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Kristen Barton | Fort Worth Report
Kristen Barton is an education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. She has previous experience in education reporting for her hometown paper, the Longview News-Journal and her college paper, The Daily Toreador at Texas Tech University. To contact her, email kristen.barton@fortworthreport.org.
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Based on the Fort Worth Report’s investigation into Bridges’ accusation, the Tarrant Appraisal District is starting a review into the homestead exemption of the house Dixon owns at 1104 E. Leuda St. When the Report visited the home this week, someone other than Dixon was living there.
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The fallout from the ouster of Tarrant County College chancellor expanded April 18 with the filing of a lawsuit by the former executive director of communications.
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Students in Cindy Reyes’ class spent part of their Wednesday afternoon working on word problems in math at Como Elementary. | https://www.keranews.org/kristen-barton-fort-worth-report | 2022-05-12T14:20:53Z |
Most Holocaust survivors are in their 80s or 90s. With every year, fewer remain to tell us their stories. So museums and archives are using advanced technologies to preserve their testimonies and introduce them to new generations.
For example, at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie, you can slip on a virtual reality headset and enter the world of survivor George Brent, at the moment the terrified teenager stepped off a boxcar at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944.
"There was a great deal of shouting –'Raus, raus, schnell, schnell! Leave everything behind!'" he says in the 12-minute film. It's part of the exhibit "The Journey Back: A VR Experience," which takes viewers from that first heartbreaking separation from his family to the grueling slave labor Brent was later forced to perform in the mines of the Ebensee concentration camp in Austria.
Brent, now 93 years old, is gentle and good-natured as he recalls making his part of "The Journey Back" on a Zoom call with NPR. He was too fragile to make a trip to Europe, he says, so the VR film based on his testimony used green screens to put him in some of the places he describes, such as the men's concentration camp barracks and the loading docks at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
As you turn around, wearing the headset, you'll also find yourself transported inside of charcoal drawings that communicate the darkness and dread of his experience in Nazi-run camps and quarries.
"It gives me the chills when I think about it, that this technology became available just in time to capture these stories," says Susan Abrams, CEO of the Illinois Holocaust Museum. For years, she says, numerous survivors would tell their stories to visitors in person. The museum began making "The Journey Back" in 2017 and spent more than seven figures recreating Brent's testimony as a virtual reality experience. The story of another survivor, Fritzie Fritzshall, is told as well, in a separate movie. (A former president of the museum, Fritzshall died at age 91 soon after her VR testimony was completed).
But employing new technology to capture survivors' stories is nothing new, says UCLA professor Todd Presner, who studies the Holocaust and digital culture.
He describes the work of David Boder, an American psychology professor who used then- cutting edge technology to record testimonies starting in 1946.
"He brought this wire recorder to displaced persons camps throughout Europe, interviewing survivors in multiple languages and really, the first one to record their voices," he says. (Those interviews have been archived online by the Illinois Institute of Technology as Voices of the Holocaust).
The interviews were especially powerful, Presner adds, at a time when newsreels were largely silent, and images of survivors were seen, not heard. Likewise, he says, "The Journey Back: A VR Experience" makes the Holocaust feel immediate, especially for people who've never had the opportunity to visit places like the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial and museum in Poland.
But virtual reality is not the only technology transforming how we see—and increasingly, interact with — survivors' testimonies. USC Shoah Foundation, founded by director Steven Spielberg in 1994, is one of the largest digital collections of survivor testimonies in the world. Right now, its interim executive director Kori Street is standing in its quiet lobby, facing a life-sized screen of an elderly man in a pink upholstered chair.
"Pinchas, can you tell us your story?" they ask.
The man, Pinchas Gutter, looks a little like the actor Anthony Hopkins. Gutter, who survived six concentration camps, is still living, in Toronto Canada. Onscreen, Gutter blinks and appears to compose himself. "I was born in 1932, in Łódź," he begins. The artificial intelligence that enables Gutter to answer dozens of questions took a solid week of filming and seemingly endless inquiries from various interlocutors, including children.
Young people, Street says, tend to be braver in asking hard questions to a digitally-rendered survivor rather than an in-person senior citizen, whose feelings they often want to protect. And interactive experiences like this one are more compelling to many visitors than just passively watching the Foundation's massive archival collection of testimonies. "There's no reason why we can't take these 2D testimonies, of which we have 55,000, and retrofit them to work with AI," Street says.
As to where the technology may take things next, Street acknowledges all those wildly popular exhibits featuring the work of wildly popular artists. "There's a lot of debate about a lot of these immersive experiences. The Van Gogh one, most recently the Frida Kahlo one. People either love [them] or they don't but museums — to get people in, they need to keep on this."
The idea of "Auschwitz: The Immersive Experience" might seem tasteless at best and Westworld at worst. But as a way into Holocaust history, an immersive experience could be presented with thoughtfulness, authenticity and care, says Sarah Lumbard. She's the director of museum experience and digital media at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
"In VR, we've looked at-- how do you explain the experience of the Warsaw ghetto," she says. "How might we explain that, really transporting you to the ghetto? And specifically, looking at how do you see ... and bring to life one group's effort to preserve evidence that was later found after the war? This is something you do to create a whole new world, a world that doesn't exist, which is why gamers use it."
"There are really excellent applications of game theory to learning about the Holocaust without it devolving into something that is dangerous, that is dark tourism," says Kori Street.
At a time when hate crimes have risen sharply and members of Congress have trivialized survivors' experiences, Holocaust museum directors say their stories are more important than ever. And new technologies and new tools—used correctly- can bring that history home.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-10/museums-turn-to-immersive-tech-to-preserve-the-stories-of-aging-holocaust-survivors | 2022-05-12T14:36:49Z |
Craft Beer, Fine Food, New Traditions
Sometimes the only way to preserve traditions is to update them thoroughly – and create new traditions in the process.
The Avenue Pub, on St. Charles Avenue at the edge of the Lower Garden District, was opened by the father of current owner Polly Watts when she was a senior at Tulane University. She helped him establish what was basically a typical New Orleans corner bar, then left town after graduation with no plans to ever to come back and run it herself.
Then Watts’ father passed away in 2006, and suddenly she found herself owning a bar in a city in both major crisis and major transition.
“When my dad died, we were a 24-hour dive bar,” she recalled. “But Hurricane Katrina uprooted a lot of the regulars. We had to find a new customer base.
“There was that massive influx of people from all over the country,” she continued, “many of whom came from places where they had mature beer cultures. So we thought that if we could bring the level here up to the rest of the country, we could create a community around beer.”
As Watts pointed out, New Orleans certainly has had a “drinking culture” for a very long time, but the craft beer wave that surged in so many other places was initially just a trickle here. That created an opportunity for the Avenue Pub, and it became really the first local watering hole to focus on serving microbrews from around the country.
Soon, though, even this new tradition had to be further refined, as New Orleans finally began sprouting its own craft breweries. In addition, Watts never forgot that local customers are the bread and butter for any bar.
“We like the destination clients,” she said, “but I never want to lose touch with the people who can walk here. We’re really a neighborhood bar with a really good beer list.”
The Avenue Pub truly does have an eclectic list of brews, mixing a few of the top local ales with high-end and often lesser-known beers from around the country. However, Watts aspired to be known for more than just the suds. Moving thoughtfully and deliberately, she has upgraded her kitchen and menu to go far beyond standard pub grub.
“When you come in here, we want you to see things on the menu that you haven’t heard of before,” she said. “We want to raise the level of everything we do here to equal what we do with the beer.”
This progression started before the pandemic, but as it did for every other restaurant on the planet, COVID-19 had huge impacts. The days of the Avenue Pub as an around-the-clock establishment had long passed, but even after reopening, the hours had to be seriously curtailed.
“Staffing is such a challenge,” explained Watts. “One-third of our pre-pandemic employees left the industry entirely.”
Watts has responded by providing employees with guaranteed minimum tips and starting salaries that would have been unheard of in the industry three years ago. As a result, “we are taking the baby steps out of our COVID hours. We have reopened the balcony Fridays and Saturdays for the first time since 2020, and we reopened the downstairs on Sundays.”
Of course, given the restaurant’s location, Carnival is essential to its success.
“We really had no idea what to expect with Mardi Gras,” Watts recounted. “What we saw was crowd levels about like 2016. Definitely not up to 2019 and 2020. But just having parades go in front of my bar was a beautiful, beautiful thing.!”
Despite the various disasters, the changes in clientele and the marketplace, and the evolution of the place itself, the Avenue Pub remains a New Orleans tradition for people who really know their local establishments. And Watts is not the type to stand still for too long anyway, so her place will likely always be a tradition in progress.
“It’s a journey and it’s not over,” she concluded. “And through it all, we’re still standing.” | https://www.bizneworleans.com/craft-beer-fine-food-new-traditions/ | 2022-05-12T14:36:49Z |
A few years ago, I met comedian Jerrod Carmichael for lunch at ABC Kitchen, near Gramercy Park in Manhattan. I was an editor on the New York Times's arts desk at the time, and we were there to chat for a profile pegged to his new HBO special Home Videos, a loose, sort of experimental collection of vignettes in which he filmed intimate, unscripted conversations with the black women and girls in his family. One of those scenes involves his mother, Cynthia, and her tumultuous relationship with his notoriously philandering father; at one point, he asks her if she's ever found women attractive, and Carmichael offhandedly mentions that he's hooked up with men.
To me, someone who'd followed his career pretty closely up to that point (I'm a huge fan of his criminally underseen sitcom The Carmichael Show, as well as his first two HBO stand up specials Love At the Store and 8), this was kind of a bombshell reveal: Until then, Carmichael had only ever publicly discussed his romantic life and sexuality in terms of women he'd dated. And yet, the moment in Home Videos went as quickly as it came, and when I asked him about it during our interview, he was very reluctant to turn the revelation into A Thing.
He paused at first, and then laughed. "It's a thing I said to my mom ... That was it. A thing I said to my mom. I was just talking to my mom. Thing came up. I said it to my mom. Now [you and I are] eating peas at ABC Kitchen. But that's how I feel about everything that's in there — it's just like, 'Yeah, and then that happened.'"
I didn't press the issue – after all, this was his story to tell, or not tell – but I can't say the journalist in me wasn't a little disappointed he was uninterested in discussing it further. It seemed like a huge thing to say and then just let hang out in the ether!
But it's also consistent with Carmichael's style of comedy. 8 concludes with its own out-of-left field zinger that goes unexplained: "The only thing weirder than finding out your father has a second family — is finding out that you guys are that second family." With him, it seems, you've just got to trust that he'll let you in whenever he's good and ready, on his terms.
With him, it seems, you've just got to trust that he'll let you in whenever he's good and ready, on his terms.
That's part of what's so beautifully moving about Rothaniel, Carmichael's latest HBO special which premiered last weekend. Filmed at the Blue Note Jazz Club in NYC (and directed by Bo Burnham), he spends an hour in conversation with his audience and himself, teasing out the bread crumbs he'd sprinkled throughout those previous works. The theme is secrets: Those we tell ourselves, and those we tell about our origins.
The part of the show that's made headlines is the fact that he's finally felt ready to come out to the world. "I'm accepting the love, I really appreciate the love," he says, to a round of applause and whoops of approval from the audience. In typical Carmichael fashion, he tempers the warm response with brutal honesty: "There's a lot that happens, coming out. Like I'm telling you guys, and I know, some of y'all – I see the Yankee fitteds, some of y'all are like, 'We at a gay show, bro?'"
The special is a beautiful and perhaps unprecedented moment. He's a Black male comedian at the stage of his career where he's not quite a household name (though his hosting gig on SNL over the weekend might have helped change that), yet big within the comedy realm and well-respected by elders like Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle – and here he is, revealing a truth he'd spent a lifetime being terrified of confronting. Wearing a red shirt and perched on a chair for the entire performance, he appears looser and more vulnerable, his lanky arms more expressive and limber. It's staged but not stage-y; to watch him unload this burden of secrecy in such a deliberate yet natural way is to understand he's conferring a distinct and profound level of trust and openness with us, his audience.
It's not a Q&A, but occasionally, someone in the crowd throws out a follow-up question in response to something he's said, and Carmichael just goes with it, pausing, taking it in, and then thoughtfully engaging with that query – a therapeutic call-and-response segment, as it were. Even if I wasn't physically in the room with him the night of that performance, I felt a sense of intimacy I've never quite felt before with a comedian – and have felt with few other artists.
What struck me most, though, was how his sense of newfound liberation can't fully overcome his own guilt and trauma, at least not yet. Building upon Home Videos and his follow-up "video diary" released a few months later Sermon on the Mount, he unpacks his family's history and their culture of silence, specifically as it relates to his father and grandfathers' rampant cheating and double lives. (His granddad on his dad's side had "about 23" kids outside of his marriage, according to Carmichael. "There's no easy way to say your grandma was a sidepiece," he cracks.) He expresses the weariness that came with knowing at a young age about his dad's infidelity, and trying to protect his mom from the inevitable pain she would feel by keeping his dad's secret for years.
What struck me most, though, was how his sense of newfound liberation can't fully overcome his own guilt and trauma, at least not yet.
And in coming out as gay, he also has to acknowledge the fact that members of his family, including his parents and brother, merely tolerate this aspect of his identity, rather than embrace it. He's still processing his mother's dismissal of his sexuality – because she "can't go against God" – and trying to understand how the woman he loves so dearly could make him feel so small and ignored. "She gives me nothing. Even hate starts to feel like love, because that's acknowledgment ... I think that would feel better. I wish she would yell at me." He's no longer holding back or dancing around some of those details, as he did in 8 and Home Videos, or how it makes him feel: the saddest kind of disappointment and, to some extent, despair.
In the crudest of terms, he's airing his dirty laundry out in front of mixed company, an oft unspoken no-no within a lot of Black circles. He's taking a very personal risk that will likely have emotional ramifications he may never feel comfortable sharing with us (as is his right).
But already he's shared so much. Revealing the truth, accompanied by an asterisk is one way to look at it; another is that he seems to be trying to find the joy in working through all that hurt. Rothaniel lives and breathes in that simultaneously freeing and discomforting imbalance, that tension between relief and despondency, fear and catharsis.
This essay first appeared in NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter so you don't miss the next one, plus get weekly recommendations on what's making us happy.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-11/the-tension-between-fear-and-relief-in-jerrod-carmichaels-new-special-rothaniel | 2022-05-12T14:36:55Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
More school districts are banning books from classrooms and school libraries. A recent survey from Pen America found that more than a thousand titles have been banned from various school districts since July, books like "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison and the memoir Genderqueer by Maia Kobabe. But one library system has announced a program to challenge the tide of book bannings. NPR's Andrew Limbong has more.
ANDREW LIMBONG, BYLINE: Let's say you're a 14-year-old kid living in a school district that's just banned the young adult memoir "All Boys Aren't Blue" by George M. Johnson. You can email the Brooklyn Public Library system over in New York and explain to them the situation.
NICK HIGGINS: We are offering them, basically, a free out-of-state e-card...
LIMBONG: That's Nick Higgins, chief librarian at the Brooklyn Public Library.
HIGGINS: ...Which gives them access to about half a million audiobooks and e-books in our system at Brooklyn Public Library unrestricted, totally for free.
LIMBONG: This would normally cost 50 bucks, by the way. And it's specifically for younger people, folks between the ages of 13 and 21. It's part of a campaign the library is calling Books Unbanned. And the free e-card is just one part of it. Another part is connecting teens in districts with banned books to participating teenagers in Brooklyn, teens like Gabas Yagoub (ph), a junior at Midwood High School (laughter) and the type of kid who, when you ask if she's read any good books lately, says stuff like...
GABAS YAGOUB: Well, that's hard to say because I don't have a favorite book because all books are my favorite (laughter).
LIMBONG: ...Before giving you a good minute on why the sci-fi series she's currently reading rocks. The point is for these kids to get together and share resources to push back against encroaching censorship and, of course, talk books because as Yagoub says, a book isn't just a story.
YAGOUB: So it's a really good opportunity to learn and to, like, decipher the messages or the hidden motives of characters or, like, the significance of settings and of symbols of stories just like these to, like, gain knowledge for yourself and also, like, get an understanding of the world also.
LIMBONG: Nick Higgins, the chief librarian, knows this is just a small step in the bigger fight against book bans.
HIGGINS: You know, listen and defending books that we agree with and don't agree with with equal fervor and determination.
LIMBONG: He says, hopefully, it'll lead to some hard soul-searching from public libraries everywhere when it comes to pushing back against outside voices calling for book bans.
Andrew Limbong, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF SATYR AND PHLOCALYST'S "TRUST ME") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/a-library-system-announces-a-program-to-challenge-the-tide-of-book-bannings | 2022-05-12T14:37:02Z |
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Until February 24, Europe had mostly found ways to get along with Vladimir Putin's Russia. The full-scale invasion of Ukraine ended that era with ripple effects along the thousand miles of Russia's border with the EU. NPR's Quil Lawrence sends this report from the northern tip of that border in Arctic Norway.
QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE: The city of Kirkenes is Norway's best-known border town with Russia. Lately, it's also known for its hockey team.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "PUCKERS")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character, non-English language spoken).
LAWRENCE: That's thanks to this television series about the Kirkenes Puckers. They play in a mostly Russian hockey league.
What are all these up here?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Some are gifts, some of the Russian teams.
LAWRENCE: On a recent visit, the Puckers' home rink in Kirkenes doesn't really live up to the hype. The city is 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle. So while the rink doesn't melt, it does often get covered with snow, and the city snow plows are sometimes too busy. Two players still showed up hoping for a game; one of them came by bicycle.
It's snowing outside. There's 4 inches of snow on the rink.
