Robin Abcarian, Los Angeles Times on Published in Op Eds
I had a difficult time reading the gut-wrenching accounts from the parents of gay children who are part of the Supreme Court case about conversion therapy bans and freedom of speech.
All claim their family relationships were seriously damaged by the widely discredited practice, and that their children were permanently scarred or even driven to suicide.
The case, Chiles vs. Salazar, arose from a 2019 Colorado law that outlaws conversion therapy, whose practitioners say they can change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity to align with heterosexual and cisgender norms. The therapy is considered harmful and ineffective by mainstream medical and mental health organizations.
At least two dozen other states have similar laws on the books, all of them good-faith attempts to prevent the lasting harm that can result when a young person is told not just that they can change who they are, but that they should change because God wants them to. The laws were inspired by the horrific experiences of gay and transgender youths whose families and churches tried to change them.
The case was brought by Kayley Chiles, a licensed counselor and practicing Christian who believes, according to her attorneys, that “people flourish when they live consistently with God’s design, including their biological sex.”
Colorado, incidentally, has never charged Chiles or anyone else in connection with the 2019 law.
Chiles is represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian law firm known for its challenges to gay and transgender rights, including one brought to the Supreme Court in 2023 by Christian web designer Lorie Smith, who did not want to be forced to create a site for a gay wedding, even though no gay couple had ever approached her to do so. The Court’s conservative majority ruled in Smith’s favor. All three liberals dissented.
As for conversion therapy, counselors often encourage clients to blame their LGBTQ+ identities on trauma, abuse or their dysfunctional families. (If it can be changed, it can’t possibly be innate, right?)
In oral arguments, it appeared the conservative justices were inclined to accept Chiles’ claim that Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy amounts to viewpoint discrimination, a violation of the 1st Amendment’s free speech guarantees. The liberal minority was more skeptical.
But proponents of the bans say there is a big difference between speech and conduct. They argue that a therapist’s attempt to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity amounts to conduct, and can rightfully be regulated by states, which, after all, lawfully impose conditions on all sorts of licensed professionals. (The bans, by the way, do not apply to ministers or unlicensed practitioners, and are generally not applicable to adults.)
Each competing brief whipsawed my emotions. The 1st Amendment is sacred in so many ways, and yet states have a critical interest in protecting the health and welfare of children. How to find a balance?
After reading the brief submitted by a group of 1st Amendment scholars, I was convinced the Colorado law should be ruled unconstitutional. As they wrote of Chiles, she doesn’t hook her clients to electrodes or give them hormones, as some practitioners of conversion therapy have done in the past. “The only thing she does is talk, and listen.”
Then I turned to the parents’ briefs.
Linda Robertson, an evangelical Christian mother of four, wrote that she was terrified when her 12-year-old son Ryan confided to her in 2001 that he was gay. “Crippling fear consumed me — it stole both my appetite and my sleep. My beautiful boy was in danger and I had to do everything possible to save him.”
Robertson’s search led her to “therapists, authors and entire organizations dedicated to helping kids like Ryan resist temptation and instead become who God intended them to be.”
Ryan was angry at first, then realized, his mother wrote, that “he didn’t want to end up in hell, or be disapproved of by his parents and his church family.” Their quest to make Ryan straight led them to “fervent prayer, scripture memorization, adjustments in our parenting strategies, conversion therapy based books, audio and video recordings and live conferences with titles like, ‘You Don’t Have to be Gay’ and ‘How to Prevent Homosexuality.’ ”
They also attended a conference put on by Exodus International, the “ex-gay” group that folded in 2013 after its former founder repudiated the group’s mission and proclaimed that gay people are loved by God.
After six years, Ryan was in despair. “He still didn’t feel attracted to girls; all he felt was completely alone, abandoned and needed the pain to stop,” his mother wrote. Worse, he felt that God would never accept him or love him. Ryan died at age 20 of a drug overdose after multiple suicide attempts.
As anyone with an ounce of common sense or compassion knows, such “therapy” is a recipe for shame, anguish and failure.
Yes, there are kids who question their sexuality, their gender identity or both, and they deserve to discuss their internal conflicts with competent mental health professionals. I can easily imagine a scenario where a teenager tells a therapist they think they’re gay or trans but don’t want to be.
The job of a therapist is to guide them through their confusion to self-acceptance, not tell them what the Bible says they should be.
If recent rulings are any guide, the Supreme Court is likely to overturn the Colorado conversion therapy ban.
This would mean, in essence, that a therapist has the right to inflict harm on a struggling child in the name of free speech.
