state House of Representatives and just over a third of the Senate. Three out of four Democrats elected to the House on November 5 were women. The strong showing was more than just a balm for Democrats’ shattered spirits; it could have very real consequences for reproductive rights far beyond the state’s borders. In recent years, New Mexico has become a progressive stronghold, particularly for abortion and gender-affirming health care in the Southwest since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. That role as a reproductive haven is likely to be even more important as Donald Trump assumes the presidency for a second time.”

7) Utah/National: In a letter to the editor of The Salt Lake Tribune, Richard Roginski of West Point writes, “In light of the number of very wealthy individuals tapped for important positions in the upcoming administration, one might give pause to discussions by some of these oligarchs. Who would benefit from privatizing such parts of the government like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the U.S. Post Office, Medicare and Social Security? Privatization would remove We the People from oversight and control of these entities and place them into the hands of those who had the means to acquire them, members of our own oligarchy.”

Education

8) National: Ryan Williams, a senior columnist who writes about politics for The Cavalier Daily (University of Virginia), says Donald Trump will be a threat to student loan forgiveness. “With the Biden administration exiting the White House, the existing student debt relief program will likely be under fire. This program exists in the Department of Education which has overseen the successful cancellation of about $4.5 billion in student loans during the past four years. Not only has this program upheld one of Biden’s campaign promises, it has also advanced the accessibility of education.  In contrast, president-elect Donald Trump’s proposed initiatives will harm education through privatization and budget cuts. And although the University has been rated the best public school for financial aid by the Princeton Review, about 25 percent of students here have taken out student loans as a part of their financial aid packages. Therefore, Trump’s new plans sound an alarm for the future of financial accessibility in higher education and at our University.”

9) National: A driver shortage remains the No. 1 challenge for special-needs transportation, School Bus Fleet reports. “As more students are mainstreamed, there’s also a decline in the use of Type A and B buses in fleets. Driver pay, too, is flattening, with more special-needs drivers earning the same as general-ed route drivers. More aides are on board special-needs buses than last year, likely reflecting the trend of the driver and aide shortage beginning to slow. Encouragingly, the impacts of the supply chain and OEM delays are stabilizing as we get closer to normal. Meanwhile, tech adoption grows, as more operators began using video cameras on buses and child-check systems; however, rider tracking system use declined. Of course, challenges remain, with the driver shortage still ranked as the top transportation issue. New concerns, such as accommodating changing and inconsistent dismissal times and the increasing complexity of transporting out-of-district students, gained prominence.”

10) Indiana: Goodbye to democracy? Indianapolis Public Schools is on a bumpy road that leads to the edge of a cliff, Chalkbeat Indiana reports. “The district is accustomed to hostile legislation at the statehouse — but this year’s session features several high-profile bills that could fundamentally alter IPS. GOP proposals to curb property taxes would hurt the district’s coffers. Legislation requiring the district to give more of its property tax revenue to charter schools would add to its fiscal strain. Another bill would strip its power over facilities and transportation. And perhaps most controversially of all, House Bill 1136 would dissolve the district altogether and replace it with charter schools, as well as end the elected IPS school board. These bills aren’t the district’s only worries. IPS is continuing to lose students in its non-charter schools. It is also approaching a fiscal cliff: Funding from the voter-approved 2018 operating referendum dries up in 2026.”

11) Pennsylvania: Millcreek Township School District is selling naming rights for district facilities. “The Gene Haas Foundation paid the district $350,000 for the right to install a sign and lettering on an exterior wall of the student-run manufacturing facility at McDowell High School. The sign fronts Caughey Road and identifies McDowell Manufacturing as a Gene Haas Training and Education Center. The center is named for the founder of California-based Haas Automation, which manufactures machining equipment. Its foundation also provides $25,000 a year for McDowell student scholarships.”

12) Texas: Public school advocate and author Jennifer Berkshire says “the school choice lobby came up with a fool-proof plan to bring universal vouchers to Texas. Just knock out all of the GOP reps who oppose them. What could possibly go wrong? Latest @HaveYouHeardPod heads to the Lone Star State to find out.” [Audio, about 50 minutes]

Infrastructure

13) National/International: Last Wednesday the top story on the front page of the Financial Times was “Donald Trump halts more than $300bn in US green infrastructure funding.” The FT says “Trump’s move to halt the funding sent a shockwave through the clean energy sector and signaled his intent to undermine Biden’s industrial policy, particularly his programmes to speed up an energy transition. ‘The executive orders indicate that federal funding for EV and battery manufacturing will be harder to access, increasing the risk of stranded capital for manufacturing projects already under way,’ said Shay Natarajan at Mobility Impact Partners, a private equity fund based in New York.  The 2021 infrastructure law offered $1.2tn to improve the country’s transport system, while the IRA offered $370bn in tax credits, grants and loans.”