ARE DRAGLAND: Yeah.
LAWRENCE: I don't know. Maybe it's negative - is it zero or negative 1 outside maybe?
DRAGLAND: I think it's minus 4.
LAWRENCE: Minus 4. We're in the Arctic. It's dark out. It's a Tuesday night. And you still came out to play hockey.
DRAGLAND: Yeah, of course (laughter) because it's fun (laughter) and to get some exercise and, yeah, have fun.
LAWRENCE: Are Dragland plays on the adult team. There's a kids league, too. The Puckers' slogan translates as busting down borders. But that border is now firmly shut.
DRAGLAND: There's no telling when it will be back. The matches will be back on again, but I hope the league will survive. I think some months or weeks, that's no problem. But many years might be a problem. But yeah. We just have to wait and see what happens in the world.
LAWRENCE: And then there's the Puckers' star center.
GURO BRANDSHAUG: My first trip to Russia was in 1995. Then I played the European championship for women's in Yaroslavl.
LAWRENCE: Guro Brandshaug sees the hockey team as an embodiment of the city's philosophy and as its survival strategy.
BRANDSHAUG: People living up here, we need to feel secure. And I think we managed to have a low tension between the neighboring countries up here in the north by cooperating in areas where we can cooperate, like in science, like in people-to-people relations, like in also business relations.
LAWRENCE: Brandshaug also serves as CEO of the Kirkenes Conference. It's a kind of business summit between Russia and Norway. This year was the 14th annual, and it started out okay.
BRANDSHAUG: So on Wednesday the 23, I welcomed our foreign minister and the Russian ambassador. Already then it was some tension. But I think for the people that visited the conference, they were most happy. In a way, we were heading out of the corona pandemic.
LAWRENCE: Norway had eased all its mask mandates, and people were just happy to meet in person again.
BRANDSHAUG: And then we woke up on the morning on the 24 we had on the second day of the conference. And the Russian had started bombing Ukraine. It was a huge shock. People were actually crying. They were so - yeah, it was a huge shock. Many people up here in Kirkenes, they thought - we never thought he would be that crazy. I think that we see what Putin are really capable of. Yeah, we have been questioning ourselves.
LAWRENCE: It's been sobering, she says, to hear friends in Russia enthusiastically supporting Putin. She doesn't question they need to sanction Russia, but Brandshaug also worries that the sanctions will mostly hurt regular Russians. And it's not just the Russian economy. Here in Kirkenes, about 70% of the economy depends on crossing the border, says Thomas Nilsen with the Barents Observer newspaper.
THOMAS NILSEN: The 24 of February was the real reality check for this town. Everyone that had a hope of open-door, cross-border free trade relations with Russia lost all that hope. So everything that has been built up over the last 30 years was just washed out in a few days. I mean, we are seeing the Iron Curtain coming back.
LAWRENCE: That Iron Curtain severed personal ties, economic links and even efforts toward mutual survival, Nilsen says. For years, Norway had been helping Russia safely dispose of spent fuel rods from its aging nuclear submarines, which were stationed up here in the Arctic. Nilsen sent us to see the Norwegian nuclear scientists who are now stuck at their research station on the border.
NILSEN: I drive there in 45 minutes, but you will - you should spend an hour on the road.
LAWRENCE: White-knuckle driving in what most people not from the Arctic would call a blizzard to the park station where we meet a man who collects dust from the wind.
BREDO MOLLER: So my name is Bredo Moller, and I work with the Norwegian Radiation Safety Authority.
LAWRENCE: Moller takes us outside across a snowy field to see his machines...
MOLLER: Yeah, I'm sorry, guys (laughter). This is actually a lot of snow.
LAWRENCE: ...And laughs when I sink through the crust of snow up to my waist.
MOLLER: Oh, my God. Do you mind? Can I take a picture of you? Is that OK? This is perfect.
LAWRENCE: Then he flips open the hood of his filter. It looks like a white mushroom cap the size of a washing machine.
MOLLER: You see? So this is the air sampler you're talking about. So this has been running here for 25 years, nonstop, 24/7. So if the concentration are getting too - high enough, it will also trigger an alarm.
LAWRENCE: Moller collects dust off the filter screen, and then back at the lab, he puts it into one of two thick kegs.
MOLLER: These are called high-purity germanium detectors. And these can detect very, very small trace level amounts of radioactive particles.
LAWRENCE: And with that, he can read the signature, tell if the radiation comes from a source in Europe or from the still-hot Chernobyl site or if it's a new leak.
MOLLER: And then we alert internally if we see something we should normally not see.
LAWRENCE: If something pops hot, he's got a landline telephone to Oslo.
MOLLER: You know, that's more or less why we're here, of course, to monitor what's on the other side of the border just a few kilometers from here. In a way, you can say we are some kind of a nuclear watchdog on the border to Russia.
LAWRENCE: That's to prevent one of the world's biggest nuclear waste dumps in Russia from polluting the pristine waters of the Arctic and to stop spent fuel rods from getting stolen and used for terrorism in a dirty bomb. Moller says just last November, Norway marked 25 years of cooperation on this, and he went to Murmansk, Russia, for a celebration with his colleagues, who are his friends.
MOLLER: So I have many friends, Nicolai (ph) and we have Sasha (ph) and Mirvolva (ph). And all of these people are now in Murmansk, I know, just shaking their heads like me now and waiting for this to end.
LAWRENCE: He's certain that his Russian friends there oppose the war in Ukraine like he does. They just can't speak out right now. But it's chilling that many local officials across the border, as well as 700 rectors and university presidents in Russia, issued statements supporting Putin. And that makes Bredo Moller worried that even this vital work might not resume soon.
MOLLER: It will take many, many years, I'm afraid, to get back to that trust that we have been gained through these 25 years of cooperation. It is - yeah, it is a bit frightening times.
LAWRENCE: Quil Lawrence, NPR News, Kirkenes in the Arctic Circle, Norway. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/a-new-iron-curtain-falls-on-a-norwegian-town | 2022-05-12T14:37:08Z |
This winter saw the most wolves from Yellowstone National Park killed in about a century. That's because states neighboring the park changed hunting rules in an effort to reduce the animals' numbers. At the same time, wolf biologists inside the park are finding out what losing the animals means.
"This was the winter of my discontent," Yellowstone National Park senior wolf biologist Doug Smith says while driving over a washboarded dirt road near the park's northern border.
"The park line's right over here, and that's where a lot of the controversy occurred," he says, gesturing to the unmarked edge of the park just in front of us.
There's no wolf hunting inside the park itself, but when wolves set paw over the boundary into Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, they're fair game, at least during the hunting seasons that states are allowed to establish. This season, hunters killed 25 wolves — about 20% of the park's population. Smith says the wolf population varies throughout the year. Right now, he estimates the population is at something of a low point — likely numbering in the 80s.
Today, Smith's hoping to track a wolf that wears a radio collar. Over the course of his research team's 27 years studying the canines in Yellowstone, they've captured and collared more than 500 wolves — what Smith says is one of the largest wolf datasets in the world.
Hopping out of his car, he unfolds an antenna and begins to gesture it around, eyes on the distant hills. He thinks he hears a signal, but ... "I've radio-tracked so much in my life you get this thing called ghost beeps," he says. "You think you hear a beep and you don't."
Wolves were hunted to near-extinction as the country was colonized. The last pack of Yellowstone wolves was killed in 1926. They were reintroduced to the park in the mid-1990s, and along with mountain lions and grizzly bears, they've made a comeback.
"That's a really cool thing to say in this day and age when most environmental news is bad. Yellowstone is as good as it's ever been, and a big part of that is we've restored the ecosystem and we've done it with the toothy big carnivores," Smith says. "All of them."
Federal protections for wolves were dropped about a decade ago, and it became legal to hunt limited numbers of them. Now, saying they have come back too strong, Montana and Idaho changed hunting rules to reduce wolf populations in both states. Montana now allows night hunting, trap baiting and neck snares, among other measures. Idaho eliminated limits on how many wolves that hunters could kill. There, it's now legal to shoot them from ATVs and snowmobiles.
Suddenly, Smith gets a signal. Faint beeps grow louder.
"This wolf's around — how do ya like that?"
He says he's detecting a lone wolf. It's likely young, like most wolves in the park. And it's out of sight, but from the beeps he's getting, Smith says it's a mile, maybe a mile and a half in the distance.
As the number of wolf deaths climbed in December, Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly wrote Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte asking him to suspend the hunting season. His request fell on deaf ears. Nearly a year before, Gianforte himself had killed a collared wolf from the park (legally, although he was cited for having failed to complete a required trapper education course). In a press conference last year, Gianforte said trapping is an important part of managing species.
"It was a tremendous honor to be able to harvest a wolf here in Montana," he said.
Among measures passed last year meant to increase wolf mortality in the state, Montana dropped limits on how many of the canines can be killed in certain areas bordering Yellowstone. The total number killed in those areas shot up from four or fewer a year over the last decade to 19 this season.
After an outcry from conservation groups, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is now evaluating whether Endangered Species Act protections should be returned to wolves in the Northern Rockies.
Trappers and hunters
"There's a lot of panic among people when there doesn't need to be," says Brian Stoner. He's a trapper and an organizer of the Montana Trappers' Association annual fur auction, where I met him. The event was about an hour north of Yellowstone, and pelts from coyotes, foxes, bobcats and more were streaming through the doors and piling up on long, fold-out tables. In the hours to come, fur will fill the fairground hall.
"I wouldn't be surprised if we had a wolf or two that showed up by tomorrow," he said.
As he walked me through the tables, he said putting a value on each pelt is as much an art as a science. He used a bobcat pelt as an example.
"You'll notice it has some spots in here kind of in the center of the belly, but it gets a little weakened down here," he said.
For Stoner, wildlife is livelihood. It's also a lot more than that. He said that trappers have a unique relationship with animals that lots of outsiders don't understand and that they would not support rules that would cause extinction. He said what motivates him is the love of the animals.
"While I do go out there with the intent of harvesting these animals and I know that I'm killing them, I'm removing them from the population, I also know the dynamics of these animals," he said. "I know that they're able to breed, able to replenish. The last thing I want to do is trap the last of anything. I want my kids, my grandkids, I want future generations to be able to do this."
When it comes to wolves, he said harvest numbers this year are right on par with years past. At least, he says, if you are looking at the state as a whole.
"The only thing that is changing is the fact that that the wolves that are in the Yellowstone region, they got harvested more so than they have in the past," he said.
While this was a record-setting year for Yellowstone-area wolf deaths, the number of wolves killed in Montana overall was the lowest it's been since 2017, at 273 statewide.
Stoner said wolf populations bounce back quickly and the state sets guidelines based on science and provides backstops if the hunt gets out of hand. This season, Montana closed wolf hunting in the region around Yellowstone in February, about a month ahead of schedule.
So, concerns about too many Yellowstone are wolves being killed? "I think it's a lot of hoopla about nothing," he said.
Science in the park
Back near the park boundary, a tiny airplane about the size of a motorcycle with wings glides onto a small runway, while elk mill about nearby. That plane — a wildlife tracking aircraft called a Super Cub, meant to fly low and slow — is part of the Yellowstone Wolf Project, research in the park that's been going on for more than 25 years.
"That's the beauty of the Wolf Project, is that we've been getting these counts for over 25 years now, which is longer than I've been alive," says Maddy Jackson, a research technician.
The research focuses on what, when and where wolves are eating, as in bison, elk and deer. Most days, Jackson is on the "cluster crew" that hike out to areas where wolves are spending a lot of time to document the animals they're killing and scavenging. But today, she'll be in the plane, tracking the wolves from the air.
Jackson and the pilot fold themselves into the plane and take off. For the next three hours, they'll zigzag over the park, covering about 300 miles. They hope to see somewhere in the order of 60 wolves.
Yellowstone biologist Doug Smith, who leads the project, says wolf populations do recover fast, and this year's hunt doesn't mean the park's wolves are going extinct. But this many wolf deaths also disrupts the animals' deeper, social dynamics.
"This winter, what we experienced was catastrophic mortality," Smith says.
Catastrophic, he says, because wildlife research as long-running as the wolf project is rare but vital to understanding ecosystems. Yellowstone is a natural laboratory for studying wolves. He said there are lots of other studies that focus on wolf populations that are impacted by hunters. But here in Yellowstone, the population is unique in that it's both easy to observe and very nearly unimpacted by hunters and humans. Or at least, that had been the case.
"Our claim to fame with Wolf Research was we have the best data in the world in an unexploited-by-humans population," Smith says. "We don't have that now. And that's, I think, a shame and a tragedy."
In addition to tracking wolves by plane and with the cluster crew, Smith's team also has one other way of gathering data. He parks in a pullout and introduces me to Taylor Bland and Jeremy Sunder Raj, members of the ground crew. Like private eyes on a marathon stakeout, they're out from dawn to dusk, watching wolves from the road.
"We're all pretty exhausted, but we get to see pretty good behavior, so makes for good watching," Bland says.
The two take out spotting scopes and angle them toward a patch of trees in the distance. They scan the sage-dominated landscape for signs of movement and life. But no luck.
When they do get wolves in their sights, Bland, Sunder Raj and other members of the ground crew are busy interacting with tourists — who spend more than an estimated $30 million a year wolf-watching around Yellowstone — and also documenting what they see. They draw maps and record when the wolves are traveling, hunting, sleeping and more. Sunder Raj says all of the flights, the cluster crews and the documenting they're doing on the ground "has basically allowed us to learn basically more in the last 27 years about wolves than almost all of the other studies leading up to that."
The baseline data they gather can help answer questions about how to protect livestock from wolves and game animals that both draw tourists and provide food for local hunters.
"That's the flashpoint for wolves almost everywhere," Doug Smith says. "If we know kind of the base rates of what wolves do to elk, bison and deer, managers outside of national parks can use that to help make decisions about what they're doing."
Smith says the very thing that makes Yellowstone wolves unique makes them particularly vulnerable to hunting. Used to seeing humans lining the roads of the park, they don't exactly hide from people. He says one wolf this year was shot just 40 meters, or 130 feet, from the park line.
Smith said wolf hunting seasons like this one can't become annual events; hunting can help build tolerance for wolves. But he said they also need places like Yellowstone.
"So wolves can be wolves and nature can be nature."
Copyright 2022 Montana Public Radio. To see more, visit Montana Public Radio. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/a-record-number-of-yellowstone-wolves-have-been-killed-conservationists-are-worried | 2022-05-12T14:37:14Z |
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Satellite images show Russian troops are massing in eastern Ukraine. It appears a big offensive is on the horizon, and this new stage of the war could differ in many ways from the past seven weeks of Russian assaults on Ukraine. We've got NPR national security correspond Greg Myre with us. Greg, assuming Russia launches this big offensive in the eastern part of Ukraine, how will it be different from what we've seen so far?
GREG MYRE, BYLINE: Well, Russian leader Vladimir Putin has made it clear in some remarks yesterday that he is going to press on with the war. But it's really important to note that he has scaled back his military aims, at least for now. When Russia invaded back on February 24, they entered Ukraine from three separate directions - north, east and south - and there was this clear goal of a sweeping victory throughout Ukraine. But Putin had to cut his losses in the north, and he withdrew all the Russian troops around the capital, Kyiv. We still see lots of heavy fighting in the south. But that really leaves the east. And Putin stressed in these remarks yesterday that the east would be the focus of the Russian campaign, and we should note, it's the place where conditions are most favorable for the Russians.
MARTINEZ: Why? Why would the Russians do better there than elsewhere?
MYRE: Well, let's start with the terrain. In northern Ukraine, it was well-suited for small Ukrainian units ambushing columns of Russian tanks. The rural areas there have lots of woods, good cover for hit-and-run attacks. The urban areas also lend themselves to these guerrilla-style attacks. So these were good places for the outgunned Ukrainians to fight. It's very different in the east. That has a lot of farmland, lots of big wheat fields and corn fields and wide-open spaces. So the Ukrainians, with fewer weapons - or smaller weapons, will find it hard to sneak up on the Russians. The battlefields will be more suited to Russia's hulking armored vehicles and big artillery guns.
MARTINEZ: So speaking of weapons, then, are Ukrainians making any headway in getting arms to match the Russians?
MYRE: Well, the Ukrainians are getting a lot of weapons, though, to this point, they've been mostly smaller ones - like rifles, machine guns, shoulder-fired missiles. But Ukraine has been very persistent in its pleas for larger weapons, and this really has changed the conversation with the U.S. and NATO. We're really seeing signs that the Biden administration may be getting close to a new weapons package and that it could include some of these larger systems - armored vehicles, that sort of thing. Now, the Ukrainians would need them in a hurry if they plan to match the Russians when it comes to sort of head-on battles.
MARTINEZ: What if - what about something that's not necessarily measurable, like morale? It seems like that would favor Ukraine, right?
MYRE: Yeah, that's true. I mean, Ukraine has clearly had the momentum for most of the past seven weeks with higher morale. It has international support. It's winning the information war. The Ukrainians have seen their cities and towns destroyed in many places. They know they're fighting for the survival of the country. Their goals are quite clear - quite stark, in fact. You know, in contrast, the Russians have been forced to retreat and regroup. Their goals are still fuzzy in many ways. Does Putin want just eastern Ukraine? Does he still dream of taking the capital and installing a new government? So I think many Russian troops, if you were in position to ask them, would be pretty hard-pressed to explain exactly what they're fighting for.
MARTINEZ: NPR's Greg Myre. Greg, thanks.
MYRE: My pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/after-major-setbacks-in-the-war-with-ukraine-russian-forces-regroup | 2022-05-12T14:37:20Z |
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California's reparations task force is resuming its work on what the state owes Black Californians. From member station KQED, Sara Hossaini reports from the place where the task force meets today.