There is a video at the link below showing the restraint. Because of being restrained during abuse as a child I can not stand anything pinning my legs or arms down. When I had my left hip done the doctor required patients to be strapped into an immobilizing device. When I woke up in the hospital with it on I totally lost my shit and they had to remove it. But the doctor wouldn’t allow anyone to lay flat or sleep without it. So for weeks I slept upright in Ron’s recliner. There is no need for a torture device such as this used by ICE. It is designed to be punitive and cause people harm. Hugs
The Nigerian man described being roused with other detainees in September in the middle of the night. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers clasped shackles on their hands and feet, he said, and told them they were being sent to Ghana, even though none of them was from there.
When they asked to speak to their attorney, he said, the officers refused and straitjacketed the already-shackled men in full-body restraint suits called the WRAP, then loaded them onto a plane for the 16-hour-flight to West Africa.
Referred to as “the burrito” or “the bag,” the WRAP has become a harrowing part of deportations for some immigrants.
“It was just like a kidnapping,” the Nigerian man, who’s part of a federal lawsuit, told The Associated Press in an interview from the detainment camp in which he and other deportees were being held in Ghana. Like others placed in the restraints interviewed by the AP, he spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
The AP identified multiple examples of ICE using the black-and-yellow full-body restraint device, the WRAP, in deportations. Its use was described to the AP by five people who said they were restrained in the device, sometimes for hours, on ICE deportation flights dating to 2020. And witnesses and family members in four countries told the AP about its use on at least seven other people this year.
The AP found ICE has used the device despite internal concerns voiced in a 2023 report by the civil rights division of its parent agency, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in part due to reports of deaths involving use of the WRAP by local law enforcement. And the AP has identified a dozen fatal cases in the last decade where local police or jailers around the U.S. used the WRAP and autopsies determined “restraint” played a role in the death.
The WRAP is the subject of a growing number of federal lawsuits likening incorrect usage of the device to punishment and even torture, whether used in a jail or by immigration authorities during international flights. Among advocates’ concerns is that ICE is not tracking the WRAP’s use as required by federal law when officers use force.
DHS has paid Safe Restraints Inc., the WRAP’s California-based maker, $268,523 since it started purchasing the devices in late 2015 during the Obama administration. Government purchasing records show the two Trump administrations have been responsible for about 91% of that spending. ICE would not provide AP with records documenting its use of the WRAP despite multiple requests, and it’s not clear how frequently it has been used in the current and prior administrations.
The WRAP’s manufacturer says it intended the device to be a lifesaver for law enforcement confronting erratic people who were physically attacking officers or harming themselves.
But ICE officials have a much lower threshold for deploying the WRAP than the manufacturer advises, the AP found. Detainees interviewed by the AP said ICE officers used the restraints on them after they had been shackled. They said this was done to intimidate or punish them for asking to speak to their attorneys or expressing fear at being deported, often to places they fled due to violence and torture.
The West African deportee described a terrifying, hourslong experience that left his legs swollen to the point where he walked with a limp.
“They bundled me and my colleagues,” he said, “tied us up in a straitjacket.”
ICE and DHS would not answer detailed questions from the AP and refused a request for the government’s policy for when and how to use the WRAP.
“The use of restraints on detainees during deportation flights has been long standing, standard ICE protocol and an essential measure to ensure the safety and well-being of both detainees and the officers/agents accompanying them,” Tricia McLaughlin, DHS’ spokesperson, said in an email to AP. “Our practices align with those followed by other relevant authorities and is fully in line with established legal standards.”
The agency would not specify those authorities or describe its practices.
“The use of these devices is inhumane and incompatible with our nation’s fundamental values,” said Noah Baron, an attorney for the West African deportees.
Charles Hammond, CEO of Safe Restraints Inc., said his company has made a modified version of the device for ICE, with changes meant to allow people to be kept in it during flights and long bus trips.
ICE’s version includes a ring on the front of the suit that allows a subject’s cuffed hands to be attached while still allowing for limited use to eat and drink, he said. In addition, the ICE version has “soft elbow cuffs,” Hammond said, which connect in the back so a person can move for proper circulation but can’t flip an elbow out to hit someone.
This photo provided by Safe Restraints Inc., in October 2025, shows a custom version of the WRAP restraining equipment made for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. (Safe Restraints via AP)
This photo provided by Safe Restraints Inc., in October 2025, shows a custom ICE version of the WRAP with soft elbow cuffs that keep the arms against the body but allow relatively free use of the hands. (Safe Restraints via AP)
An AP reporter recounted for Hammond some of the allegations made by people who had been placed in the WRAP for long flights. All of those interviewed by AP said their hands and feet were already restrained by chains. All denied fighting with officers, saying they were either crying or pleading against their deportation to countries they deemed dangerous.
Hammond said that, if true that some people were not being violent and simply protesting verbally, putting them in the WRAP could be improper use.
“That’s not the purpose of the WRAP. If (the deportee) is a current or potential risk to themselves, to officers, to staff, to the plane, restraints are justified. If it’s not, then restraints aren’t.”