14) National/International: So where will that infrastructure money be going? One possibility is surely that it will go to private equity and sovereign wealth funds to finance their artificial intelligence projects. Here’s a very interesting interview by Bloomberg’s Francine Lacqua in Davos of BlackRock Chairman and CEO Laurence D. Fink and G42 CEO Peng Xiao  (G42 is an artificial intelligence firm based in the United Arab Emirates) on “Financing AI Infrastructure.” The numbers they quote, both for energy use and money, are staggering. [Video, about 25 minutes].

15) California: What do the infrastructure experts have to say about the water infrastructure and management situation in California?

“Dr. Gold stated that the water was stored from California’s previous wet years. WaterWorld interviewed Dr. Mark Gold, who witnessed the fires firsthand. He is currently the director for water scarcity solutions and environmental health at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “‘The conditions were beyond extraordinary and were beyond conditions that we’ve ever seen before,’ Dr. Gold said. “And then on top of that the inadequacy of the infrastructure system to deal with fire in areas that have multiple square miles on fire in the urban area at the same time. How do we maintain water pressure high enough to keep that going when we don’t have any aerial support whatsoever on dousing those fires?’ Dr. Gold stated that much more pumping capacity is needed to fight fires at this level. Smaller reservoirs are also needed in places that are potentially vulnerable to wildfires. On top of this, these fires beg the question; ‘what areas are actually vulnerable to wildfires?’ ‘Our understanding of what was vulnerable was just wrong,’ Dr. Gold said. ‘If you look at the Palisades and Altadena, the built commercial environment and the hundreds of houses adjacent to the downtown area, you just never would’ve thought that those areas were vulnerable.’ Municipalities that are prone to wildfires should reevaluate how much new infrastructure is needed to build wildfire resilience according to Dr. Gold.”

16) International/Argentina: Controversy swirls around Argentina’s giant waterway privatization plan. “The waterway formed by the Paraguay and Paraná rivers is one of the world’s longest and most biodiverse river corridors, extending more than 3,400 kilometers from its source in southern Brazil, through Paraguay, and into Argentina to reach the Río de la Plata estuary. For Argentina, it is also a vital route through which most of the country’s foreign trade flows. The country’s section of this natural channel—also known as Hidrovía, after the company that held its dredging and signaling concession from the mid-1990s until 2021—enables around 80% of its exports, mainly of agro-industrial origin, to reach the rest of the world. But the waterway is currently in the midst of a contentious process to privatize its management and enable works along its route, launched by the administration of President Javier Milei. In November, it opened a call for tender for a concessionaire to undertake a 30-year contract for the waterway’s ‘modernization, expansion, operation and maintenance,’ in a process that will be open until the end of February, and that has so far seen interest registered by European and Chinese companies.”

17) Think Tanks: What innovations in advanced technology will be changing the face of transportation infrastructure in both the public and private sectors in coming years? For an introduction check out the website of the recently launched Advanced Research Projects Agency – Infrastructure (ARPA-I). “As a newly designated agency, ARPA-I will fund high-risk, high-reward next-generation transportation technologies that will maintain America’s position as a global leader in the sector.” Also, watch the plenary session at the Transportation Research Board’s (TRB) annual meeting. [Video, about an hour and 40 minutes]

Public Services

18) National: Jeffrey St. Clair reports that “leaked documents from Trump’s Customs and Border Patrol show that ICE wants four new detention centers with 10,000 beds each and fourteen smaller facilities with 700-1,000 beds each. These will almost certainly be private prisons.  After Trump rescinded Biden’s executive order to move the federal government, especially ICE, away from its reliance on private prisons, the stock price of the private prison company GEO Group, which once employed Pam Bondi, Trump’s AG nominee, as a lobbyist, is up 131%.”

From David Dayen: “But the rescinded order that caught my eye was Executive Order 14006, which eliminated the use of privately operated criminal detention facilities. Keep in mind that Trump billed this effort primarily as rooting out ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ from the government. Bringing back privately operated detention doesn’t serve that purpose at all. It simply enriches the private prison duopoly, GEO Group and CoreCivic. Both company’s stocks have soared since the election, and now, both stand to gain billions in federal contracts, mostly to detain undocumented immigrants. It’s a big win for GEO Group’s former lobbyist, attorney general nominee Pam Bondi.”