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) For he promised me...
SARA HOSSAINI, BYLINE: The crowd is sparse here at the historic Third Baptist Church on Palm Sunday. Preaching, as he has for 46 years, is Dr. Amos Brown.
AMOS BROWN: Live not in despair but in hope. This word that has been delivered this morning...
HOSSAINI: Brown studied under Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and is an NAACP board member. His latest role is vice chair of California's reparations task force, which was established through legislation back in 2020.
BROWN: It's a given; when you take away opportunity from people, you create chaos. You create carnage. You create conflict.
HOSSAINI: Brown's congregation is located in San Francisco's Fillmore District, once known as the Harlem of the West. At its peak, around 4,000 African Americans worshipped here. Many of them had come to find work at the shipyards during World War II. Black people moved here in large numbers after Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps. Black residents had begun to build a thriving community until the city embarked on decades of what it called redevelopment that demolished Black neighborhoods because white government leaders called them slums.
BROWN: After they had become successful, here comes the body politic saying you've gone too far; you've gone far enough.
HOSSAINI: Brown says it's this history that's at the heart of the reparations task force's work. For 10 months, the statewide group has heard testimony on slavery's legacy and how it's rippled into almost every aspect of life ever since, from lack of access to housing and bank loans to environmentally unsafe neighborhoods and biased policing to inadequate health care. This week's meeting will consider educational disparities.
CAROL O’GILVIE: I taught here in San Francisco and Berkeley, and discrimination was prominent.
HOSSAINI: Carol O’Gilvie was a teacher at the time of desegregation busing efforts. She says the inequity continued anyway.
O’GILVIE: You could walk down the hallway of a classroom, and you could tell what students were - the low-performing students, oh, they were all Black.
HOSSAINI: O’Gilvie says reparations could be one way of addressing a history of educational disparity. The task force will outline these and other harms in a detailed report set to be published in June. One issue it's already decided - who should get reparations. Some proponents say all Black people should be eligible. But Marcus Champion, with the Coalition for a Just and Equitable California, disagrees. He helped the task force hone in on descendants of slaves and free Blacks who lived in the U.S. before the 1900s.
MARCUS CHAMPION: This is, in essence, a class-action harm that's being examined.
HOSSAINI: Champion says one way to atone is through individual cash payments; another way could include free college tuition as a way to make up for stolen or lost opportunities. He says reparations could create a strong Black middle class and close the extreme racial wealth gap.
CHAMPION: The first step to changing the entire nation and making America all of what the Constitution says is supposed to be - No. 1, you give recompense to people that you have structurally held back for generations.
HOSSAINI: The California task force is slated to end its work next year, when it'll deliver a final reparations blueprint to state lawmakers. From there, the legislature will decide how and whether to implement the task force's recommendations. For NPR News, I'm Sara Hossaini in San Francisco. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/californias-reparations-task-force-will-meet-in-person-for-the-first-time-in-a-year | 2022-05-12T14:37:26Z |
Updated 3:00 p.m. EDT
The Biden administration is extending its face mask requirement for public transit for another 15 days. That means travelers will still need to mask up in airports, planes, buses, trains and at transit hubs until May 3.
The mask travel requirement had been set to expire this coming Monday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is keeping in place its mask order "in order to assess the potential impact the rise of cases has on severe disease, including hospitalizations and deaths, and health care system capacity," according to an agency spokesperson.
The spokesperson also confirmed that the Transportation Security Administration, which handles enforcement of the order, is extending its security directive and emergency amendment for another 15 days.
The decision was made in response to the increasing spread of the omicron subvariant in the U.S. and an increase in the 7-day moving average of cases, which have risen by around 25% over the last two weeks nationally. Certain states are seeing much larger increases in new cases.
The CDC is following the science with this latest decision, says James Hodge, who directs the Center for Public Health Law and Policy at Arizona State University.
"I believe that a two-week period is just enough to say we're watching very carefully," he says. "If we pull this mask mandate, we will have extended numbers of infections — that's not responsible and that's counter to the public's health."
However, there has been growing pressure on the Biden administration to lift the mask rule.
In a letter to Biden last month, the industry group Airlines for America argued that it was no longer necessary to keep the order in place. Florida's Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has also recently announced he's leading a multi-state lawsuit against the requirement to wear masks on public transit.
While there are many supporters of the mask requirement, some infectious disease experts say it's time for the U.S. to lift the mandate because cases are much lower than they have been in a long time.
In fact, the CDC's own metrics show that about 95% of the country is currently designated as having "low" community levels of COVID-19, says Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease specialist at UCSF.
"It's really not consistent to have a mask mandate on a plane or a bus versus the whole community," says Gandhi.
She notes that activities like indoor dining tend to be more risky than flying on planes, which have very good ventilation. "So I think the inconsistency can be perceived as problematic."
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/cdc-extends-transportation-mask-mandate-until-may-3 | 2022-05-12T14:37:32Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
Angry, depressed or flat-out bored by successive COVID lockdowns, Chinese writers are adapting classic works of Western literature to amuse themselves. NPR's Beijing correspondent Emily Feng brings us the story of these writers who are finding truth in fiction.
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: Earlier this year, Niki Wang's residential compound in Shanghai was locked down as part of a contact tracing effort. That also meant all residents had to get daily PCR tests.
NIKI WANG: (Through interpreter) I remember that day started pouring rain, which slowed to a drizzle as we were lining up for our tests. Everyone had their umbrellas up and their raincoats on, and I thought, this scene deserves to be recorded.
FENG: Suddenly, a parallel scene sprang into her mind from Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Spanish-language novel "One Hundred Years Of Solitude." In the scene, one of the characters calls up Colonel Buendia, the protagonist, and exclaims sadly, Aureliano, it's raining in Macondo.
WANG: (Through interpreter) He's describing such a mundane occurrence, but as readers, we can feel the oppressive loneliness of it. And if we can take a step back and see through the mist to observe this seemingly routine moment in history, we can see its greater symbolism.
FENG: Sort of like the routine of lining up to get a COVID test, Wang thought. Just imagine how we'll have to try to explain endless PCRs to posterity. So she gave Marquez's passage her own twist, adapting it to Shanghai's modern reality. Here's what she came up with.
WANG: (Through interpreter) At the end, Colonel Gerineldo Marquez looked at a line for PCR tests, the people's faces blurred under their masks, and he found himself lost in solitude. Aureliano, he typed sadly, the compound is doing PCR tests.
FENG: Wang is part of an online writing community that has been posting snippets of their adaptations of Western literature classics to amuse themselves, to vent or to write veiled criticisms of China's zero-tolerance COVID policies. Many of them are writing as the entire city of Shanghai is locked down and struggling with its biggest surge in COVID cases ever. There, authorities said they're sticking to their zero-COVID policies, meaning there is no end in sight. So these writers are trying to use this spate of lockdowns for creative inspiration.
CHEN YIHAI: (Through interpreter) Our experiences of suffering reflect the essence of our existence, and it's in moments of misery that we can appreciate life's abundance.
FENG: That's Chen Yihai, a master's student in Beijing. His hometown in Shenzhen has also had its share of lockdowns, including one in March. Some of his friends wanted to come visit him in Beijing, but their digital health codes suddenly and mysteriously went from a healthy green to a dangerous red, meaning they were not allowed to board flights to Beijing.
CHEN: (Through interpreter) In that moment, it occurred to me that a red health code to them was like an oddity, an amusing surprise, like the experience of falling in love.
FENG: Chen was amused by this unexpected juxtaposition, and he got to writing - his version of "The Heart Of A Broken Story" by American writer J.D. Salinger, about a young man who falls in love with a woman on the bus but doesn't have the courage to approach her. Here's Chen reading his adaptation.
CHEN: (Through interpreter) There are some people who think love is sex and marriage and 6 o'clock kisses and children. And perhaps it is, Miss Lester. But do you know what I think? I think love is a surprising red health code that pops up again and again.
FENG: Some of these writers delight in the lockdowns, such as Thrasybulus Zhu. During the day, she works for the Shanghai government, and she's normally so exhausted she has no energy to write.
THRASYBULUS ZHU: (Through interpreter) It's as Virginia Woolf wrote - for a woman to write, she needs money and a room of one's own. And when I first went into quarantine, I was thrilled because I finally had a room of my own, so to speak, and having a day off to myself is so rare.
FENG: She began writing under lockdown, adapting - what else? - "The Death Of A Government Clerk" by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov - Pardon, Your Excellency, I spattered you accidentally, the clerk in the story famously says. Zhu takes it from here.
ZHU: (Through interpreter) Be off, yelled the general, turning suddenly purple and shaking all over. Be off, you who don't wear a mask.
FENG: For others, adapting their own pandemic literature is a way to blow off steam in a safe way. Jon Zhang, a Beijing-based software engineer, is a writer who falls into this school. He started reading, in his spare time while working from home, "The Baron In The Trees" by Italo Calvino, a philosophical fable extolling liberty.
JON ZHANG: (Through interpreter) And I started thinking that Cosimo the baron is a character who's rebelling against social restrictions and looking for freedom, something particularly meaningful to contemplate in China's current reality. If a character like the baron were to live in China now, what would he do?
FENG: In Calvino's telling, Cosimo manages to create a free life for himself for decades in the treetops of the Italian countryside. He succeeds in breaking free of his aristocratic family. Zhang's story ends a bit differently.
ZHANG: (Through interpreter) People told the baron in the tree to come down and do a PCR test. Cosimo refused. He jumped from the cherry tree to the olive tree, then to the chestnut tree and disappeared into the forest far away. So the community officials organized 10,000 volunteers to conduct a search of the forest, and finally, they dragged Cosimo to the test site.
FENG: Zhang says writing pandemic fiction is an act of protest against the dozens of PCR tests the local government's required him to do and the repetitive lockdowns he's endured. Fiction, he believes, is the best way to illustrate the absurdity of life in the age of COVID.
ZHANG: (Through interpreter) What I want to satirize are these ossified, bureaucratic COVID-containment policies.
FENG: And he imagines himself during long stretches of boredom by imagining what the writers of yesteryear who he imitates would think if they lived a day in his shoes in China.
ZHANG: (Through interpreter) I think they would find my reality preposterous and the way we do things abnormal.
FENG: However, Jon normally keeps these thoughts to himself. That's why he writes in private - because in fiction, anything is fair game.
Emily Feng, NPR News, Beijing.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MARTINEZ: All right. Today, we say goodbye to NPR audio engineer Patrick Boyd. For most of the past two years, Patrick has been the technical director at MORNING EDITION, making sure that we all sound our best while broadcasting from the studio.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Or our basement or a spare bedroom. Patrick is also a kind soul who, even at 3 a.m., brings good humor to our team. We will miss you, Patrick. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/chinese-writers-borrow-from-western-classics-to-illustrate-life-in-the-age-of-covid | 2022-05-12T14:37:38Z |
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Good morning. I'm A Martinez. With eight Olympic gold medals on his shelf, Usain Bolt is the fastest sprinter on the planet and one of the most accomplished athletes of all time. His secret? Hard work, dedication and video games. Bolt tells the BBC he loved games so much as a kid that he'd sometimes even skip training just to head to a store to play video games. He says gaming helped develop his competitive spirit. And I'll bet he beat everyone to the store to play. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/decorated-sprinter-usain-bolt-shares-his-secret-to-success-video-games | 2022-05-12T14:37:44Z |
Falling in love at 72 — over email — sounds like the plotline of a romantic comedy. But that's exactly what happened to writer Delia Ephron. Along with her late sister Nora Ephron, Delia co-wrote the '90s classic You've Got Mail. Against all odds, Delia found herself in a familiar cinematic situation.
Delia met Peter Rutter, a psychiatrist and Jungian psychotherapist, through an op-ed she wrote about the recent death of her husband, screenwriter Jerry Kass. She and Kass had been married over 30 years. "I wrote a funny piece about it for the New York Times about losing my mind over my husband's death and Verizon. So six months later, I got an email from Peter through my website," she says.
Peter read the op-ed, felt there were many confluences between Delia's story and his own, and got in touch. That's how the relationship started. "I wrote him back. I hoped it was charming. And we started to write, and almost within minutes we fell in love. It was like he was like we were waiting to meet each other."
Delia was still grieving the recent death of her husband and her sister Nora, who died in 2012. Nora had a particularly virulent kind of leukemia that runs in families. Just a few months after Delia and Peter fell in love, Delia was diagnosed with the same cancer.
"Four months after I fell in love, I got leukemia. He proposed that weekend,
she says. "On Monday, we went and got a license and we bought a ring, and on Tuesday, I checked into the hospital for my first chemo." Their ceremony was performed at the hospital, as they stared down an uncertain future.
The treatment and bone marrow transplant nearly killed her — but not only did she survive, the cancer is very unlikely to come back. Her marriage to Peter survived the ordeal too. "We were all in," she says.
Delia Ephron's new memoir is called Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life.
Interview highlights
On falling in love at age 72
I think because I had so much loss and pain, the experience of being in love, it like the sun was shining on me. I think that romantic feeling, that passion that you get, which was exactly the same as when I was in my 20s, when I couldn't tell a good guy from a bad guy.
But when I had gotten smart in my 30s and was good about figuring out who was someone to date and everything, it was the time of my life. It took all the pain that I had been feeling, all that loss and it just erased it for a while. It was incredible.
But the thing is, if you fall in love in your 70s, death is right there in front of you. You can reach out and touch it. So there is a kind of defiance if you fall in love. It's a defiance of that, as well as a sense of madness. Am I really doing this? I mean, this could be all over tomorrow from just the fact that we're old. It's a different thing. ... In many ways it's easier to fall in love in your 70s because you know who you are. You're not trying to have a career, trying to have children or trying to find all these other things you want besides a mate, maybe this particular kind of house or that particular earning money – all these things that you're trying to juggle.
On initially feeling uneasy about entering a new relationship after Jerry's death
Jerry's all over the house. His pictures, things that he wrote are framed on the walls, something he bought when he was in Morocco is on the shelf. He's everywhere around me. And also we grew up together. We spent our adult lives together, so he's in my heart all the time.
And so you have to make room. You have to allow yourself to feel the passion of it, the joy of it, to let another person in, and in the very beginning, I got really frightened. Right after [Peter and I] met and I was so attracted to him, I called up my friend Jessie the next morning and I said, "I can't do this. I cannot start another relationship." I said to her, "He's going to die and then I'm going to be alone again." But it wasn't just that – it was the guilt that I would have something again and [Jerry] couldn't.
On being open for love, despite her fear and grief
One of the odd things about writing this book was that it was kind of a treasure hunt in a way. I look back at everything we wrote because it was our love story; I included those letters and I re-experienced the connection we made and the things that we expressed to each other. ... The truth is, falling in love isn't something you have that much control over. If you fall in love, it's because you're open to it. I was open to it. Peter was open to it. There we were, and we do feel so lucky.
On comparing herself to Nora in life and death
When I was in the hospital [with Nora], it was like staring my own death in the face. I was thinking, this could be you. It was always there during all that time of her illness, and I was a match for her. If she'd wanted to have a bone marrow transplant as I did, she could use me as a match. ...
But one of the things about being sisters is that she was the first born. I was second. I have two younger sisters, Hallie and Amy. There are four of us. We're all writers. That was the family business and we all went into it and we were all published writers. But Nora came first ... She was going around the track so fast no one could keep up with her. And I was, of course, trying to do everything she did. But I couldn't keep up. ... Writing is your fingerprint. Nobody else can do that [and see] exactly what you see in the world. And that was when I really began to understand who I was separate from her. But when I got the same disease, there was no way in my head that I could think I wasn't going to die too. And my doctors, they just got it, they understood it. They said to me, "You are not your sister." And what they meant was, under a microscope, my leukemia was different from her leukemia, that's what they meant. That was actually the truth, and I tried to just keep in my head, "You were not your sister, you're not your sister." But it felt like betrayal.
On why Nora kept her illness a secret and why Delia kept her illness and marriage a secret, too, for a little while
I could not possibly explain how I got married in four months without revealing that I was sick. They sort of went together because otherwise it didn't really make sense. So I kept that a secret. Secrets don't suit me, but I was not famous like Nora. I mean, if you're famous and you tell people that you're sick, you can't leave the house without somebody coming up to you on a street corner and saying something to you about it. Nora ... she always needed to be strong, but she couldn't live the life she wanted if she let it out, if she told people. ... They couldn't insure her. There were a million reasons why Nora would keep it a secret. And then also temperament — and I just don't have that temperament. If I went to dinner with a close girlfriend, I needed to be able to talk about it, what I was going through.
On how cancer has changed her
I can't believe I'm here, on some level. I think I try to be nicer to everyone. When I was that person on the street with a walker and in a wheelchair, I realized that I had never had the kind of compassion and understanding that I have now for people who many of us who will be there.
I think that being in love at this age is very comforting and very magical, and yet I have friends who absolutely do not want it. It's not something they're interested in, but for me, it's like it's sustenance that we can have the fun we have together. We have a lot of fun. ... My life has expanded because Peter's in it. He's interested in the stars, so we went to the total eclipse. I've had adventures and that's been marvelous.
Sam Briger and Thea Chaloner produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Natalie Escobar and Molly Seavy-Nesper adapted it for web.
Copyright 2022 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/delia-ephron-on-surviving-cancer-and-the-defiance-of-falling-in-love-in-your-70s | 2022-05-12T14:37:50Z |
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Knowing where to invest your money these days can be hard. There's bitcoin, NFTs, meme stocks, and if you're looking for a way to put your money where your morals are, there's ethical investing. But how do you make sure your money is having the impact you really want? From NPR's Life Kit, Lauren Migaki breaks down how ethical investing works and whether it might be right for you.