‘Please help me’
Juan Antonio Pineda said he was put into “a bag” in late September and driven by immigration officers to the Mexico border. It was black with yellow stripes and had straps that immobilized his body and connected over his shoulders — the WRAP.
Pineda, who is from El Salvador, was in the U.S. legally, he said in a video from an ICE detention center in Arizona. On Sept. 3, he went to an appointment in Maryland to get permission for another year, his wife, Xiomara Ochoa, said in an interview from El Salvador. Instead, he was detained by ICE and told he’d be deported to Mexico, but the documents he was shown had someone else’s name, he said. Even so, he was sent to the Florence Service Processing Center detention facility in Arizona.
In this image from video provided by Xiomara Ochoa, Juan Antonio Pineda shows a cast for his arm as he speaks during an interview from the ICE detention center in Florence, Ariz., on Sept. 29, 2025 .(Xiomara Ochoa via AP)
Early morning on Wednesday, Sept. 24, he said officers tied his hands and legs, placed him into the “bag” and drove him four hours to the border. When he refused to sign the deportation papers, Pineda alleges officers broke his right arm and gave him a black eye before driving him back another four hours in the “bag.” The AP was unable to independently confirm how he was injured. Pineda’s video shows him with a cast on his arm and bruising on his face.
The next day, Thursday, Sept. 25, they tied him up again, put him in the bag and drove him to the border, where Mexican immigration officials turned him away, he said.
“Eight hours there and back and they don’t give me food or water or anything,” he said in the video, which his wife shared with the AP. “Please help me.”
He was ultimately deported to Mexico, Ochoa said.
ICE did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the AP regarding Pineda’s case.
In addition to the Nigerian man flown to Ghana, four others interviewed by AP said they were placed in the WRAP and carried onto deportation flights since the first Trump administration.
As U.S. immigration officials move aggressively to meet the president’s deportation goals, advocates and attorneys for immigrants are echoing the concerns of the government’s own civil rights inquiry that ICE officers aren’t trained on how to use the restraints.
“This should be a last resort type of restraint after they’ve already tried other things,” said Fatma Marouf, a Texas A&M law professor who has sued ICE over its use of the device. “Just being bound up like that can inflict a lot of psychological harm.”
Some deportees said they were left in the WRAP for an entire fight. A lawsuit filed on behalf of the Nigerian man and four others currently detained in Dema Camp, Ghana, included the allegation from one that ICE left the restraint suit on him for 16 hours, only once undoing the lower part so he could use the bathroom.
“No one should be put into a WRAP. I don’t even think they strap animals like that,” recalled a man who said he suffered a concussion and dislocated jaw being placed into the device in 2023 before a deportation flight to Cape Verde, an African island nation. AP’s review of his medical records confirmed he suffered those injuries in 2023.
“It was the most painful thing I’ve been through,” said the man, adding he was restrained most of the 10-hour flight. “Forget the assault, forget the broken jaw. Just the WRAP itself was hurtful.”
Also, the man said, the metal ring his cuffed hands were attached to — one of the ICE modifications to the WRAP designed to increase comfort — injured him. “When they slammed me face forward on the floor, that metal ring dug into my chest causing me bruising and pain which was part of my injuries that I complained about.”
ICE’s current use of the WRAP comes amid an unprecedented wave of masked federal immigration officers grabbing suspected immigrants off the street, and mounting accusations that the Trump administration has dehumanized them, including by subjecting them to cruel and unusual detention conditions.
ICE’s use of the WRAP has continued despite a 2023 report by DHS’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, or CRCL, that raised serious concerns over the lack of policies governing its use.
ICE agreed with the internal findings on some points, a then-DHS official involved in the review said, but challenged the notion that the WRAP should be classified as a “four-point restraint,” a designation that would place more limitations on its use. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the inquiry.
DHS largely dismantled the office that produced the 2023 report earlier this year amid widespread government firings, calling it a roadblock to enforcement operations.
“Without changes to the current training, and the lack of policy, CRCL has serious concerns about ICE’s continued use of the WRAP,” wrote the report’s authors, who cited a news article mentioning lawsuits claiming the device had led to deaths.
Use by police and in jails
Last year police officers in Virginia Beach, Virginia, placed Rolin Hill in the WRAP, saying he was being combative during an arrest at a convenience store. The officers left Hill in the device when they dropped him at the jail. Video from the jail shows deputies punching the WRAP-immobilized Hill in the head and back. Hill died in a hospital, and while the WRAP’s exact role is unknown, Hill’s death was ruled a homicide by “positional and mechanical asphyxia due to restraint with neck and torso compression.” Three of the deputies are now charged with his murder, and five were removed from their jobs.