19) National: In an Orwellian twist to Trump’s crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion of all Americans, Federal Workers have been ordered to report on colleagues over the D.E.I. crackdown. “The warnings were a dramatic escalation of President Trump’s war on diversity programs that seek to reverse decades of systemic inequities. They were also part of a broader assault on the federal work force, which the president has long viewed as a bloated bureaucracy. He has pledged to eliminate departments and has ordered remote workers back to the office. (…) Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said Mr. Trump’s attacks on D.E.I. were ‘just a smoke screen for firing civil servants.’ ‘The federal government already hires and promotes exclusively on the basis of merit,’ Mr. Kelley said. Dariely Rodriguez, the acting co-chief counsel for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said that the orders betrayed a fundamental misunderstanding of what D.E.I. initiatives were about, and that the federal government still had to comply with civil rights laws. ‘D.E.I. is not about preferential treatment,’ Ms. Rodriguez said. ‘It’s about eliminating barriers.’”

The administration is also targeting all D.E.I. offices, many of which have been in existence for years, for closure. But “agencies will face a more difficult path to closing D.E.I. offices that were specifically funded by Congress. A president, said Donald F. Kettl, professor emeritus at the University of Maryland and former dean of its School of Public Policy, cannot unilaterally ‘undermine agencies ability to carry out functions that Congress mandates.’ Separately, OPM is also asking agencies to deliver lists of every employee hired recently and are therefore still in their probationary period. Those employees can be fired easily without normal civil service hurdles, opening the possibility that the Trump administration is going to dismiss them en masse. Amanda Scales, a former employee of Elon Musk’s xAI and the new OPM chief of staff, according to a Bloomberg report, was listed as the point of contact on the memo.”

20) National/Tennessee: The Tennessean reports that “a gag order against a prominent Nashville attorney can remain in place, preventing him from speaking out on social media about CoreCivic, a federal judge ruled last Tuesday. Senior Circuit Court Judge Julia Gibbons of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who was specially assigned to the case at the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, dismissed a lawsuit brought by attorney Daniel Horwitz and the nonprofit public interest law firm Institute for Justice. The two filed a First Amendment lawsuit in October after U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffery Frensley issued a gag order on Horwitz in July 2022 to delete tweets about a legal case (…) The gag order required Horowitz to delete tweets about, and stop publicly discussing, lawsuits he previously brought against CoreCivic. In the hearing for the gag order, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffery Frensley sided with CoreCivic, writing that ‘trials are meant to occur in the courtroom, not in the media.’ Since that initial gag order, Horwitz has filed six more lawsuits against CoreCivic and repeatedly asked the court to allow him to speak about his cases.”

21) National: The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has launched Federal Policy Watch, “tracking how the Trump administration, Congress, and the courts are affecting workers’ quality of life. Our team of economists and lawyers analyzes the actions taken by those in power and their impact on working people.” Subscribe. EPI’s Samantha Sanders and Nina Mast have reported that Republicans in Congress are trying to quietly privatize SNAP through the back door of disaster relief.

22) National: Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) pressed Doug Collins, President Trump’s nominee to be VA Secretary, to not further  privatize the Veterans Administration. “Project 2025’s roadmap for the second Trump term includes radical Veterans policy plans that the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute said would “decimate Veterans’ health care and benefits,” such as privatizing core VA services and making it much more difficult for Veterans to get a disability rating, which they rely on to receive compensation for their service-related disabilities.” Government Executive reported that Collins “eschewed any effort to privatize the department” but intended to conduct mass firing at the $400 billion agency. “He pledged to continue to utilize and grow private sector options for veterans, however, which has subsumed a growing portion of VA’s budget since the passage of the 2018 Mission Act in Trump’s first term.”

The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee voted 18-1 to confirm Collins, “with the lone ‘no’ vote coming from Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), who said Collins’s plans for the VA were ‘not in line’ with what she believed was right for veterans across the country.”

23) National: Dave Zweifel, editor emeritus of The Capital Times, says there’s no upside to privatizing the Post Office. “The report added that cuts to the USPS could upend the $1 trillion e-commerce industry, hitting particularly hard the small businesses and rural consumers who have to rely on the Post Office to deliver and send mail and goods. Amazon, the Postal Service’s largest customer, uses the agency for ‘last-mile’ delivery between its product fulfillment centers and consumers’ homes and businesses. Plus, the USPS’ ‘universal service obligation’ — which requires it to deliver mail or parcels regardless of distance or profitability — means it is often the only carrier that will deliver to far-flung reaches of the country, something private firms like UPS and Federal Express will not do because it isn’t profitable. About the same time that the Post was reporting the USPS story, the New York Times carried an investigative piece about a private health company that had been hired by the city of Baltimore to house and rehabilitate drug addicts. Not only was the private concern ripping off Medicaid and Medicare, but the conditions of the housing it provided the addicts were so bad that several of its patients had died instead of being rehabilitated. The Baltimore story was just one more example of how privatizing public services is never a good idea. Yet the privatization myth endures.”