LAUREN MIGAKI, BYLINE: Financial planner and consultant Manisha Thakor says ethical investing is a lot like love.
MANISHA THAKOR: Everybody has sort of their own definition and take on it. And everyone feels they've landed on it at different points.
MIGAKI: Some folks may be looking for a focus on the environment, animal welfare or gender equality. Whatever your cause may be, the idea that the money you invest can generate meaningful change and a profit is mostly referred to as ESG investing.
THAKOR: ESG stands for environmental, social and governance.
MIGAKI: And like love, there are no ESG soulmates here. But there are two main strategies for finding a good match. Option one - choose a mutual fund or exchange traded fund that goes super-specific on one issue.
THAKOR: Like the ETF SHE, S-H-E, where you are just focusing on issues around gender parity in the workplace.
MIGAKI: Or choose a fund that goes really broad, one where, generally speaking, the companies in the fund are doing some form of good. But you may not agree with all the choices the fund makes. It could include a fossil fuel company that's doing really well on diversity goals or a company whose ethics are in a gray area.
THAKOR: You know, is nuclear clean energy? Or is nuclear or not clean energy?
MIGAKI: And regardless of what you decide, Thakor says it's crucial to protect your investments by seeking out the right kinds of ESG funds.
THAKOR: The biggest red flags are fees.
MIGAKI: She says stick with fees of about half a percent. Otherwise, those fees add up over the course of decades, especially when we're talking about a retirement plan.
THAKOR: That's going to be the best place to start off because it's been vetted by your company while they're wearing a fiduciary hat.
MIGAKI: If your company doesn't currently offer this, Thakor says send an email to your human resources department. Express an interest in socially responsible investment options for your 401(k). Thakor expects that there will be many more ESG options in the near future, and she says the industry has changed a lot. When she first started 25 years ago, ethical investing was mostly about excluding just a few specific companies.
THAKOR: Groups would start saying, I want no sin stocks - no alcohol, no tobacco.
MIGAKI: To be clear, ethical investing isn't a cure-all. It cannot erase the very real harms done to the planet and society.
THAKOR: There are some people who say the whole idea of ethical investing is a farce. It's just something we've done to make ourselves feel better after we've ruined the planet.
MIGAKI: But Thakor feels less cynical. She says it's a win that the word ethical is even tied to business nowadays.
THAKOR: Over time, I believe that ESG will likely not even be a phrase in and of itself. It's just part of doing business. Of course you pay attention to these factors.
MIGAKI: And she says while we may not see immediate change, she's heartened to see that folks are at least trying to push that boulder up the hill. Lauren Migaki, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/encore-life-kit-on-putting-your-money-where-your-morals-are-with-ethical-investing | 2022-05-12T14:37:57Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
For the past decade, a folk duo from Maine has been on a mission to find the long-lost melodies of traditional songs that date back as far as the 17th century. Keith Shortall of Maine Public Radio spoke with the couple at their home in Maine's Midcoast, where they performed their own versions of some of the scratchy, archived recordings they've uncovered in their research.
KEITH SHORTALL, BYLINE: Julia Lane says since the age of 10, she's been on a quest to find the melodies to go with the well-published, written lyrics about love, longing and the lure of the sea.
JULIA LANE: Very frustrating, you know, finding a great set of lyrics but no tunes. So throughout my life, I've been looking for books that would include the melodies.
SHORTALL: Lane grew up and formed the folk group Castlebay with her husband, Fred Gosbee. About 20 years ago, they started poring over archives of audio field recordings made by curious folk music collectors in the 1930s and '40s. That's where she found this 1941 recording of Oliver Jenness (ph) of York Village, Maine, singing a tune called "The Dreadnaught."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE DREADNAUGHT")
OLIVER JENNESS: (Singing) - (inaudible) - and all my friends here bound away in the Dreadnaught to the eastward we steer. Bound away...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BOUND AWAY")
CASTLEBAY: (Singing) Bound away, where the stormy...
SHORTALL: Lane and Gosbee used the recording to arrange their own version of the song.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BOUND AWAY")
CASTLEBAY: (Singing) Bound away, bound away, where the stormy wind blows. Bound away in the Dreadnaught to the eastward we go.
SHORTALL: "The Dreadnaught" - or "Bound Away," as it's also called - is one of 163 melodies that the couple has just published in "Bygone Ballads Of Maine." Lane says it's the book for which she had always searched but never found.
LANE: The one that has all the tunes, that has all the background for all the geeks that are interested in where the song came from, what it's really about, what are the code words in there, what do they mean - all of these things I've always wondered about.
FRED GOSBEE: One of the code words that appears frequently is referring to the tarry sailor.
LANE: Oh, yeah.
GOSBEE: If he's a tarry sailor, chances are he's British because the British sailors wore their hair long in a queue or braid and kept it neat with tar 'cause the ships - they used a lot of pine tar to preserve the wood. And they would just put it in their hair to keep it out of their eyes and to keep down the lice.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE TARRY SAILOR")
CHARLES FINNEMORE: (Singing) And judge - (inaudible) - be, and he said, my lovely Nancy.
SHORTALL: This 1942 recording of "The Tarry Sailor" is sung by Charles Finnemore (ph) of Bridgewater, Maine.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE TARRY SAILOR")
FINNEMORE: (Singing) Into her apron fold, take this from a tarry sailor.
GOSBEE: Listening to the original recordings, you can hear how excited and passionate some of these singers were about the songs they were singing for the collectors. And of course, in their minds, these were going to go down through the years, and people were going to share them and remember them. And most of it has been untouched for 75, 80 years - my guess is 90 years now, some of it. So unearthing that stuff and bringing those songs forward in a way brings those singers alive again. We've gotten really fond of some of these singers.
SHORTALL: And Lane says the couple's already working on a second volume of bygone ballads - songs about love, tragedy, murder and drinking on the farm and in the forest.
For NPR News, I'm Keith Shortall in Thomaston, Maine.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE TARRY SAILOR")
CASTLEBAY: (Singing) The judge spoke up just as bold as could be, and he said, my lovely Nancy. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/encore-maine-couple-revives-sea-shanties-thought-lost-to-time | 2022-05-12T14:38:03Z |
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
No profession is immune from burnout. At some point, we all need a break or a sabbatical - you know, some time to recharge our batteries and think about a different way to approach life. Well, faith leaders are not exempt from this. And today we're revisiting a conversation we first aired back in December 2020 with Reverend Howard John Wesley. He's a senior pastor of the historic Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Va. A year earlier, Reverend Wesley had announced to his congregation that he was taking a leave of absence.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HOWARD-JOHN WESLEY: I'm not leaving you. This ain't nothing but intermission, baby.
(LAUGHTER)
WESLEY: I'm tired. And I need you to know, secondly, I feel very distant from God.
CHANG: Reverend Wesley's sabbatical happen to coincide with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. And when I spoke with him in December 2020, a year after he had announced his leave, he reflected on his 30 years of preaching and how he had started to feel distant from God and the congregation he served. And I asked him when and how he started to feel that distance.
WESLEY: Well, I think it began probably a year before announcing the sabbatical. There are a few signature moments that let me know something was a little bit off. One was starting to lose that joy and that energy for something that I loved. And it became more of a task than a joy. And in the sermonic field, as a pastor, there's a lot of creativity required of you. And I was losing that creative edge. I reached the point where, sadly, Ailsa, I was picking up old sermons and trying to find a way to give them new titles and...
CHANG: Yeah.
WESLEY: ...Shift the movements around and cross my fingers and pray that no one would hear something they already heard; that sermon writing would start on Tuesday and by Saturday, I still had nothing on the page. And I began to wonder, why is this becoming so hard when it was so natural? And why am I not enjoying it anymore? And that just began a journey of self-reflection of kind of realizing I don't feel as close to the God I talk about as I want to be.
CHANG: Yeah. Well, how did your congregation react when you first said, hey, I need some time off?
WESLEY: You know, I think they were more willing than I was. I was fearful. I was the scared one, thinking to myself one of two things would happen. If I'm gone, what happens if the church doesn't survive without me? What happens if membership goes down? And let's be honest, what happens if people stop giving and then the budget's affected and then we've got to start laying off?
CHANG: Yeah.
WESLEY: And then there was another fear. What happens if they're all right without me? What if they find out, yeah, you know, we really don't need this guy?
CHANG: (Laughter).
WESLEY: So, you know, I was afraid to share. But strangely, the message resonated with so many members who wished they were in a position to take that kind of time off and rest as well.
CHANG: Yeah.
WESLEY: So the congregation was very open and accepting, and I think they saw the long-term benefit of giving breaks and rest as opposed to burning a pastor out. I can't tell you how many pastors leave ministry or even commit suicide or die in the pulpit. It's not a profession that always ends well, and I'm grateful to have a congregation that said, we want your story to end well.
CHANG: Well, how common is it for clergy to take time off, to take sabbaticals like this?
WESLEY: Well, Ailsa, if I can put a little racial spin on it, it is very common practice in our Euro-Caucasian Christian denominations and even within the Catholic traditions to grant that time off. It is absolutely unheard of in predominantly African American traditions...
CHANG: Interesting.
WESLEY: ...Your Baptists, your COGIC, your different varieties of Pentecostal and AME and AME Zion. And I think it traces back to the role the preacher and the pastor played in an African American church and community. If you trace our rooting back into slavery, you'll find that the pastor was really one of the most revered and respected persons and one that the congregation had an absolute dependence on. And as such, even today, African American clergy hold a different level of responsibility and authority within the church. And so there's this fear that if the pastor's not in the pulpit, no one's coming. If the pastor is not in the pulpit, people aren't going to log on and listen.
CHANG: So tell me, what did you do during the couple of months you were on this sabbatical? Just tell me how it went.
WESLEY: Well, you know, there's always a difference between what you planned and what actually went down.
(LAUGHTER)
CHANG: Exactly.
WESLEY: So the plan was to get all this stuff ready for my conference of exams because I'm in my Ph.D. process. The plan was to get back working out regularly. The plan was to get back on a regular rest regimen. And a lot of those boxes were checked. It's amazing. The first month off in January, it took me a month to realize two things - one, how tired I was and, two, how addicted I was to my normal schedule. So January was a month of fighting the desire to come back in the office, the desire to slip in the...
CHANG: Yes.
WESLEY: ...Back of church and have people say, oh, we miss you. We miss you. So breaking that cycle of busyness was the first month. The second month was dedicated to more spiritual devotional time of reestablishing a prayer life and daily devotional and journaling, which I had strayed away from because I was sermon writing. But I wasn't reflecting over my own life and my own faith journey with God. So that was February - and also getting back healthy.
CHANG: Well, I know that your sabbatical was cut short. Not only was there a pandemic that has especially hit Black communities hard, but the country's racial reckoning took on a new intensity this past year. Do you feel that your sabbatical actually helped prepare you in some way for this really difficult, intense time?
WESLEY: Without a shadow of a doubt. As a person of faith, I believe in providence. I believe in God's preparing us for things that are coming down the road. And even though I didn't get the full sabbatical, those months off definitely not only refueled my body but gave me that deep connection back with the Lord because we were entering a season where - you know what, Ailsa? Old sermons weren't going to work anymore, so I needed to be fresh so that the membership through me could really sense that, OK, here's what God is saying to us.
CHANG: Did the words start flowing out of you? Did you fill the pages faster?
WESLEY: Yeah, definitely. And I wouldn't say new material because that kind of seems a little trite but fresh revelation. I felt like, OK, God is really speaking through me and to our people. And it felt good again.
CHANG: Yeah. That's so beautiful. So, Reverend, what advice do you have for people in terms of what to do with all the mental and emotional stress that may have built up over this last year? What do you do with that?
WESLEY: I think it's important to acknowledge that none of us are immune from it. And it's important to acknowledge when you're not well or when you're heavy and being able to find healthy ways of refueling with healthy friendships and relationships, seeking out mental health care professionals. I am proud to be in counseling every other week - the things that feed you and fill you once you acknowledge, OK, this has taken a toll on me, and I need to refuel the tank here.
CHANG: That was Reverend Howard-John Wesley, senior pastor of Alfred Street Baptist Church, in Alexandria, Va., from our conversation in late December 2020. And if you or someone you know is in crisis, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/encore-the-rev-howard-john-wesley-on-taking-a-break-from-the-pulpit-after-30-years | 2022-05-12T14:38:09Z |
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Renewable energy is a key tool for fighting climate change. But building the infrastructure to produce, say, wind or solar power can sometimes run into legal roadblocks, like laws aimed at protecting the environment. Darian Woods and Adrian Ma from our daily economics podcast The Indicator explain.
DARIAN WOODS, BYLINE: So, Adrian, meet the Indiana bat.
ADRIAN MA, BYLINE: That's a bat?
WOODS: It is this cute little bat found in the Midwest. It's brown. It's found in caves.
MA: I didn't know that bats could tweet. That's adorable.
WOODS: (Laughter) And look - it's an endangered species. It's in decline. And the reason I bring it up is because, in 2006, there was this proposed wind farm in Ohio - 70 wind turbines - this big project. Local neighbors didn't like the idea of these towering turbines being so close to their land, and they sued the wind turbine company for all kinds of things, but one particular complaint stuck. They said that the turbines might hurt the bats. About five of these bats might die every year after colliding with the turbines. And after years of legal fighting in courtrooms all around the country, the wind farm company eventually gave up. The project was abandoned in 2019. And that is great for the Indiana bat, but not so good for wildlife in other parts of the world threatened by climate change, not to mention the hits to the economy from more floods and droughts.
JB RUHL: There is a long list of challenges to wind and solar power facilities.
WOODS: J.B. Ruhl is a law professor at Vanderbilt University. J.B. says we've created all kinds of laws and regulations that allow people to challenge big projects like train stations, solar farms and wind farms, and that includes environmental laws.
MA: And that's great for getting local input and helping preserve communities, local landscapes, endangered species. But given the urgency of climate change, J.B. says this is a problem, and there had to be a better way.
WOODS: So he paired up with another law professor, James Salzman, and they did what law professors do best - write.
RUHL: So we're putting this issue in play, and we think it needs to be seriously discussed.
WOODS: One idea that has allowed a lot of renewable energy projects to get built is in Texas. The state built a one-stop shop for renewable energy permitting. And the key difference with this new direction here is that Texas overrode local laws that might block the projects, including environmental laws.
RUHL: It was an amazingly efficient process for getting that infrastructure on the ground - not without controversy.
MA: J.B. says the federal government could take a similar approach. After all, he says, it does have the power to kind of make exceptions for particular projects so they don't have to comply with every single regulation.
RUHL: Do we need some broader and more fundamental overhaul or reform of the system?
WOODS: But if you talk to environmental groups like the Nature Conservancy, they're not advocating for a large-scale rewrite of laws. For one thing, that could be used as a political opportunity to strip away environmental protections completely. Instead, they want changes like a faster pathway for green projects or improving initial site selection to avoid sensitive areas in the first place - also, more federal funds to speed up decision making.
MA: So as this sort of nip and tuck, tweak it here, tweak it there version of environmental reform is going on, J.B. Ruhl, the law professor - he is seeing ice shelves break off in Antarctica, right? He's seeing historic heat waves and carbon emissions grow and grow. And he is worried that this is all going to be too little, too late.
WOODS: Given the scale of the challenge ahead, do you feel optimistic?
RUHL: I'm growing more pessimistic over time. I don't - I think we're continuing to fall behind.
WOODS: Earlier this month, the U.N. issued another report that backed up J.B.'s view, but it did say there's still time to change course.
MA: Adrian Ma.
WOODS: Darian Woods, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/environmental-laws-can-be-an-obstacle-in-building-green-energy-infrastructure | 2022-05-12T14:38:15Z |
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues to transform the political landscape of Europe. It has largely unified the European Union. And in Finland, public support for joining NATO has skyrocketed, which means the country is now considering a bid to join the military alliance for protection from Russia. Today, the country's prime minister, Sanna Marin, said the government will make a decision soon.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRIME MINISTER SANNA MARIN: I won't give any kind of timetable when we will make our decisions, but I think it will happen quite fast within weeks, not within months.
CHANG: Russia's foreign ministry warned of, quote, "military and political consequences" if Finland joins NATO. NPR's Frank Langfitt is following the story from London.
FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: The Finnish government released a report today on the war's impact on the country's security. The report took no position on joining NATO, but officials said the invasion has increased threats to Finland, which shares an 830-mile border with Russia. Antti Kaikkonen, Finland's minister of defense, spoke at a news conference.
(SOUNDBITE OF NEWS CONFERENCE)
ANTTI KAIKKONEN: The security situation in Europe and in Finland is more serious and more difficult to predict than it has been for decades. Finland is not facing an immediate military threat, but we must look to the future as well. Finland must be prepared for the use or the threat of use of military force against it.
LANGFITT: Pekka Haavisto, Finland's minister of foreign affairs, said Russia's invasion of Ukraine has shown Moscow's alarming willingness to take big risks.
PEKKA HAAVISTO: Russia is capable of concentrating more than 100,000 soldiers in one spot against one country, even without the mobilization of the reserves and so forth. This is a scary scenario, of course.
LANGFITT: For Kaikkonen, the defense minister, the lessons for Finland are clear.
(SOUNDBITE OF NEWS CONFERENCE)
KAIKKONEN: It is important to be ready and able to repel large-scale offensive operations on several simultaneous fronts.
LANGFITT: The quickest way to ensure that is to join NATO. The military alliance is led by the U.S. and provides mutual protection for all 30 allies against attack. During the Cold War, Finland remained neutral to avoid Russia's wrath, and public support for joining NATO has always been low until now. Henri Vanhanen is a foreign policy adviser for Finland's National Coalition Party, which supports joining NATO.