Also last year, in Missouri, prosecutors charged five jailers in the death of Othel Moore Jr., who according to an autopsy asphyxiated in the WRAP. Jailhouse footage showed Moore, who’d also been sprayed with tear gas and placed in a “spit mask” covering his face, repeatedly told officers he couldn’t breathe.
In this image from surveillance video provided by Jefferson City Correctional Center, jailers examine Othel Moore Jr., at the Jefferson City Correctional Center in Jefferson City, Mo., on Dec. 8, 2023, who according to an autopsy asphyxiated in the WRAP restraint. (Jefferson City Correctional Center via AP)
While Hammond insists the WRAP has never been determined as the cause of death when used properly, the AP identified 43 times in which the WRAP was used by police or correctional officers in a case in which someone died. In 12 of those cases the official autopsy determined that “restraint” played some role in the death.
It was often impossible to determine the exact role the WRAP may have played, as deaths often involved the use of other potentially dangerous force on people who in several cases were high on methamphetamine.
The WRAP first appeared in law enforcement in the late 1990s, presented as an alternative to tying a subject’s hands and feet together in a practice known as “hog-tying.” It first found widespread use in California jails and today is used by more than 1,800 departments and facilities around the country, according to the manufacturer, which says it has sold more than 10,000 devices.
Many of these cases have drawn little media attention, such as the 2020 case of Alberto Pena, who was jailed on a misdemeanor criminal mischief charge after getting drunk and damaging the walls and doors at his parents’ home outside Rio Grande City, Texas. The 30-year-old became erratic on the way to the Starr County Jail, beating his own head against the inside of the patrol unit and, later, the wall of his cell.
Deputies placed Pena in the WRAP for more than two hours, where he repeatedly cried out for help and complained he could not breathe. But he was left unattended in the device for significant periods of time, court records show, and no medical attention was provided for his self-inflicted head injuries.
An autopsy ruled Pena’s death “accidental,” but a forensic pathologist hired by the family attributed Pena’s death in part to the WRAP’s “prolonged restraint” and said it “could have been averted” with proper medical care.
“The WRAP should have never been used in this situation. It was a medical emergency and he should have been taken to the hospital,” said Natasha Powers-Marakis, a former police officer and use of force expert who reviewed the case on behalf of Pena’s family as part of their wrongful death lawsuit against the county and officers who placed him in the device. The arresting officers had been told Pena suffered from bipolar disorder.
The Starr County Sheriff’s Office has denied wrongdoing and maintained Pena did not require medical care. Robert Drinkard, an attorney for the county, told AP the use of the WRAP “was neither improper nor caused Mr. Pena’s tragic death.” He added that each deputy involved in placing Pena in the WRAP had been trained in its application.
A federal judge recently dismissed the Pena family’s lawsuit, ruling the deputies were shielded from liability.
‘Carrying me like a corpse’
In the context of an ICE deportation flight, the use of restraints like the WRAP can be justified, Hammond, the manufacturer’s CEO, argues.
ICE officers have to ensure that they secure anyone who could pose a fight risk on a long flight, he said. Given the high stakes of a violent confrontation on an airplane, Hammond believes cases like those described to the AP can warrant the WRAP’s use, even if the person is already in chains.
However, properly trained agents are supposed to loosen the straps and allow enough movement so the subject can eat and drink, as well as use the bathroom.
“With the WRAP, when it is used properly, it’s a shorter fight, which is good for everybody. It prioritizes breathing, which is good for everybody. And you have no more fight and can provide medical care or mental health care or de-escalation efforts,” Hammond said.
Those placed in one of Hammond’s restraint suits, however, recount the experience as traumatic.
One of these people was first put into five-point shackles when he became dizzy and tripped while ascending the stairs to board the ICE flight to Cameroon in November 2020. The officer mistook his stumbling as resistance, he said. Immediately, camouflage-clad ICE officers quickly pushed him to the tarmac and onto a WRAP device, he said.
Soon, he felt the straps cinching around his legs and upper body.
“They bundled me like a log of wood from all the sides and they were just carrying me like a corpse,” he said.
Another man interviewed by the AP said ICE officers put him in the WRAP after he initially resisted efforts to move him onto a deportation flight in Alexandria, Louisiana, in 2020. He’d fled political violence and persecution in his native Cameroon, and was afraid to go back. He said officers took him out of his cell in front of the other detainees and put him in the WRAP, leaving him for hours in view of the others as a warning to them not to speak up.
“I told him ‘I can’t breathe,’” the man said. “He responded, ’I don’t care, I’m doing my job.’”
___
Dearen and Pineda reported from Los Angeles and Mustian reported from New York. AP journalists Ope Adetayo in Abuja, Ghana, Obed Lamy in Indianapolis and Ryan J. Foley in Iowa City, Iowa, contributed to this report. Dan Lawton also contributed.