24) National: The New York Times reports that Trump’s move to gut the civil service and massive numbers of federal employees is creating pain, chaos, and risk to food safety and infrastructure regulations. “President Trump’s rapid push to overhaul the federal bureaucracy in his first days in office has been met with a mix of fear, fury and confusion throughout the work force. Dozens of employees across the government, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because of worries of retribution, described agencies gripped with uncertainty about how to implement the new policies and workers frantically trying to assess the impact on their careers and families. As the nation’s largest employer, the upheaval in the federal government could reverberate in communities throughout the country.”

Trump is being sued over his designation of massive numbers of government employees as political hires, making it easier to fire them.  “’‘Putting the job security of non-partisan, dedicated public service workers in the hands of billionaires and anti-union extremists is unacceptable,’ said Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the largest public employee union in the US. ‘While we had hoped for better, we’re not going to sit by and take these attacks.’” Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, said the order – if implemented – would harm the basic, fundamental services provided by federal workers, including caring for veterans; ensuring families receive social security payments; protecting airports and passengers; inspecting food and providing disaster relief. ‘President Trump’s attack on federal workers began on his first day in office,’ she said.”

25) National: In a brazen move to open the door to cronyism, corruption and accountability, Trump launches a late night purge of inspectors general across the government. “Oversight of the government’s largest agencies was left in limbo Saturday, as the Senate-confirmed watchdogs at the departments of Defense, State, Transportation, Labor, Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Energy, Commerce, Treasury and Agriculture, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, Small Business Administration and the Social Security Administration were ousted. ‘It’s a widespread massacre,’ one of the fired watchdogs said. ‘Whoever Trump puts in now will be viewed as loyalists, and that undermines the entire system.’”

With regard to privatization, inspectors general have played a key role in exposing irresponsible contracting and corruption by contractors and agency personnel. “Sen. Amy Klobuchar. D-Minn., noted that inspectors general are ‘critical to rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse throughout the federal government.’ The mass firings were “alarming,” she said. (…) Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts called Trump’s actions ‘a purge of independent watchdogs in the middle of the night.’ ‘Inspectors general are charged with rooting out government waste, fraud, abuse, and preventing misconduct,’ Warren posted on X. ‘President Trump is dismantling checks on his power and paving the way for widespread corruption.’”

26) National: Writing in The Griffin, Sydney Umstead  says Trump’s assault on immigrants will line the pockets of private prisons. “Following the passage of the Laken Riley Act in the House of Representatives, U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke out against the act and its relationship to for-profit correctional facilities. The act ‘requires the Department of Homeland Security to detain certain non-U.S. nationals (aliens under federal law) who have been arrested for burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting,’ as highlighted by Congress.gov. Ocasio-Cortez criticized the act as ‘corruption in plain sight,’ citing how Trump pardoned the Jan. 6 rioters and how ‘these are the people who want you to believe, who want us to believe that they’re trying to quote-unquote ‘keep criminals off the streets.’”

27) Think Tanks: The Center for Economic and Policy Research says “The privatized Medicare Advantage (MA) system – which essentially overpays major insurance companies billions of taxpayer dollars every year – is likely to expandunder a second Trump term. Various policy proposals, including the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint that received so much attention during the campaign, call for making MA the default option for American seniors. This would go a long way towards weakening traditional Medicare and further enriching private insurance companies. Trump’s nomination of Dr. Mehmet Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is a telling indicator. Oz has been a staunch booster of MA; his TV show featured a segment sponsored by a MA website, his YouTube channel recently posted a video that was essentially an ad for MA, and he holds hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock in MA providers.”

All the Rest

28) National: With Trump’s executive order abolishing birthright citizenship, the meaning of the 14th Amendment will again be litigated up to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2011 the Center for American Progress held an excellent panel discussion on the implications of repealing the right. You can watch it here. [Video, an hour and a half]. The main deciding case was United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, and the full text is here and includes subsequent major citations to the case. See also this commentary by Eric Foner.

29) International/National: Public Services International (PSI) is calling for solidarity with front-line workers who have been serving communities since the California wildfire crisis began or who live in affected areas. “Many workers who belong to PSI’s affiliates—including AFSCME, AFT, SEIU, the Teamsters, and NNU—have lost their homes and workplaces. Thousands more continue to maintain essential public services under extremely difficult conditions. PSI’s front-line affiliates have requested donations to Fire Relief Funds. These funds provide essential support for workers to access immediate relief, recover from the destruction, and rebuild their lives. They cannot do this alone. PSI’s World Women’s Committee (WOC) leadership met on January 17th and expressed their concern while extending solidarity to union siblings in California.”

30) National/Call for Papers: The Labor Research and Action Network’s 2025 National Conference, “Rebellious Hope: Worker Power, Political Education, & Global Solidarity,” will be held on June 9-10th 2025 at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. Submit your proposal at this link on the announcement by COB Friday, February 21st 2025.

 

IMAGE: Nothing to see here: The entirety of the official website of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

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