HENRI VANHANEN: We have seen spikes go up to about 20% in favor of NATO. After the attack, I think already the first poll on NATO came out, and already by then, we saw a jump up to 50% in favor.
LANGFITT: Have you ever seen any change in public opinion on a foreign policy issue in Finland like this before?
VANHANEN: No, absolutely not. This is very exceptional.
LANGFITT: Two days ago, a poll showed support at a staggering 68%.
What is your sense of the likelihood that Finland will apply to join NATO?
VANHANEN: Very likely. I would say, at this point, 100% likely.
LANGFITT: There's very strong support in NATO for Finnish membership, but any bid could take months or even a year as all 30 allies must approve it. Finland worries that in the interim, Russia will try to punish it with cyberattacks or a troop buildup on its border. Foreign Minister Haavisto says that's when Finland will need help.
HAAVISTO: There comes this kind of period where it's very important that the NATO countries also understand the risks of that period and do what they can.
LANGFITT: Haavisto says that could include NATO countries showing support by doing joint military exercises with Finland. Neighbor Sweden is also considering joining NATO, although it's not as far along in the process. When Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine, he said it was in part to prevent the country from joining NATO. It now seems increasingly likely that his actions will lead to the alliance's expansion. Frank Langfitt, NPR News, London. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/finland-moves-closer-to-seeking-nato-membership-as-the-war-in-ukraine-unites-europe | 2022-05-12T14:38:21Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
Gilbert Gottfried had a sound about him.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
GILBERT GOTTFRIED: Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you can hear the sound of my voice.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTINEZ: The actor and comedian died yesterday at the age of 67, but his popularity spanned generations.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
He was 15 when he started performing at open mics in his native Brooklyn. A spot on Saturday Night Live lasted 12 weeks. But his stand-up seemed unstoppable.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING_)
GOTTFRIED: You know, I read somewhere that Hitler had a grandson who was a convicted child molester. Imagine being the embarrassment to the Hitler family.
(LAUGHTER)
GOTTFRIED: Is there anything worse than being that Hitler who the other Hitlers don't talk about?
(LAUGHTER)
FADEL: He was frequently vulgar, but he also gave voice to cartoons cherished by children, like Iago, the parrot in Disney's "Aladdin"...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ALADDIN")
GOTTFRIED: (As Iago, spitting and coughing) I can't take it anymore. If I got to choke down on one more of those moldy, disgusting crackers - bam. Whack.
FADEL: ...And the evil dentist in the "Fairly OddParents."
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "FAIRLY ODDPARENTS")
GOTTFRIED: (As Dr. Bender) Both I and my son have perfect teeth.
(As Wendell Bender) My comb has perfect teeth.
(As Dr. Bender) And even our dog is on its way to good oral perfection.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOG GROWLING AND BARKING)
MARTINEZ: Controversial jokes about tragedies such as 9/11 landed Gilbert Gottfried in trouble. He even lost the part of the Aflac duck because of tweets about the Japanese tsunami in 2011. But Gottfried had a knack for finding fun everywhere, like in maple syrup.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
GOTTFRIED: Years ago, Canadians were walking through the forest, and they saw a tree with disgusting, brown goo dripping out of it.
(LAUGHTER)
GOTTFRIED: And they said, there's disgusting, brown goo dripping out of that tree. Let's eat it.
(LAUGHTER)
GOTTFRIED: And let's make other people eat it.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTINEZ: Variety called Gilbert Gottfried the owner of the most recognizable voice in Hollywood. His family asked fans to keep laughing as loud as possible in his honor.
(SOUNDBITE OF JUSTICE DER'S "AGE OF CONSENT") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/gilbert-gottfried-known-for-edgy-jokes-dies-at-age-67 | 2022-05-12T14:38:27Z |
DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST:
To the Texas-Mexico border now, where commercial trucks have been spending hours, some even days, waiting to enter the U.S. That is because Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered new inspections on all trucks crossing into his state from Mexico. He says these inspections are needed to combat drug smuggling and human trafficking. But critics from Mexico to the White House say it's an unnecessary PR stunt and that it's causing very real problems for businesses and consumers on both sides of the border. And protests are making the situation even worse.
Texas Public Radio's Pablo De La Rosa joins us now from McAllen, Texas. Welcome.
PABLO DE LA ROSA, BYLINE: Thank you for having me.
ESTRIN: Pablo, what does it look like right now at the border?
DE LA ROSA: Well, local law enforcement has shut down all traffic lanes at the Reynosa-Pharr International Bridge. That handles most of the commercial traffic that comes into Hidalgo County. We've seen hundreds of semitrailer trucks queued on the Mexican side. And transport companies are actually refilling those trucks with diesel continuously to keep refrigeration on those trucks on and save as much product as possible. On top of that, truckers on the Mexican side have started a blockade in protest of these inspections that have caused delays. And that's made the situation for traffic worse.
Santos Alvarado is a commercial truck driver I spoke with who left one of his trucks in the blockade on the Mexican side. And he says these protests began on Saturday.
SANTOS ALVARADO: (Speaking Spanish).
DE LA ROSA: Alvarado is saying that the drivers who organized this blockade are prepared to continue this until inspections are terminated completely in the United States. And we have seen some change in the inspection policy starting today. Governor Greg Abbott announced in a press conference earlier today that Texas will pull back Texas Department of Public Safety inspections, but only at the international bridge with Nuevo Leon, as that Mexican state has recently increased its security on the Mexican side.
ESTRIN: OK. So the governor has announced he will stop these additional inspections at one border crossing. How is that going to change the situation at the border?
DE LA ROSA: Well, Nuevo Leon shares only 10 miles of border with Texas. It shares one international bridge. So it won't be a complete reversal to, you know, some of the economic impact we've seen from this. Does Mexico intend to reroute commercial traffic from Tamaulipas, maybe from Laredo, which is only 20 miles away and is the busiest truck port in America, carrying auto parts, electronics, produce northbound into the U.S.? Maybe the governor will make the same deals at other bridges in the coming days. We have to watch to see what happens.
ESTRIN: OK. Now, critics say this decision by Governor Abbott to inspect incoming trucks is causing supply chain concerns. Could you tell us more about that?
DE LA ROSA: Right. Trade groups are calling this a supply chain crisis, and they're seeing millions of dollars being lost per day. The White House, the Department of Homeland Security, even Customs and Border Protection - they've all issued press releases saying that this is unnecessary, and it's being caused by the Texas Department of Public Safety at the order of Abbott. Even some Republicans in Texas have criticized Abbott for saying - for doing this, saying it's hurting business. It's hurting consumers. And on the Mexican government side, they've been relatively quiet on the issue. Again, the governor of Nuevo Leon, working with Abbott on this issue, they haven't yet criticize the governor publicly on it.
ESTRIN: OK. Texas Public Radio's Pablo De La Rosa, reporting from McAllen, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, thank you very, very much.
DE LA ROSA: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/gov-abbotts-order-for-truck-inspections-is-all-an-unnecessary-pr-stunt-critics-say | 2022-05-12T14:38:33Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
Like many cities, Portland, Ore., is seeing a devastating increase in gun violence. Last year, Portland counted the highest number of homicides in three decades. Katia Riddle brings us a story about one community's creative strategy to try and make the gunfire stop.
KATIA RIDDLE, BYLINE: For most of the nine years she's lived here, Nadine Salama's working-class neighborhood in East Portland has been peaceful. Salama is sitting on a bench in Mt. Scott Park.
NADINE SALAMA: My baby grew up here.
RIDDLE: She points to the place her daughter took her first steps. This park is the crown jewel of the neighborhood. It stretches for blocks. One-hundred-foot Douglas fir trees tower over a community center and tennis courts. But in the last year, the neighbors say, gun violence stole the park from them.
SALAMA: Right over by Hometown Pizza right there.
RIDDLE: Salama looks out across the street where many shootings happened. The gunshots, she says, became relentless.
SALAMA: Five, six, seven times a month, sometimes five days in a row.
RIDDLE: One night, during a drive-by shooting, the driver lost control of his car. He crashed into a fire hydrant in front of her apartment. Her daughter witnessed the whole thing.
SALAMA: That was a moment where I was like - it felt very surreal to me. And I knew that this can't go on.
RIDDLE: Salama wasn't just worried about her own child. She saw the shooters flee the car.
SALAMA: Couldn't have been more than 16 or 17 years old. And they were so scared.
JOEL SOMMER: I was doing a Zoom call. It was, like, a Monday night at 8 p.m.
RIDDLE: Joel Sommer is a pastor at a church just down the block. He recalls the first time he heard shooting at the park.
SOMMER: And just heard popping through the window.
RIDDLE: Sommer's church is called Access Covenant. Their faith is in a nonviolent Jesus.
SOMMER: Who is this person who insisted on love in the face of violence?
RIDDLE: Many in his congregation are in helping professions, like social work or medicine. It's work that they believe emulates the teachings of Jesus.
SOMMER: Who believed that we change the world by starting from the bottom up and that we could do it all without weapons.
RIDDLE: These neighbors agreed. Police on every street corner was not the answer to gun violence. Instead, they started asking themselves how they could create peace.
JONATHAN JAY: Community members know a lot about what this problem looks like in their neighborhood and can generate great ideas - often the best ideas.
RIDDLE: Jonathan Jay is a professor at Boston University's School of Public Health. Jay studies how factors like traffic patterns and tree cover affect gun violence. He points to a case study in Philadelphia. Residents in one neighborhood lowered gun violence when they turned abandoned lots into green spaces.
JAY: By making people feel safer in the neighborhoods, it helps restore social processes.
RIDDLE: Processes like conversation and looking out for each other - he says making small changes in the built environment can make a big difference. That's what the Mt. Scott community in Portland set out to do.
SALAMA: So the barrels are in a six-block radius around the park.
RIDDLE: Nadine Salama gestures toward orange traffic barrels. The neighborhood worked with the city to install them. They slow traffic, which deters drive-by shootings. Among many other changes, Salama points to increased lighting in the park and reclaiming Mt. Scott for community events.
SALAMA: It worked.
RIDDLE: Shootings have dropped in the neighborhood by more than 60%. The data is still preliminary. And Pastor Joel Sommer says the work isn't over.
SOMMER: I do think that any individual who decides to take a nonviolent approach in a moment can absolutely create peace wherever they are.
RIDDLE: Peace, he says, isn't something people are entitled to. It's something communities have to work for every day.
For NPR News, I'm Katia Riddle in Portland, Ore.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/how-one-oregon-community-reduced-gun-violence-by-60 | 2022-05-12T14:38:39Z |
DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST:
Do sanctions work? That is a question worth asking as U.S. and other Western nations keep hammering Russia with economic sanctions. If the war in Ukraine drags on for months or even years, how many more sanctions can the West impose? And what is the end game? Emma Ashford is an expert on foreign policy at the Atlantic Council, and she joins me now to talk about this. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
EMMA ASHFORD: Great to be here.
ESTRIN: Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday the new sanctions did, quote, "achieve certain results." So how have sanctions impacted Russia's economy?
ASHFORD: So far, the sanctions that we've put on Russia's economy have caused the ruble to go into decline. And I think up to 600 multinational corporations have left Russia. And so the Russian economy is suffering from sanctions. What we don't know yet is the extent of that suffering and whether or not it will translate into any actual policy change.
ESTRIN: Well, first, how are these sanctions harming ordinary Russians who have nothing to do with the war? I mean, I've spoken to people in Russia who say it's hard to travel abroad now. It's hard to even access foreign-made medicines. Inflation is high. So how do these sanctions affect the ordinary person?
ASHFORD: In theory, targeted financial sanctions are meant to hit a government and not the people within a country. But in practice, that's very difficult to do. What we actually see in much of the studies that have been done on sanctions is that leaders, particularly in authoritarian states, are very good at insulating themselves from the effects of sanctions. Certainly, Vladimir Putin himself has been sanctioned. The people around him have all been. But that doesn't necessarily mean that their lifestyles at home are going to suffer. They may be able to pass some of that burden on to other people inside Russia. And so this, again, is one of those big problems. And unfortunately, the history of sanctions suggests that we're good at causing the economic pain. We're not good at getting policy changes out of it.
ESTRIN: Well, this is fascinating. And I think this is the time to just step back and ask, what is the actual goal of these new sanctions on Russia? I mean, is it to end the war, or is it to topple Putin?
ASHFORD: It depends who you ask, to be perfectly honest. These sanctions were initially intended to deter the Russians from invading. That obviously didn't work. So now the sanctions are in place. They are supposed to be putting pressure on the Russian government to end the war. That doesn't appear to be happening so far, and it's not clear whether even more sanctions would necessarily do that. So then you get into this question that often arises - how long do you leave the sanctions on? And over time, does the goal sort of just shift from concrete policy change, like end the war, over to something more akin to weakening the Russian government over the long term? And I fear that that's where we're sort of sliding into with the Russia sanctions.
ESTRIN: Now, of course, we are in a globalized economy. Some nations are dependent on Russian exports like gas and oil. How will that factor into how long the West can keep imposing these sanctions?
ASHFORD: The sanctions that we have already imposed - those can be maintained for quite a long time, I would think. The interesting question is about the sanctions that we have not yet imposed. And I think it's very doubtful that we're going to see Europe impose large-scale energy sanctions, simply because European economies are so dependent on that gas that it would almost certainly cause a recession. That is the sort of step that might actually push the Russian government to think twice about the war in Ukraine, but it's one that I think the West simply can't sustain right now.
ESTRIN: What about lifting some sanctions? Could that actually incentivize Russia to change course?
ASHFORD: So if we wanted to get something out of these sanctions with Russia, one of the best things that we could do is be specific about the ways in which those sanctions could be raised in exchange for Russia stopping conflict, withdrawing some of its forces, you know, a phased approach to lifting them that could help to end the conflict. Unfortunately, and again, as we've seen in many previous cases, that can be politically problematic. You can imagine how difficult it would be even here in the U.S. to talk about lifting sanctions on Russia after everything that has happened in the last month and a bit.
ESTRIN: Emma Ashford is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. Thank you so much for being with us.
ASHFORD: Thanks for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/how-sanctions-have-impacted-russias-economy-and-whether-that-will-help-end-the-war | 2022-05-12T14:38:45Z |
DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST:
It's the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, when faithful around the world abstain from eating or drinking between dawn and sunset. Each day's fast is usually followed by a feast. In the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, one delicacy in particular has become a cherished Ramadan tradition. It's called haleem, and it's not just for Muslims. Sushmita Pathak recently got the chance to see how it's made.
SUSHMITA PATHAK, BYLINE: The Royal Hyatt Convention Center in Hyderabad usually hosts wedding receptions. Nowadays it's a kitchen for Pista House, one of Hyderabad's top restaurants. When I visit one afternoon during the first week of Ramadan, preparations are in full swing for that day's haleem.
(SOUNDBITE OF GRINDER)
PATHAK: A big grinder crushes cardamom pods. A few feet away, men peel a mountain of onions. Meanwhile, the star of the haleem, the goat meat, has been cooking for nearly 8 hours.
MOHAMMED MOHDDIS ALI: Process started at night, 4:00. So the morning comes...
PATHAK: Mohammed Mohddis Ali walks me through the process. His family owns Pista House. He leads me to an open space, where some 20 furnaces are blazing.
MOHDDIS ALI: That haleem takes 11 hours to cook. So it's very easy to eat, but it's very hard to cook. And you cannot stand in the kitchen. Like, it's a lot of smoke.
PATHAK: And it's so hot here. You can - my eyes are watering.
After the meat becomes tender, a mixture of dals, or lentils, and coarsely ground meat is added to it. Then come the spices.
So this is the mix of masala spices that will - are going to go into the haleem.
(SOUNDBITE OF STIRRING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
PATHAK: Cumin, cinnamon, cardamom, black pepper, rose petals. This is followed by the most physically challenging part of the recipe.
MOHDDIS ALI: We will spice the haleem with wood sticks for around 20 minutes to 25 minutes.
PATHAK: That's what they're doing right now.
(SOUNDBITE OF HAMMERING)
PATHAK: Two cooks pound the meaty mixture with long wooden hammers. It gives the haleem a soft, smooth texture. But it's a real workout, a workout that city historian Sajjad Shahid remembers from his childhood, when his family used to make haleem at home every Ramadan. It was only in the 1980s or '90s that the dish became commercialized, he says.
SAJJAD SHAHID: But not exactly haleem. It was called harees.
PATHAK: Shahid says harees was brought to India many centuries ago by the Arabs, who were employed by Indian kings and Sudans as mercenaries.
SHAHID: The personal bodyguard of the ruler used to be mostly Arabs. You had huge, huge populations of Arabs.
PATHAK: There were indeed armies of Arab soldiers in India, Shahid says. And harees was their meal of choice. It was practical, not too complicated, and it could be made in one pot. Shahid recalls a 17th-century poem, where the poet describes the degh, the vessel in which haleem is made.
SHAHID: So he says, the deghs used for cooking haleem were as large as the ears of elephants.
PATHAK: Over the years, Hyderabadis tweaked the dish, and a new version was born. Today, Hyderabadi haleem has many fans. Vaishak Damodar says he eats at least one plate almost every day during Ramadan.
VAISHAK DAMODAR: I roam around the city, and I try haleem at all different spots.
(SOUNDBITE OF VEHICLE TRAFFIC)
PATHAK: At the roadside stall where Damodar is relishing his haleem, most customers, including him, are Hindu. Some Hindus don't eat meat. And in recent years, meat has become a point of tension between Hindus and Muslims. Damodar says that's all politics.