ABC reported today that the House Judiciary Committee wants to have former special counsel Jack Smith testify—behind closed doors—about investigating the Mar-a-Lago, January 6, and Donald Trump. Jim Jordan, the Ohio Republican who chairs the Committee, wants an interview by October 28. He is calling for Smith to turn over documents and communications too.
Why now? Last week, there was reporting (very unsurprising to anyone who has ever investigated a federal case) that Smith’s probe obtained phone records regarding a number of Republican lawmakers as part of the January 6 case investigation. Jordan wrote to Smith, “As the Committee continues its oversight, your testimony is necessary to understand the full extent to which the Biden-Harris Justice Department weaponized federal law enforcement.”
Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri complained that “The F.B.I. tapped my phone.” He said he’d been wiretapped.
Not so fast, though. Obtaining phone records means getting call information—that can mean which phone number called which other phone number, when, and possibly, how long the call lasted. It’s easy to understand why prosecutors would want that information in virtually any case they’re investigating. Here, given reports that Trump had numerous calls leading up to and on January 6 (for instance, one with brand new Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville), it would be surprising if they hadn’t done so. The New York Times reported that “The calls were scrutinized because at the time, prosecutors were trying to identify relevant communications between the president and his inner circle with members of Congress on the key days surrounding the violence.”
Call information, which frequently produces investigative leads, is acquired routinely by investigators. But it is not the same thing as a wiretap, which lets law enforcement listen in on a target’s phone calls. To get a wiretap, prosecutors and agents have to get an order from a federal judge in compliance with the strict requirements of Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. They have to establish probable cause and show that less intrusive investigative methods were tried and failed. A wiretap only lasts for 30 days, and prosecutors must go back to the judge, with fresh proof, in order to reup the wiretap for an additional 30 days.
Jordan’s allegation that this is the weaponization of the DOJ should fall on deaf ears. Jack Smith was investigating one of the most serious situations our country has ever faced—an effort to interfere with the smooth transfer of power between two American administrations, with involvement by the outgoing president who had lost the election—using routine investigative techniques. Jordan and other Republicans should be able to differentiate between that and wiretaps, since these are statutory creatures and Congress sets the requirements for when they can be used.
Jordan admonished Smith that he was “ultimately responsible for the prosecutorial misconduct and constitutional abuses of your office,” a comment that is a not-too-veiled threat in the era of revenge prosecutions.
Smith spoke out earlier this week, in an interview in London with Andrew Weissmann. Smith praised the integrity, competence, and selflessness of professionals at DOJ and the FBI—many of whom were subsequently fired by the Trump administration. Why prosecute Trump for classified documents when Biden didn’t get prosecuted, Smith was asked. He responded that it was simple because the facts were starkly different; with Trump, there was evidence of willfulness and intent to violate the law regarding protection of classified documents. Trump obstructed justice, even lying and saying he had returned all the documents he retained. Of course, when the search warrant was executed at Mar-a-Lago, it conclusively proved that was a lie.
At a talk he gave last month at George Mason University in Washington, D.C., Smith said, “The heart of the Rule of Law is treating people equally under the rule of law. Good prosecutors do not care about politics. They bring cases that are supported by facts.”
That’s what good prosecutors do. What is the difference between the prosecution of Donald Trump for possessing classified documents and the decision not to prosecute Joe Biden? It’s evidence. Evidence of willfulness and intent and of Trump’s effort to obstruct justice by keeping classified documents from being recovered by the government after claiming his lawyers claimed he’d returned everything in his possession. What makes the prosecution of Jim Comey a perversion of our criminal justice system? It’s the absence of evidence that he committed a crime and the clear direction from the President of the United States to his Attorney General to go after him. We do not need to engage in bothsidesism here; one of these things is not like the other. The people who are complaining that the prior administration weaponized the Justice Department are, in fact, the ones who are doing exactly that, but all of the noise can get confusing and exhausting.
But this is no “he said, she said” controversy. When even Chris Christie, the former New Jersey U.S. Attorney and Governor, who is no stranger to legal controversy like the Bridgegate Scandal, condemns what is happening in this administration, there is every reason to pay attention.
It was the ranking Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee, Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, who got it just right, as he so frequently does. With his sarcasm font on full blast, Raskin congratulated Jordan for also “demand[ing] the release of Smith’s full report, and all accompanying records, from his investigation into Donald Trump’s hoarding of classified documents and obstruction of justice at Mar-a-Lago” after “an extraordinary years-long MAGA cover-up has deprived the American public of the opportunity to read this special counsel report that the taxpayers paid for.” Republicans, of course, have not. This is not about a commitment to transparency. This is not about being the party of law and order. It’s certainly not about following the rule of law.