DAMODAR: See, for me, haleem is a feel-good factor. You just come. You eat. Go. Food brings a lot of people together. That's all I've got to say.
PATHAK: For NPR News, I'm Sushmita Pathak in Hyderabad, India.
(SOUNDBITE OF LANTERNA'S "B MINOR") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/in-southern-india-haleem-is-a-cherished-ramadan-tradition-and-not-just-for-muslims | 2022-05-12T14:38:52Z |
DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST:
To honor Poetry Month, we're hearing from the four finalists to become the 2022 National Youth Poet Laureate. Today, we meet the south regional ambassador.
ISABELLA RAMIREZ: My name is Isabella Ramirez. I am a queer Latinx poet from Lake Worth, Fla., but I'm currently studying at Columbia University in New York City.
ESTRIN: Ramirez found her love for poetry attending slam poetry competitions in South Florida.
RAMIREZ: It was really seeing other people perform that really inspired me the most to start my own journey as a poet. I think there's just nothing more powerful than youth poetry and youth voices. And really, it's just, like, us coming together and listening and having this really punchy, powerful moments together and snaps and hollers and whoops and, like, all of these emotions coming together.
ESTRIN: Her poem "Mama" pays homage to her mother for supporting her. It also shares how she supported her mother when she attended graduate school in her 40s.
RAMIREZ: (Reading) I'm sitting on my mama's bed, and she's on the brink of breaking down over her homework. I can see the glint of a blinking cursor and the tears glossing over her eyes as her hands search for words in a language all too foreign to her.
Being an immigrant and having English as your second language, you don't realize how difficult it is to be in the same spaces as your peers who speak English as a first language and be expected to do the same workload when your brain thinks and is bilingual. Your brain is thinking in two languages. So that's sort of where in my junior year I really became that support for my mother. And I saw her grow in such a tremendous way. And it felt like a paying back. I know I can never truly pay back my mother for the years that she has spent being there for me. But I think to some extent, I was able to do that for her.
(Reading) My mama's English gets told it's pretty good for being an immigrant, to which she replies, you've got some nerve for being a gringa because my mama wasn't a stay-at-home mom for 15 years to be told that her English still has cleaning to do.
Her Spanish, to me, is why I speak Spanish. It's why, you know, I'm able to celebrate my culture and even write in a way that is in both English and Spanish. So I think there, it's - I'm not just exploring her English. I'm exploring all of the language that we share together and she has imparted to me.
(Reading) My mama's English is the reason I can tell her in two ways that she is my everything, mi todo, because her love knows no language.
ESTRIN: Isabella Ramirez is a finalist for this year's National Youth Poet Laureate. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/isabella-ramirez-a-finalist-for-the-national-youth-poet-laureate-on-her-poem-mama | 2022-05-12T14:38:58Z |
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
All right. We're going to take a moment now to look at the state of the Native American economy. A new series running on the website Indian Country Today found that tribal businesses and governments are often the largest economic contributors in their regions, and this is especially true in rural areas. From health care to green energy, the profile of the Native economy goes far beyond casinos and fossil fuels. Mark Trahant writes for Indian Country Today and joins us now. Welcome.
MARK TRAHANT: Thank you. Glad to be here.
CHANG: Glad to have you. So you have said that, for a fun scroll, readers should Google tribes plus largest employer. Can you just tell us - what would we find if we did indeed type that into Google?
TRAHANT: Well, there are more than 500 tribes in many regions across the country. If you typed into that Google - pick a tribe and pick and largest employer, it would pop up. If not the first, it would be second or third. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes in northwestern Montana, the Oneida Nation in Oneida and Madison counties in Wisconsin, the Iowa tribe of Oklahoma, the Osage tribe of Oklahoma. Really, you could look down the list. Even in Southern California, where you have significant casino operations in those regions - sometimes tribes are the largest employer.
CHANG: That's so interesting. And can you explain how, like, a healthy tribal economy can significantly affect the neighboring communities?
TRAHANT: Well, I think the first way is employment. It just creates jobs that didn't exist a decade ago. And one of the things we saw during the pandemic that was really interesting is a lot of the large tribal employers tried to keep people on as long as possible. Not everyone, of course, but in many cases, they tried to keep people working even when the casino operations were shut down, and I think that was really remarkable.
CHANG: Well, ultimately, how big are we talking? Like, how big is the tribal economy if you were to look across all the tribes in the continental United States?
TRAHANT: That's a really tough question, but I think, from the back-of-the-envelope measure, we're looking at at least $80 billion. And to give you an example of how that fits in, Vermont is about $37 billion.
CHANG: Wow. All right, so more than twice the GDP of Vermont.
TRAHANT: Right.
CHANG: Wow. So can you talk about some of the newer industries that are driving some of the growth in tribal economies - like, I mentioned health care and green energy. Tell us more about that.
TRAHANT: Well, health care is a great example because so many people think of the Indian Health Service as a federal government operation. And that continues to exist, but 60% of the system is now run by tribes or nonprofits, and it's those that have been particularly innovative. In Alaska, for example, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium and the Alaska Native Medical Center are extraordinarily innovative. They do everything from dental health therapy, which is mid-level practice in the village, to telemedicine and have found new ways to deliver health care at a significantly lower cost than other institutions.
CHANG: Finally, I want to talk about a phrase that you use. You describe the tribal economy as a, quote, "stealth economy." What did you mean by that? Like, do you feel that, at the federal level, the numbers inside this economy just aren't tracked enough?
TRAHANT: Yeah. Well, I think, generally, we need to do a better job of tracking the data about Indian Country and its economic contributions. Just this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics started keeping track of unemployment, which is huge.
CHANG: You mean unemployment among tribes?
TRAHANT: In tribal - in reservation communities, yes. And that's extraordinary because you've seen stories in the news media for the last 20 years about 50%, 80% unemployment on reservations. And it turns out the actual measure is about 37%, which is still rough...
CHANG: Yeah.
TRAHANT: ...But it's not anywhere near what people have been reporting. So I think having an accurate, regular metric is just really critical to figuring out how impactful these economies are. And when you think about it, tribes - like states - are in the Constitution. And as constitutional governments, having that record seems, to me, critical.
CHANG: Absolutely.
That is Mark Trahant, reporter at Indian Country Today. Thank you very much for joining us today.
TRAHANT: Oh, this was fun.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/native-american-economy-leads-rural-communities | 2022-05-12T14:39:04Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
In New York City, police identified a person of interest in Tuesday's subway shooting that left 29 people injured.
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
They've also released more details about the chaotic scene and what they found at the station - a gun, fireworks and fuses. Ten people were shot, and others were treated for smoke inhalation - other injuries.
FADEL: Caroline Lewis is a reporter with member station WNYC, and she joins us now. Hi, Caroline.
CAROLINE LEWIS, BYLINE: Hi.
FADEL: So, Caroline, let's start with this person of interest. What do we know about the man the police are looking for?
LEWIS: Right. So his name is Frank R. James. He's a 62-year-old man with addresses in Wisconsin and Philadelphia. And police said they found a key at the subway station to a U-Haul van and records showing that he rented the van in Philadelphia. They were careful last night not to call him a suspect, but they definitely want to talk to him.
FADEL: Police also talked about how the shooting unfolded. What were they able to put together from video and witnesses on the scene?
LEWIS: So all of this took place during rush hour, as the train was pulling into a station in Sunset Park in Brooklyn. Apparently, a man wearing a neon construction vest and hat and a gas mask opened up two smoke grenades, and then police say he pulled out a gun and started shooting - 33 shots in all. There's footage that shows smoke pouring out of the train as soon as the doors opened, when it entered the station, and people were rushing onto the platform. People were screaming. CNN spoke to a survivor of the attack, Hourari Benkada, who was helping a pregnant woman when he was shot in the leg.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HOURARI BENKADA: And all you see, like, is smoke, black smoke, bomb going off, and then people bumrushing to the back. This pregnant woman was in front of me. I was trying to help her. I didn't know there were shots at first. I just thought it was a black smoke bomb. She said, I'm pregnant with a baby. I hugged her. And then the bumrush continued. I got pushed, and that's when I got shot in the back of my knee.
LEWIS: There was clearly a lot of confusion. Police said the items they later recovered at the station included two empty gas canisters, a hatchet, gasoline and a 9 mm semi-automatic Glock. They say they don't have a motive so far.
FADEL: Terrifying - it must have been terrifying for people. What do we know at this point about the victims?
LEWIS: So this has been developing, but hospitals identified at least 29 people who were treated for injuries. Officials said last night that there were 10 people who were wounded by the gunfire and others who were injured either by smoke inhalation or just in the rush to get out of the station. And five of the victims were listed in critical but stable condition. Officials who spoke last night said it could have been much worse, and I think they were grateful that all the victims are expected to recover.
FADEL: What's the mood like in the city right now, especially for those who depend on the trains to get around?
LEWIS: So there has been this increase in crime recently and subway crime specifically. So I think some people were already a little on edge, and this didn't help. I talked to some people who lived near the station who said they had near-misses with this incident yesterday that left them really rattled. Some people said they're nervous about taking the train now but don't really have a choice because it's the most affordable option. You know, for those with a car or the means to take a Lyft or Uber, it might be a different story.
FADEL: In the few seconds we have left, what's the city doing about crime on the subway?
LEWIS: Well, the mayor has been talking about ramping up police presence in the subways. But if you've ever been to New York City, you know the police are already pretty ubiquitous. So I think people are divided about whether this increased presence would actually help.
FADEL: That's reporter Caroline Lewis with member station WNYC. Caroline, thank you for your reporting.
LEWIS: Thanks.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FADEL: Almost 50 days after the beginning of Russia's war in Ukraine, the country's second-biggest city, Kharkiv, is still under artillery and air attack.
MARTINEZ: And Russia appears to be regrouping and concentrating its forces in the east of the country, with a major Russian offensive widely anticipated. Also, President Biden is accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of genocide.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Yes, I called it genocide because it's become clearer and clearer that Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of even being able to be a Ukrainian.
MARTINEZ: That is a term that U.S. officials have avoided using until now, and the president says evidence is mounting.
FADEL: We'll hear more about Russia's intentions on the ground and Putin's plan in a few minutes. But first to NPR's Eyder Peralta in Kharkiv. Hi, Eyder.
EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: Hey, Leila.
FADEL: So, Eyder, tell us what you're seeing in Kharkiv.
PERALTA: This is a big city, and before the war, it had a population of 1.4 million, but now it is desolate. At night, the entire city goes dark, and that's when the heaviest fighting happens. We're staying in the center of town, at a fairly safe distance from artillery fire, but at night - and all night - we can see flashes of the explosions in the distance. Imagine a thunderstorm building on the outskirts of the city, and that's what it's like. We hear the rumble of artillery fire, and every once in a while, when there's a big one, you can feel the shaking under your feet. Yesterday, we made our way to Saltivka, one of the northern suburbs here, and we saw residential buildings with big holes in them, power lines in the middle of the street, a whole market burnt down, homes turned into rubble. It was sheer devastation.
FADEL: And it's not over for these residents, and you've been talking to them. What are they saying?
PERALTA: I - a lot of them are scared. In this northern suburb, we met Marina Vorontsova. And when we arrived, she quickly pulled us into the lobby of her apartment building, where we could talk and where we could be safe in case of an airstrike. And the night before, the building next door took a direct hit, and Marina looked shell-shocked. Let's listen to a bit of our conversation.
MARINA VORONTSOVA: (Through interpreter) It is shaking. It's, like, trembling. Yesterday it was trembling. Our building was trembling really bad 'cause there was a 16-story building across, and it was a direct hit there.
PERALTA: And she says yesterday was terrifying. I asked her if the reason she didn't leave was because of her elderly mother.
VORONTSOVA: (Through interpreter) No, no, I can move her. It's not a problem. And she actually wants to move, but there's other people that we need to stay there for. And also, as I say, it's two dogs we have. So we're staying mostly for them.
PERALTA: So she doesn't want to leave because she wants to keep helping. But this constant shelling is taking a toll. It's scary. At the main train station here, I talked to people who say they have stayed as long as they could, but now it's just gotten too scary, so they're leaving.
FADEL: So let's zoom out a bit. Are people talking about what happens next, where this war goes from here?
PERALTA: Yeah, I don't think anyone has an answer to that. Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a speech yesterday in which he said that Russia would continue fighting this war. And the U.S., the U.K. and Ukraine say that in the near future, Russian troops will begin another offensive in the east. But what happens next is the hardest question for everyone here because that's all they know - that at some point there will be a big, new Russian offensive.
FADEL: NPR's Eyder Peralta reporting from Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine. Thank you, Eyder. And stay safe.
PERALTA: Thank you, Leila.
FADEL: Satellite images show Russian troops are massing on eastern Ukraine.
MARTINEZ: It appears a massive offensive is on the horizon, and this new stage of the war could differ in many ways from the past seven weeks of Russian assaults on Ukraine.
FADEL: To explain why, we've got NPR national security correspondent Greg Myre with us. Hi, Greg.
GREG MYRE, BYLINE: Hi, Leila.
FADEL: So assuming Russia launches this big offensive in the east, how will it differ from what we've seen so far?
MYRE: Well, as we just heard, Putin made clear in his remarks yesterday that he is going to press on with the war. But it's also important to note that he's scaled back his military aims, at least for now. When Russia invaded back on February 24, it was from three separate directions - the north, the east and the south - with a clear goal of sweeping to victory throughout Ukraine. But Putin had to cut his losses in the north, withdrawing all the Russian troops near the capital, Kyiv. Still lots of heavy fighting in the south. But Putin is stressing that the east of Ukraine will be the focus, and it's also the place where conditions do appear to be most favorable for the Russians.
FADEL: Most favorable for the Russians - why most favorable?
MYRE: Well, let's start with the terrain. In northern Ukraine, it was well-suited for these small Ukrainian units to ambush columns of Russian tanks. The rural areas there had lots of woods, good cover for hit-and-run attacks. And the urban areas also lend themselves to these guerrilla-style attacks. So these were good places for the outgunned Ukrainians to fight. Eastern Ukraine is different. It has lots of farmland, wheat fields and corn fields, lots of wide-open spaces. The Ukrainians will find it much harder to sneak up on the Russians. The battlefields will be more suited to Russia's hulking armored vehicles and big artillery guns.
FADEL: Speaking of weapons, I mean, the theme among Ukrainian officials has been to ask for more weapons. Do they have what they need now to match the Russians?
MYRE: Well, Ukraine is getting a lot of weapons, but they're still mostly smaller ones - rifles, machine guns, shoulder-fired missiles. But Ukraine's persistent pleas for larger weapons have changed the conversation. There are signs that the Biden administration, as well as some other NATO members, may be close to giving a - new weapons packages that would include some larger systems like armored vehicles. Now, the Ukrainians are certainly going to need these in a hurry if they plan to match up with the Russians when it comes to sort of head-on battles in the east.
FADEL: What about morale, something the Russian army appears to be struggling with, while Ukraine - fighting for its homeland against invaders - seems to have high morale?
MYRE: Well, true, I think Ukraine really does have the momentum and higher morale. It has the international support. It's winning the information war. Ukrainians have seen their cities and towns destroyed. They know they're fighting for the survival of the country. In contrast, the Russians have been forced to retreat and regroup. Their goals are still fuzzy. Does Putin just want eastern Ukraine? Does he still dream of taking the capital and installing a new government? Many Russian troops would be hard-pressed to explain exactly what they are fighting for.
FADEL: NPR's Greg Myre. Thank you, Greg.
MYRE: My pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/news-brief-nyc-subway-shooting-kharkiv-under-attack-russias-military-strategy | 2022-05-12T14:39:10Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The man who New York City police called a person of interest in yesterday's subway shootings in Brooklyn is now a suspect. Here's Mayor Eric Adams speaking this morning on member station WNYC.
ERIC ADAMS: I was briefed by the team, and we know his - one of his motives was to create terror in our system.
FADEL: The attack wounded 23 people. Investigators say they also found a gun, fireworks and fuses in the subway station. Joining us now is Gwynne Hogan of WNYC. Hi, Gwynne.
GWYNNE HOGAN, BYLINE: Hey, Leila.
FADEL: So, Gwynne, what do we know about the suspect?
HOGAN: So his name is Frank R. James. He's a 62-year-old man with addresses in Wisconsin and Philadelphia, though he also appears to have ties to New York. Police identified James as a suspect after they found a key at the subway station and then tracked that back to a U-Haul van James had rented. Now, yesterday, police were just saying they wanted to locate James to interview him, but now Mayor Eric Adams and police are confirming he is, in fact, the prime suspect in this attack. Adams says that new information became available, but he didn't give specifics on that.
FADEL: So part of the investigation is expected to center on dozens of videos the suspect posted on YouTube. What do we know about those videos?
HOGAN: That's right. Police had mentioned this yesterday, that they were reviewing social media posts from James. He has a YouTube channel with thousands of followers. On it, he mentions Mayor Eric Adams. He talks about the mayor's efforts to tamp down on crime. But in one video, he was saying that there was no way Adams could prevent a random attack on the subway. He also talks about being institutionalized. He talks about wanting to kill everything in sight in one video. And this is hours of recordings. He also railed about the war in Ukraine, the Russian president, the threat of nuclear war, racism and PTSD.
FADEL: Now, police also talked about how the shooting unfolded. What were they able to put together from video and witness statements?
HOGAN: Well, this all took place during rush hour, as the train was pulling into a station in Sunset Park in Brooklyn. Now, the suspect was wearing a construction vest and had a construction helmet on when he put on a gas mask and opened up two smoke grenades. Then, he - police say that he pulled out a gun and started shooting - 33 shots in all. There's footage that has appeared on social media from people who were there that showed smoke pouring out of the train as soon as the doors opened and people laying on the platform floor and in the subway floor who had been injured. One of my co-workers, Juliana Fonda, was actually on that train on her way to work...
FADEL: Oh, wow.
HOGAN: ...At the time of the attack. Police have said, later, they recovered items at the station that included empty - two empty gas canisters, a hatchet, gasoline and a 9 mm semiautomatic Glock.
FADEL: And so far, they say, they don't have a motive.
That's Gwynne Hogan with member station WNYC. Gwynne, thank you for your reporting.
HOGAN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/nyc-authorities-identify-suspect-in-brooklyn-subway-shooting | 2022-05-12T14:39:16Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
We wanted to get some additional perspective on the subway shooting, so we called Thomas Abt. He's a senior fellow on the Council on Criminal Justice. Welcome to the program.
THOMAS ABT: Thank you. Good to be with you.
FADEL: So it feels as if the shooting has put a city already dealing with surging gun violence even further on edge. New York City has experienced a double-digit spike in gun violence over the past two years. Does this feel like part of that pattern?
ABT: Frankly, it doesn't.
FADEL: OK.
ABT: I don't really see this as a New York City issue. I really see this as a national issue. If Frank James does turn out to be the shooter - and that is a big if - it really fits a pattern that's really more about mass shootings and a national issue that can happen anywhere and not about a New York-specific crime issue. For one thing, the New York City issue - and in many cities around the country - is a community violence issue, violence between and among young men, often without a lot of options or much hope. Mass shootings involve individuals who are solitary, angry. They often give off warning signs. And they often have grievance narratives. And the guns they use are often legally purchased.
FADEL: Right. And unfortunately, mass shootings have become relatively common in the United States. How, then, should New York City be handling this? What should police and city leaders be doing, be saying?
ABT: Well, first and foremost, of course, they need to find Frank James or whoever the actual shooter is and bring them to justice. They need to understand exactly what happened and why it happened. But if it does play out as we're seeing right now and it is a sort of mass shooting narrative, that suggests a different set of policies than policies dedicated to addressing subway crime or street crime in general. So that would suggest that we need better threat assessment, more red-flag laws and, in fact, reasonable restrictions on gun purchasing and operation - much of the national debate that we've already been having about these issues.
FADEL: A different set of policies, so maybe not a return to the, quote-unquote, "tough on crime" days in the city, which disproportionately targeted people of color, Black residents. And that's something that the mayor, New York City's mayor, is under pressure to do when it comes to handling crime and gun violence.
ABT: So far, I think Mayor Adams has really pursued a relatively balanced approach. He is bringing back some law enforcement strategies, targeted crime patrols. But he's also maintaining many of the community crime-prevention strategies of the de Blasio administration, focusing on mental health and also summer jobs for at-risk youth. So I think that Mayor Adams is off to a strong, balanced start. And I would suggest maintaining that balance and maintaining that moving forward.
FADEL: Now, an increase to crime and gun violence is not unique to New York City. It's something that we're seeing nationally. There's already an increased police presence around the subway system and not just in New York, but in other cities, like Washington, D.C. How should people view an increased police presence?
ABT: Well, I think in the short term, you do need to be concerned about a contagion effect if this is, in fact, a mass shooting - copycats and things like that. And so you may need an increased presence in the subways as a deterrent in the near future. That doesn't mean that that police presence needs to be maintained indefinitely. And so I think there is reason to deal with that in the short term but not necessarily in the long term. And people, frankly, need to be reassured that they'll be safe while in transit.
FADEL: The mayor has been asking the federal government for help to curb gun violence in New York City. How much of this gun violence is due to a wider issue of the U.S.'s gun culture?
ABT: Well, you're certainly correct that the crime rise in New York is not unique to New York. In fact, the overwhelming majority of cities over the past two years have seen significant increases in gun violence, particularly homicides. That's due to several factors. It's due to the pandemic. It's also due to social unrest following the brutal murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. And it's also due to increased guns. There was a massive sale and legal purchases of guns during the pandemic. And unfortunately, we have ATF data that suggests that not only are there more guns out there, but a larger percentage of those guns have fallen into the wrong hands.
FADEL: In the few seconds we have left - you've spoken about needing a little bit of law enforcement and a little bit of prevention to reduce urban violence. What does that look like for you?
ABT: For me, that means sort of rejecting the narrative that we hear so often - that it's either about safety or it's about justice, that it's either about fighting crime or it's about promoting social justice. We obviously need both.
FADEL: Thank you. Thomas Abt is a senior fellow for the Council on Criminal Justice. Thank you for your time.
ABT: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/nyc-subway-shooting-fits-a-pattern-of-mass-shootings-crime-researcher-says | 2022-05-12T14:39:22Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Police in New York City do not yet have a suspect in custody in yesterday's subway shooting in Brooklyn, but they have identified someone they say is a person of interest in the attack that wounded 23 people. They also released more details about the chaotic scene.
(SOUNDBITE OF SUBWAY CAR PASSING, PEOPLE SCREAMING)
FADEL: That is sound captured on a camera phone of people fleeing a smoke-filled train at a station where investigators say they also found a gun, fireworks and fuses. Joining us now is Caroline Lewis of member station WNYC to - on the latest. Good morning, Caroline.
CAROLINE LEWIS, BYLINE: Good morning.
FADEL: So, Caroline, the police identified a person of interest. What do we know about him?
LEWIS: Right. So his name is Frank R. James. He's a 62-year-old man with addresses in Wisconsin and Philadelphia. And they said they found a key at the subway station to a U-Haul van. And records show that he actually rented the van in Philadelphia. They were careful last night, as you said, not to call him a suspect, but they definitely want to talk to him.
FADEL: Police also talked about how the shooting unfolded. What were they able to put together from video and witnesses on the scene?
LEWIS: So all of this took place during rush hour as the train was pulling into a station in Sunset Park in Brooklyn. Apparently, a man wearing a neon green construction vest and hat and a gas mask opened up two smoke grenades. And then, police said, he pulled out a gun and started shooting - 33 shots in all. There's footage showing smoke pouring out of the train as soon as the doors opened when it entered the station. And people rushed onto the platform. People were screaming. CNN spoke to a survivor of the attack, Hourari Benkada, who was helping a pregnant woman when he was shot in the leg.
There was clearly a lot of confusion. Police said the items they later recovered at the station included two empty gas canisters, a hatchet, gasoline and a 9 mm semi-automatic Glock. They say they don't have a motive so far.
FADEL: What do we know at this point about the victims?
LEWIS: So this has been developing, but hospitals identified at least 29 people who were treated for injuries. And officials said there were at least 23 people who are injured, 10 people from gunfire, and others who were either injured by smoke inhalation or just in a rush to get out of the station. Five of the victims were listed in critical but stable condition. And officials who spoke last night said it could have been much worse and were grateful that the victims were all expected to recover.
FADEL: So what's the mood like in the city right now, especially for those who depend on the train for transportation?
LEWIS: There has been an increase in crime recently and subway crime specifically. So I think some people were already a little on edge. And this definitely didn't help. I talked to some people who lived near the station who said they had near-misses with this incident yesterday that left them really rattled. Some people said they're nervous about taking the train now but don't really have a choice because it's the most affordable option.
FADEL: That's Caroline Lewis with member station WNYC. Caroline, thank you for your reporting.
LEWIS: Thanks. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/nypd-releases-information-about-a-person-of-interest-in-a-subway-shooting | 2022-05-12T14:39:28Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt has signed into law the nation's toughest abortion restrictions. Performing an abortion is now a felony, punishable by up to a decade in prison. As reporter Catherine Sweeney explains, the new law could also create a domino effect throughout the region.
CATHERINE SWEENEY, BYLINE: Stitt signed that bill amid fanfare and reiterated his pledge to sign each of the several abortion restriction bills expected to cross his desk.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KEVIN STITT: We want Oklahoma to be the most pro-life state in the country. We want to outlaw abortion in the state of Oklahoma.
SWEENEY: Without legal challenges, it would go into effect 90 days after the legislative session ends in May. That would be after the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to weigh in on Mississippi's law, which bans most abortions after about 15 weeks of pregnancy. If that law stands, the court would be effectively overturning Roe v. Wade and the protections that case guarantees. Oklahoma has seen a surge in abortion demand since last year, when Texas passed a law that banned the vast majority of abortions in the state.
REBECCA TONG: As soon as SB 8 went into place, we began to see ten times as many Texas patients than the previous month.
SWEENEY: That's Rebecca Tong, the co-executive director of Trust Women, an organization that provides abortion services. She said there's a wide discrepancy between the number of people who need those services and the ones who actually get them.
TONG: Our phones are ringing all day long - multiple phone lines. I mean, many people who try to reach us never even get through.
SWEENEY: It's not easy to get an abortion in Oklahoma. There aren't enough providers in the sprawling state. Tong says this disproportionately affects people on the fringes with low access to health care. Their average patient is already a parent, has no health insurance and has to plan extensively for the visit. She says outlawing the procedure in Oklahoma would mean even more strain, but mostly on low-income people. Wealthier patients...
TONG: They'll be able to hop on a flight and go to California or, God forbid, in the future, hop on a flight and have to go to Canada, right?
SWEENEY: She and other abortion rights advocates noted that the bills are nothing new in Oklahoma. But they're preparing for a world where court challenges won't block them.
TAMYA COX-TOURE: We've always had maps up of what access could look like if Roe were to fall.
SWEENEY: That's Tamya Cox-Toure, executive director of ACLU, Oklahoma and a longtime abortion rights advocate. She says there's an old saying.
COX-TOURE: How goes Oklahoma goes the rest of the South. And we're seeing that.
SWEENEY: The dominoes started with Texas and could continue later this year if the U.S. Supreme Court upholds restrictions passed in Mississippi.
For NPR News, I'm Catherine Sweeney in Oklahoma City. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/oklahomas-new-abortion-law-could-create-a-domino-effect-across-the-region | 2022-05-12T14:39:34Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Almost 50 days after the beginning of Russia's war in Ukraine, the country's second biggest city, Kharkiv, is still under artillery and air attack. Russia appears to be regrouping and concentrating its forces in the east of the country, with a major Russian offensive widely anticipated. And President Biden is accusing Russian President Putin of genocide.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Yes. I called it genocide because it's become clearer and clearer that Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of even being able to be Ukrainian.
FADEL: That is a term that U.S. officials have avoided using until now. And the president says evidence is mounting. NPR's Eyder Peralta is in Kharkiv. And we talked earlier this morning.
EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: This is a big city. And before the war, it had a population of 1.4 million. But now it is desolate. At night, the entire city goes dark, and that's when the heaviest fighting happens. We're staying in the center of town at a fairly safe distance from artillery fire. But at night and all night, we can see flashes of the explosions in the distance. Imagine a thunderstorm building on the outskirts of the city, and that's what it's like. We hear the rumble of artillery fire. And every once in a while, when there's a big one, you can feel the shaking under your feet.
Yesterday, we made our way to Saltovka, one of the northern suburbs here. And we saw residential buildings with big holes in them, power lines in the middle of the street, a whole market burned down, homes turned into rubble. It was sheer devastation.
FADEL: And it's not over for these residents. And you've been talking to them. What are they saying?
PERALTA: A lot of them are scared. In this northern suburb, we met Marina Vorontsova. And when we arrived, she quickly pulled us into the lobby of her apartment building, where we could be safe in case of an airstrike. And the night before, the building next door took a direct hit, and Marina looked shellshocked. Let's listen to a bit of our conversation.
MARINA VORONTSOVA: (Through interpreter) It is shaking. It's, like, yesterday it was trembling. Our building was trembling really bad 'cause there is a 16-story building across, and it was direct hit there.
PERALTA: And she says yesterday was terrifying. I asked her if the reason she didn't leave was because of her elderly mother.
VORONTSOVA: (Through interpreter) No, no. I can move her. It's not a problem. And she actually wants to move. But there's other people that we need to stay them for. And also, as I say, it's two dogs we have. So we're staying mostly for them.
PERALTA: So she doesn't want to leave because she wants to keep helping. But this constant shelling is taking a toll. It's scary. At the main train station here, I talked to people who say they have stayed as long as they could. But now it's just gotten too scary, so they're leaving.
FADEL: So let's zoom out a bit. Are people talking about what happens next, where this war goes from here?
PERALTA: Yeah. I don't think anyone has an answer to that. Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a speech yesterday in which he said that Russia would continue fighting this war. And the U.S., the U.K. and Ukraine say that in the near future, Russian troops will begin another offensive in the east. But what happens next is the hardest question for everyone here because that's all they know, that at some point there will be a big new Russian offensive.
FADEL: NPR's Eyder Peralta reporting from Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine - thank you Eyder. And stay safe.
PERALTA: Thank you, Leila. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/people-kharkiv-suffer-daily-russian-attacks-in-a-war-biden-now-calls-a-genocide | 2022-05-12T14:39:40Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
More than 8%, inflation's the worst it's been in more than 40 years, and some economists predict a global recession before the end of the year. But how will the spike in consumer prices affect mid-term elections? Charlie Cook is a political analyst who founded and contributes to The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.
Charlie, all right, let's jump right into it. How do you think this inflation experience is going to shape political futures for both parties?
CHARLIE COOK: Well, inflation has an enormous, enormous impact on people that - you know, Democrats tend to point to and focus on unemployment and - which is certainly important to the people that are unemployed and their families and communities and things. But that's usually - you know, the difference between low unemployment and high unemployment is maybe four percentage points. But the difference - but 100% of people are affected by inflation, and so you could actually argue that it's like 25 times more. So Republicans will be trying to argue that - will be pointing out, you know, the administration said there would - not going to be inflation, it would just be transitory, and now we have it. And Democrats are going to be arguing, we hear you, we see you, we're doing everything we possibly can. And hopefully - you know, hopefully for them, inflation will get blamed on somebody else.
MARTINEZ: So, Charlie, I'm imagining someone waking up on November 8 with a checklist of things to do. They're going to go to the supermarket in the morning, they're going to gas up the SUV, and then they're going to go hit a voting center. I mean, how might that affect what they do in that voting center, once they get gouged at the supermarket and then at the gas station?
COOK: Well, it's - people tend to - if they are - if voters are mad about one thing or mad at a president about one thing, it tends to contaminate everything else. And so no matter what a president's doing that might be good, it doesn't mean as much if voters are really mad at you about whatever it is that they're most interested in - most involved in. And as I said, inflation is something that just cuts through like a knife and has an enormous, enormous impact. So this is - in midterm elections, it's about, you know, how big a turnout can a president's party get, knowing that they're - usually you're a little bit disillusioned, disappointed or complacent come midterm election time, and the party out of power is usually hypermotivated. They're angry. They want revenge. And then there's the little 10% in the middle that's the truly independents. And, you know, they tend to get buyer's remorse in these elections.
MARTINEZ: When a political party, though, Charlie, controls the White House, the House and the Senate, how often does that contamination that you mentioned filter down to the other two?
COOK: A lot. Well, the contamination - people will vote on - they'll sort of rifle-shot their vote on that, so that, you know, it doesn't - wouldn't matter how great a job President Biden is doing on handling Ukraine or the coronavirus. If voters are mad about the economy in general and inflation in particular, then that's the rifle-shot vote, and that's what Democrats have to really worry about.
MARTINEZ: Midterms, historically, have almost been like a progress report for the governing party, forecasting what the presidential election year report card may be. So, Charlie, given how polarized the country is, is there any chance for a reversal in the short and the long term?
COOK: Well, we learned in 2016 - you know, you never can say no chance of anything, but I don't see much on the horizon that could reverse the course. I mean, this thing may get - it could get worse for Democrats. It could get a little less worse, but it's not likely to reverse course. Perhaps, maybe, if Roe v. Wade is just completely overturned, that - you know, that could galvanize Democratic voters. But this is - you know, this is likely to be a pretty ugly election, and the only question is - for Democrats, the only question is, like, how ugly will it be?
MARTINEZ: And how much - and you mentioned, you know, how it doesn't matter, you know, if a president is doing well, say, in foreign policy matters as, you know, if things at home aren't going the way that Americans want them to. But when it comes to, say, something like Ukraine - if there is significant progress, and it looks like Biden undeniably can be credited for turning things around there, I mean, could that be something that he uses, even if inflation is still at the rate that it's at?
COOK: Well, the president and Democrats can try, but, generally speaking, foreign policy in general - and unless - you know, unless we're having heavy casualties, it just doesn't weigh into voting decisions. It just never has, and that would be hard to imagine - that if they think you're doing a good job on one thing, then they start focusing on something else. But, you know, it's not likely that the economy is going to turn around enough or that the inflation is going to come down enough, I think, by November for this not to be a headwind for Democrats. And the question is just how - you know, how strong of a headwind will it be?
MARTINEZ: And with predictions servicing of a recession, maybe, in the next couple of years, I mean, what does the Biden administration need to do right now to respond?
COOK: Well, and a recession could string over or start coming out of 2022, going into the 2024 election. So it's just paddle like - you know, just paddle, like, as fast as you can. We're doing everything. We're focusing. We're doing everything humanly possible. We're not ignoring this. We hear you.
MARTINEZ: Political analyst Charlie Cook, thanks a lot.
COOK: Thank you, A. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/politicians-and-strategists-consider-soaring-inflations-effects-on-midterms | 2022-05-12T14:39:46Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine makes it hard to remember or even imagine that in the early years of Vladimir Putin's presidency, he was on a charm offensive with the West. Putin sought respect abroad while pledging new openness at home. NPR's Don Gonyea takes us back to one such moment more than 20 years ago in Texas.