The details about the documents Trump took with him to Mar-a-Lago, and for all we know, keeps there to this day, remain largely undisclosed. Just like the Epstein files are still being kept secret. Donald Trump is committed to an all-powerful presidency. It’s easy to understand why he thinks that’s so desirable—it’s not about doing justice.
Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a legendary transgender activist who had been in the movement since Stonewall, died Monday at age 78.
Her death was announced by the House of GG—Griffin-Gracy Retreat and Educational Center, which she founded. She died “in the comfort of her home and surrounded by loved ones in Little Rock, Arkansas,” says a statement from the center. “Her enduring legacy is a testament to her resilience, activism, and dedication to creating safe spaces for Black trans communities and all trans people — we are eternally grateful for Miss Major’s life, her contributions and how deeply she poured into those she loved.”
Miss Major had suffered from health problems for some time and had recently begun receiving hospice care.She spent more than 50 years fighting for the “trans, gender-nonconforming, and LGB community — especially for Black trans women, trans women of color and those who have survived incarceration and police brutality,” the statement continues. Major’s fierce commitment and intersectional approach to justice brought her to care directly for people with HIV/AIDS in New York in the early 1980s, and later to drive San Francisco’s first mobile needle exchange. As director of the TGI Justice Project, she’d return to prisons as a mentor to her ‘gurls’ inside.”
She founded House of GG in 2019 as “a space for our community to take a break, swim, enjoy good food, laugh, listen to music, watch movies, and recharge for the ongoing fight for our lives,” the statement goes on. “Miss Major fought tirelessly for her people, her love as vast and enduring as the universe she knew herself to be a part of. She was a world builder, a visionary, and unwavering in her devotion to making freedom possible for Black, trans, formerly and currently incarcerated people as well as the larger trans and LGB community. Because of her, countless new possibilities have been made for all of us to thrive — today and for generations to come. She affirmed that our lives hold meaning and that we stand on the shoulders of giants like her, whose courageous love and relentless fight assured our right to live with dignity. We will forever honor her memory, her steadfast presence, and her enduring commitment to our collective liberation.” (snip-MORE good history and story on the page)
As I’ve said before, please feel free to use my cartoons for your posters (just no altering text or images, please). Contact me either in the comments or email for the hi-res file (atelnaes@anntelnaes.com) . Here’s also a few suggestions from my archives if you don’t have a particular one in mind.
Stay safe and be loud with your First Amendment Rights.
UPDATE: Thank you for all your requests and my apologies for not being able to respond to your added kind messages. Even if you’re only getting the attached file, I’ve read and appreciated them all.
***Liza Donnelly and Steve Brodner are both offering their excellent editorial cartoons to download for posters.
There is a brutal video at the link that shows her detainment / arrest. She was peacefully protesting. At one point ICE agents rushed out of the gates, jumped the woman who was just playing her clarinet. She was not doing anything wrong. She was in a public space exercising her 1st amendment rights. Then ICE took her across state lines and put her in a jail with no charges and no bail. She is being held incommunicado not allowed to talk to anyone which means no lawyer. The video reporter says that the peaceful protestors were hit with pepper balls. The US is being run by a mob boss wannabee racist white nationalist authoritarian who doesn’t want any rights for anyone not white and wealthy. The people of this country have lost all civil rights. One of the people arrested was white so it doesn’t matter race. Please watch the video. We are at a point where any protest against the government can get you disappeared Russia style. Hugs
A clarinet player is apparently being held without bail on no specific charges at the Clark County Jail in Vancouver after her husband said she was arrested Sunday during a protest across the street from the ICE facility in South Portland. The woman’s husband — who asked KOIN 6 News not to identify either of them for safety reasons — said his wife was tackled by federal agents while she was playing her clarinet around 5 p.m.
“It is a beautiful party atmosphere. Everybody’s really excited. Then the band hits into ‘Ghostbusters’, and then at ‘Ghostbusters’, that’s when ICE start storming in,” the husband said. “Why are they targeting a clarinet player? A clarinet player standing on the sidewalk far away from the street, following instructions.” Video of the arrest obtained by KOIN 6 News shows the woman face down in the mud with her clarinet on the ground next to her.
(Well, the Science and Art parts, anyway! This is originally a year-old story, republished by Cosmos today. I scouted around for some sort of an update, but didn’t find one. I still thought this is interesting, and at least now we know another area in which A.I. might be applied. I think that’s good to know, since A.I. does make mistakes, as noted below.)
This artwork of an origami bird holds AlphaFold 3 predictions of a complex of two proteins (ScpA and ScpB) in its beak. The protein complex is important during cell division in bacteria. Top: ScpA is cyan and ScpB is green. Bottom: Confidence measures, where dark blue is very high confidence, light blue is confident, yellow is low confidence, and orange is very low confidence in the structural prediction. Credit: AlphaFold 3, Katie Michie.
A protein is made from of a chain of amino acids strung together like beads on a necklace. This chain spontaneously folds, like origami, into intricate pleats, folds, and loops through interactions between its amino acids. The resulting unique 3D structure largely determines its vital function within the lifeform. Solving the structure allows biologists to better understand how the protein works and design experiments to affect and modify it.
The smallest known protein, TAL, influences development of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster and has just 11 amino acids. The largest, Titin, is found in human muscle cells and is made up of roughly 35,000.
Proteins are far too tiny to inspect under a regular microscope. For decades researchers used complex experimental techniques, such as X-ray crystallography, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, and cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) to solve their structures. It’s painstaking, time-consuming work that takes specialised skill and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars. And, as Kate Michie can attest, success is not always guaranteed.
“I spent four years trying to solve the crystal structure of a complex of two human proteins and got scooped. You know, I got nothing out of four years. I worked really hard at it, and it was a really difficult project. AlphaFold can calculate those in a few hours,” says Michie, who is chief scientist of the Structural Biology Facility at the Mark Wainwright Analytical Centre, of the University of New South Wales Sydney.
On 8 May 2024 Nature dropped a paper introducing the third and latest iteration of the artificial intelligence (AI) system AlphaFold, which predicts the 3D structure of proteins from their amino acid sequences. Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs, both subsidiaries of Alphabet, co-developed the new model. They say AlphaFold 3 (AF3) is “a revolutionary model that can predict the structure and interactions of all life’s molecules with unprecedented accuracy”. But, while AF3 has generated significant interest since its release, it has simultaneously sparked criticism among those in the scientific community.
Let’s take a closer look at how AI is changing the world of structural biology.
A revolution in protein structure
AF3’s predecessor, AlphaFold 2, was released as open source code in July 2021 and immediately changed the game in structural biology.
“I contacted the high-performance computation people and said, ‘we really need to get this piece of code running’. And then I asked my colleague, ‘Do you have any structures that you never submitted to the Protein Data Bank?’” says Michie.
The Protein Data Bank (PDB) is the global archive of all the experimentally solved structures for large biological molecules. As of June 2024, its estimated to include more than 220,000 proteins, which sounds like a lot until you consider the number of proteins we know of exceeds 200 million.
“My colleague sent me a sequence of a small protein he never submitted to the PDB, I ran it, and I just sent him the result. His email response to me was: ‘My mind is blown!’ And he said, ‘I immediately thought someone else must have solved the structure.’”
But they hadn’t, AF2 had accurately predicted the 3D structure of the protein from its amino acid sequence alone. What had taken years to describe experimentally had been done in just a few hours.
AF2 is a deep learning algorithm. In the world of AI that means it simulates the neural networks found in human brains. First, it takes the protein sequence of interest and searches several databases for similar proteins. By comparing these sequences, it can identify areas of similarity and difference to understand how the protein has changed across evolution.
For instance, if two amino acids are in close contact in 3D space then a mutation in one will usually be accompanied by a mutation in the other (to conserve the structure of the protein). But if they are far apart then they tend to evolve independently from each other. Using this to work out the relative positions of the amino acids, AF2 then takes its training on PDB structural data and iteratively constructs a 3D model of the protein’s structure with relatively high accuracy.
Scientists can take advantage of that predicted structure to accelerate their science by doing smarter, more strategic experiments in the laboratory right off the bat. “I’ve done work with some scientists working with immune complexes, and the models coming out of AlphaFold enable them to really trim down the number of animal experiments they do,” says Michie. “So instead of making say 20 CRISPR mice, they only might make two.”
As seen in AlphaFold 3, a structural prediction of Fos and Jun transcription factors with the DNA sequence they bind. The top panel shows the model and confidence data, and the green chart shows the high confidence of them binding to each other. Credit: AlphaFold 3, Katie Michie.
Crystal clues
An accurate AlphaFold structure can also be the crucial missing piece of the puzzle that allows researchers to experimentally solve the structure using X-ray crystallography.
“One of my other colleagues is virologist and he’d been working on a protein that had eluded structural elucidation for 20–30 years. It was from the world’s first known retrovirus,” says Michie.
“The trick of crystallography is you need to know two components of the maths to solve them,” she continues. The diffraction data provided by X-ray crystallography gives you one of those components, but you don’t have the other: the phase.
Traditional methods of obtaining phase information had proved unsuccessful, until Michie suggested using AlphaFold instead.
“Immediately the structure came out. AlphaFold helped him get the crystals but then actually enabled him to phase the structure. It told us that the Alpha Fold model was very good, but it also fixed up this problem in structural biology.”
To Michie, AlphaFold represents a massive step forward: “it’s genuinely the biggest scientific advance in my career”.
“The Alpha Fold model was very good, but it also fixed up this problem in structural biology.”
Predicting the structures of life’s molecules
Proteins don’t exist in a vacuum. They move around, bind to and modify each other, and even form large, complicated complexes.
Peter Czabotar, joint head of the Structural Biology Division at WEHI, the oldest medical research institute in Australia, says one of the early limitations of AF2 was you could only ever get structural predictions of one protein, alone. “Often what you’re interested in is how different proteins will interact with each other. For example, we work on proteins that are involved with cell death and the interactions between those proteins will dictate whether a cell will live or die.”
The gap has since been bridged by other research groups adapting and building upon AF2’s open source code, and with the AlphaFold-Multimer extension in October 2021.
The newest version, AF3, extends upon this capability by predicting interactions of multiple proteins, and nucleic acids (DNA and RNA). It can predict the impact of ions and post-translational modifications – the addition of chemical groups to amino acids – on these molecular systems too. AF3 can also be used to predict how a selection of small molecules called ligands bind to proteins, though this is restricted to ligands that have high-quality experimental data available in the PDB.
“But where the real power is, something that we do a lot of, is in the drug discovery world,” says Czabotar. “And it is extremely powerful for that, potentially, but they haven’t enabled that in the way that it’s released. We’ve done drug discovery against cell death proteins, for example. I can’t take one of the drugs that we’ve worked with and see how it interacts with my target protein, I can only use the [ligands] that they’ve enabled us to use.”
That capability to predict the structure of novel drug molecules interacting with target proteins seems to be restricted to Isomorphic Labs, which was launched in 2021 to pursue commercial drug discovery.
AF3 uses a very different approach for this new suit of predictions: generative AI. After processing the sequence inputs, it assembles its predictions using a diffusion network, the likes of which power AI image generators. According to Isomorphic Labs’ website: “the diffusion process starts with a cloud of atoms, and over many steps converges on its final, most accurate molecular structure”. Diffusion has been applied to protein structure prediction before, for example, in the seminal RoseTTAFold diffusion (RFdiffusion) by the Baker Laboratory at the Institute for Protein Design, the University of Washington.
But generative AI is not without its limitations. AF3 will occasionally produce structures with overlapping atoms (this is physically impossible) or replace a detail of the structure with its mirror image (chemically impossible). As a generative model, it is also prone to hallucinations in which it invents plausible-looking structures – particularly in disordered regions of the protein that lack a stable 3D structure – similarly to how a text to image AI struggles to create realistic-looking hands. In-built confidence measures help to identify when AF3 isn’t so sure about its structural prediction, but ultimately it takes a scientist with understanding of the underlying structural biology to come along and identify what’s gone wrong, and why.
“It’s very, very powerful. But it doesn’t exclude the need to necessarily confirm things experimentally. Whether that is by solving structures themselves or by, for example, testing the structures in some way in an experiment,” says Czabotar.
Concerns about code
In a major departure from AF2, access to the newest iteration of AlphaFold is limited to a web server and for non-commercial research only. “We have various structure-based drug discovery projects and some of them are purely academic, as students, PhDs and honours projects. But we also have had commercial partnerships, because that’s a way to push your discoveries into a clinical setting,” says Czabotar. “So generally, anything that is going to make an impact is done by an academic lab in a commercial partnership. Now, I guess it puts us in a bit of an awkward situation. Even if we could look at our compounds bound to the target [protein], there’s some projects where we won’t be able to do it because, you know, we’ve ticked a box.”
AF3’s accompanying Nature paper was also published without the source code, but with a ‘pseudocode’ instead – a detailed description of what the code can do and how it works. This prompted an open letter to the Editors of Nature, published 16 May and endorsed by more than 1,000 scientists as of June.
The letter raised concerns that “the absence of available code compromises peer review” and that the pseudocode released would “require months of effort to turn into workable code that approximates the performance, wasting valuable time and resources”. Access to the web server was also initially capped at 10 predictions per day, which the letter stated, “restricts the scientific community’s capacity to verify the broad claims of the findings or apply the predictions on a large scale”.
The sentiments appear to have hit home. Shortly after the letter’s release, DeepMind’s Vice President of research, Pushmeet Kohli announced via X that they would double the daily job limit to 20 and are “working on releasing the AF3 model (incl weights) for academic use … within 6 months”.
On 22 May Nature responded in an editorial, stating its reasoning for publishing the paper without code: “the private sector funds most global research and development, and many of the results of such work are not published in peer-reviewed journals. We at Nature think it’s important that journals engage with the private sector and work with its scientists so they can submit their research for peer review and publication.”
In the meantime, other researchers won’t be sitting idly by until the code release at the end of 2024. Already, multiple teams are racing to develop their own open source versions of AlphaFold 3, without any strings attached.
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