DON GONYEA, BYLINE: It was November of 2001 in rural Crawford, Texas, population 705 back then. President George W. Bush owned a ranch just outside of town, and he and the first lady had invited Russian President Vladimir Putin and his wife to spend the night. The next morning, two presidents dropped by the local high school.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
GEORGE W BUSH: We had a great dinner last night. We had a little Texas barbecue, pecan pie, a little Texas music. And I think the president really enjoyed himself.
GONYEA: The so-called Crawford summit took place two months after the 9/11 terror attacks. In the high school gymnasium, Bush told students how Putin had been the first world leader to call him on September 11. Bush described him as a strong partner in fighting terrorism. Putin, through an interpreter, spoke of friendship and cooperation.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: (Through interpreter) And be here, I can feel the will of this people - the will to cooperate with the Russian Federation, the will to cooperate with Russia. And I can assure you that the Russian people fully shares this commitment and is also committed to fully cooperating with the American people.
GONYEA: Then they took questions from students. One dealt with Afghanistan and women's rights and the then-imminent fall of the Taliban government. In his answer, Putin warned there should be no atrocities.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PUTIN: (Through interpreter) And we should not allow any atrocities or violations of human rights to happen.
GONYEA: Fast-forward to today and the headlines are about Russian atrocities in Ukraine. Amanda Lemmons (ph), a senior, asked a question that day. She wanted to know about Bush's travel plans.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
AMANDA BUCKNER: Have you decided on whether you're going to go to Russia or not?
BUSH: Well...
(LAUGHTER)
BUSH: The president invited me, and I accepted.
BUCKNER: But the big moment for her came later, when she shook hands with Putin after the event. Reflecting now, she says time seemed to slow down.
BUCKNER: I remember - actually, I remember the color of his eyes. They were a dark, you know, deep blue. I was, like, I know he's got blue eyes.
GONYEA: And she distinctly remembers how Putin's hands felt.
BUCKNER: I don't know. They just - they were cold. Like, you know, they had a chill to them or something. You know, maybe it was too cold in the auditorium or - you know, or wherever he was, you know, at first, but yeah, his hands just - they were cold.
GONYEA: Today, her name is Amanda Buckner. She's 38 years old and says when she watches TV and sees images from Ukraine, she finds herself shaken by that previously proud moment from her youth.
BUCKNER: Did I really sit there and meet a man who just, you know, bombs, you know, innocent women and children? I can't - like, I really couldn't - I was beside myself. And it kind of - I felt really overwhelmed.
GONYEA: Mary Elise Sarotte is a Russian expert at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. She says the summit in Crawford was certainly a high point in terms of U.S.-Russia relations after the Cold War. But she also cautions that it's an overstatement to describe the cooperation on display back then as truly collegial.
MARY ELISE SAROTTE: Both parties were getting what they wanted out of the summit, which is not the same thing as collegiality. And I think we in America, in a sense, were mistaking that for a deeper collegiality that was not, in fact, there.
GONYEA: Putin wanted to be seen as an equal. Bush wanted help confronting global terrorism. But any hope for a real friendship faded within a few years over many conflicts. Could a moment like we saw in Crawford ever come around again? Sarotte says history can certainly surprise. She cites the unexpected swiftness of the Berlin Wall coming down, for example. But on U.S.-Russia relations, she says any future cooperative moment seems very far away.
Don Gonyea, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/putin-warned-against-allowing-atrocities-to-happen-in-2001-texas-town-hall | 2022-05-12T14:39:53Z |
DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST:
Some 4,500 civilians have been killed and injured in Ukraine, according to the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights. The office acknowledges that estimate is likely too low due to the difficulty in reaching areas still under siege. And on the battlefield, casualty numbers are likely to be many times greater than that. Despite the mounting human costs, Western governments are warning that the Russian military is preparing for a renewed effort to advance in eastern Ukraine. NPR's Tim Mak joins us now from central Ukraine. Hi, Tim.
TIM MAK, BYLINE: Hey there.
ESTRIN: Let's start with the battlefield situation. What is the latest there?
MAK: Well, since the withdrawal of Russian troops from the area around the capital city of Kyiv, Ukraine has been bracing for a renewed offensive. And there are some signs that it could be coming soon. British intelligence has predicted that the fighting will intensify in eastern Ukraine over the next 2 to 3 weeks. And today, a senior U.S. defense official says that Russian forces are staging in and around the eastern Ukrainian area known as the Donbas. These military forces include things like ground troops and artillery and helicopters. Meanwhile, in the south, the city of Mariupol, which has been the scene of heavy fighting over the past few weeks, still remains contested, that U.S. official said. It remains a focus of the Russian air force's combat missions over the last day and over the last days and weeks. Despite a devastating weekslong Russian assault, though, Mariupol has stubbornly held out, even as soldiers have run low on ammo. And tens of thousands of civilians have been living in dire conditions with dwindling supplies of food and water.
ESTRIN: Wow. So with a new Russian offensive apparently in the works, tell us about what the U.S. is doing to ramp up its support for Ukraine.
MAK: Well, President Biden and President Zelenskyy actually talked by phone today. And in a statement, Zelenskyy said they spoke about evaluating Russian war crimes and also military aid. Biden announced this afternoon he had signed off on another $800 million in military aid. And specifically, the kinds of weapons that were being delivered were, quote, "tailored to the wide assault we expect Russia to launch in eastern Ukraine." So this new American aid will include things like artillery, armored personnel carriers, helicopters. What is really clear is that all sides expect violence to continue and in the coming days and weeks even escalate in eastern Ukraine. And one big question is whether the U.S. equipment and the training necessary to operate that American equipment can be delivered in time to make a difference.
ESTRIN: Right. Now, President Biden's assessment of Russia's war also seems to have shifted in recent days. He took the step of calling Russian actions in Ukraine a, quote, "genocide." What has been the reaction there in Ukraine and around the world?
MAK: Well, yeah, the images and information from the war have prompted Biden to take that step. He chose not to use the term genocide until Tuesday when during remarks in Iowa, he used it while describing Vladimir Putin's actions. And when asked to explain, he said he used the term genocide because Putin had been, quote, "trying to wipe out the idea of even being able to be Ukrainian." Zelenskyy praised Biden's use of the term, saying that they were, quote, "true words of a true leader." Zelenskyy also added that, quote, "calling things by their names is essential to stand up to evil." But French President Emmanuel Macron pushed back against the use of the term, saying that it was an escalation of rhetoric and that it might not be helpful in ending the war between Russia and Ukraine.
ESTRIN: NPR's Tim Mak in central Ukraine, thank you.
MAK: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/russian-forces-may-be-preparing-for-a-renewed-offensive-in-eastern-ukraine | 2022-05-12T14:39:59Z |
DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST:
Richard Moore has an excruciating choice to make. The state of South Carolina is set to execute him for murder on April 29. Moore must choose between the electric chair or the state's newest option, a firing squad made up of three shooters. And South Carolina isn't alone. Three other states in the U.S. have adopted firing squads. Richard Moore is seeking an injunction that would halt his execution, but his case has reignited conversations around execution methods in the U.S. Maurice Chammah has been reporting on the death penalty for The Marshall Project, and Maurice joins us now. Thanks for being here.
MAURICE CHAMMAH: Thank you for having me.
ESTRIN: So we should warn that our conversation will include descriptions of executions. First, can you just lay out the history behind the use of firing squads in the U.S.?
CHAMMAH: Sure. It was extremely common, you know, before we were a country. It continued to be used in kind of a military context during the Civil War. But in the 20th century, we really abandoned the firing squad. You know, there was one execution in 1913 in Nevada. And then since then, there have been just a handful, and they have all been in Utah for reasons that have to do with Mormon theology and ideas about blood being shed.
ESTRIN: Why has the U.S. avoided executions by firing squad for so long?
CHAMMAH: There's no one simple answer. It kind of taps into some really deep cultural questions and the kind of - what I think are sort of core contradictions at the heart of American capital punishment. We as a country want the death penalty, but over and over again, we've shown that we don't want it to be bloody or violent. You know, we embraced lethal injection, which has the appearance of a medical procedure, even though there have been many times where prisoners have shown an incredible amount of pain and, you know, convulsed on the gurney.
ESTRIN: So now Utah has had this execution method in place for a while. Mississippi, Oklahoma and then most recently South Carolina have adopted firing squads. So what is prompting these states to adopt firing squads now?
CHAMMAH: Lethal injection had been the dominant form of execution over the last few decades, but at a certain point, pharmaceutical companies started to say, we don't want our drugs used to execute people. And that made it hard for states to acquire the drugs. And so they started talking about other forms of execution, and the firing squad is a part of that.
ESTRIN: Now, you report that legislators have called this method archaic or medieval, but prisoners in at least 10 states have recently said that they actually prefer a firing squad to other methods like lethal injection. Why is that?
CHAMMAH: Well, I should say that these prisoners also say, for the most part, that they don't want to be executed, and they are just responding to the Supreme Court, which has said it to the prisoners, in effect, you have to propose an alternative. But all that said, multiple prisoners argue that lethal injection as it's currently practiced is cruel and unusual. And the alternative they would prefer is the firing squad because it's known to be an instantaneous and relatively painless death.
ESTRIN: So that gets into the the question of, is there a humane way to shoot someone to death? I mean, you've spoken to experts about the electric chair, lethal injection, firing squad. What do they say about that question?
CHAMMAH: Well, I think it really gets down to whether you think there's a humane way to kill anyone, period. You know, there's one expert witness who has shown up in courtrooms around the country named James Williams. And he made this point that really, you know, made me sit up where he said, well, in some countries it's even more painless in that they basically take a gun to the back of someone's head and shoot them, and they are dead before they even know it, quite literally. And that is arguably even more painless. And yet, of course, when we hear that or imagine that, it's shocking and maybe creates some revulsion. And I think that speaks to this kind of core dilemma that Americans have, where we support the death penalty, but when confronted with sort of the most efficient and effective way to carry it out, it also makes us recoil and sort of raises up our own ambivalence around whether we actually want to be executing prisoners.
ESTRIN: Yeah. And death by firing squad probably raises that question very clearly. Maurice Chammah is the author of "Let The Lord Sort Them: The Rise And Fall Of The Death Penalty" and has been reporting on executions for The Marshall Project. Thank you very much.
CHAMMAH: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/south-carolina-has-instituted-a-firing-squad-for-executions-some-prisoners-prefer-it | 2022-05-12T14:40:05Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
Consumer prices in March jumped by 8.5% from a year ago. That is the highest inflation rate since December of 1981 and presents further economic and political challenges for the Biden administration. The war in Ukraine has led to a spike in global energy prices, and in response, President Biden says the U.S. will be releasing a million barrels of oil per day from U.S. reserves for the next six months. Yesterday, Biden unveiled plans to waive restrictions on a blend of higher ethanol gas, which he says is about 10 cents a gallon cheaper. But as Americans feel the pinch beyond the pump, what else should be done? We're joined by Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Council and the president's top economic adviser. So right off the bat, I mean, inflation is hitting all of us - how fast can you provide relief for consumers?
BRIAN DEESE: Well, you're right. The price increase in March had the word Russia written all over it. Putin's invasion of Ukraine is not only causing a humanitarian catastrophe, but it's taken Russian oil off the market and driven the price of oil up. And so we saw about 70% of the increase in March was due to the rising energy prices as a result. You've also seen the president act, as you mentioned, an historic effort to put a million barrels a day onto the market from our strategic reserves. And yesterday, he was in Iowa talking about steps with E15, which will provide some relief as well. The good news is, since the highs in March, we've seen gas prices come down about 20 cents a gallon nationwide. They're still too high, and we still need to work to try to bring them down further. But ultimately, the global coalition that we have assembled to combat Putin's aggression is one that we need to keep in place. That will have impacts globally.
MARTINEZ: Yeah.
DEESE: But this is a president that's going to do everything that he can to try to mitigate those impacts at home.
MARTINEZ: So you mentioned Vladimir Putin. President Biden referred to Tuesday's inflation report as Putin's price hike. Prices were climbing way before the war. How much longer can the president and the administration continue to blame Vladimir Putin for something that was happening before this even began?
DEESE: Look; this isn't an issue of blame. If you look at the facts, in March, 70% of the increase was from energy, 63% of that was from gasoline. Those prices went up because Russian oil came off the market. But you're absolutely right - price increases are too high across the board. That's not an issue that we have shied from; it's an issue that we have leaned into. This is a global problem. Inflation is hitting record highs around the world - in the U.K., in the Euro area and beyond - because we have a globally supply-constrained economy. So we're focused, practically, in the United States on what we can do to bring that down. That includes the president taking the kinds of actions that he's taken with respect to oil and gas prices. It also includes calling on Congress to take steps to lower costs for consumers. We have legislation in front of the Congress right now that would lower consumers' utility bills, it would lower prescription drug costs, and it would also bring the deficit down. All of those would help consumers and help moderate on the inflation front.
MARTINEZ: And I realize that it is a global problem. It's happening all over the world. But I think American voters are concerned with what's happening inside the United States. Last year, early 2021, the consumer price inflation rate was under 2%. Today, it's around 8%. I mean, so I think that's what Americans want an explanation on, is how did it get to where it is now from well before the Ukraine war?
DEESE: Well, recall that a year ago, the economy was in freefall and lockdown because COVID had shut down our economy and the - we did not have an effective response to actually keep our economy open and our economy going. What's happened in the period since is we've engineered a recovery that has seen the strongest economic growth in 40 years, the strongest labor market outcomes ever in an American recovery, the unemployment rate down to 3.6%. We have real challenges, but we also have strengths, and we do want to build on those.
MARTINEZ: And I keep going back to 2021 because remember; last year, an article from Larry Summers, who was a former U.S. Treasury secretary, blamed inflation - or, actually, warned about inflation on the American Rescue Plan, which put $2 trillion, almost, into the U.S. economy. That was a response to the pandemic, but those warnings were there from last year. What do you say to that?
DEESE: The American Rescue Plan was a historic effort to provide a recovery plan, a viable recovery plan, to do what we need to do to get COVID under control, to help people. Remember back a year ago, there were lines at food banks miles long. Hunger was up. People did not know where the future of this economy was. As a result of the actions that we have taken and what we've seen happen, we're not talking about a weak labor market and all of the costs that that has for the economy. We're not talking about hunger in America in the same way. We have made a lot of progress as a result. But we have a global challenge. We have a global challenge, and inflation is affecting economies everywhere. And so we have to do what is necessary now to bring those price increases under control.
MARTINEZ: But so, yes, I understand that shelves were empty back then, but now if the shelves are full, people can't afford to buy the stuff on the shelves.
DEESE: Well, just to be clear, you know, we are seeing incredible resilience in this recovery, resilience in the labor market and also resilience in the American consumer. The price increases hurt, and they hit families and their pocketbooks. At the same time, we are seeing consumption sustained through multiple shocks. This economy has been through the shock of delta, the shock of omicron and now the war in Ukraine, another global supply shock. And through it all, the American economy has been uniquely resilient. So we have challenges, and affordability is absolutely an issue. It's why the president went out yesterday, took the action to try to bring down a little bit of relief on the gas price front and why we are calling for additional relief to make things more affordable for American families.
MARTINEZ: That's Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Council. Thanks for taking the time.
DEESE: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/spike-in-inflation-presents-further-challenges-for-the-biden-administration | 2022-05-12T14:40:11Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Baseball season is finally underway. And in Atlanta, the Braves are celebrating last year's World Series win with a new food selection at Truist Park.
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
It's a burger, but not just any burger. Here's the ball park's executive chef, Rory Bancroft.
RORY BANCROFT: We wanted to make a burger that was the best of the best, so kind of giving it, like, a little crown jewel, if you want, a little sparkle to it.
FADEL: And what a sparkle.
BANCROFT: We have an eight-ounce Wagyu beef patty, Tillamook cheddar, lobster tail, there's foie gras. So it's a goose liver. And we wrapped the foie gras in 23-karat gold leaf.
FADEL: That's edible gold leaf. It comes on a toasted and buttered brioche bun, with more layers that include a sunny side up egg, Bibb Lettuce, an heirloom tomato slice and some truffle aioli.
MARTINEZ: The World Champions Burger stands about a half a foot tall and weighs a whopping 1 1/2 pounds. And the concessionaire will throw in a replica World Series championship ring, probably not edible, though. But as big as this burger is, the thing that'll really make your jaw drop is the price.
BANCROFT: A hundred and fifty-one dollars, that's in honor of the Braves' 151st year of existence.
FADEL: And that's the more affordable version. If you want to add a more posh chunk of jewelry, you can make it a combo.
BANCROFT: Twenty-five thousand dollars, you get this limited edition, authentic Braves championship ring. And you get the burger for free with it. It's kind of what I've been telling people.
MARTINEZ: And after you spend all that money, do you eat it with your hands or, as I do with any burger that I eat, with a knife and fork?
BANCROFT: I've actually seen two people that grabbed it on the sides and were just digging in.
MARTINEZ: The burger at both price points comes with a side of Parmesan waffle fries. And it's the least they could do.
(SOUNDBITE OF SLUMBERVILLE'S "ASPARAGUS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/the-atlanta-braves-are-celebrating-their-world-series-win-with-a-pricey-burger | 2022-05-12T14:40:17Z |
The First Lady, which interweaves the stories of three different occupants of the White House from three different eras, isn't the first scripted TV drama to give such political roles to very strong actresses – nor is it the best. Throughout TV's own long history, those would include ABC's Eleanor and Franklin in the 1970s, with Jane Alexander as Eleanor Roosevelt. And from the '80s, Blair Brown shined as Jackie Kennedy in NBC's Kennedy miniseries, as did Mary Tyler Moore as Mary Todd Lincoln in NBC's Lincoln.
Showtime's new The First Lady miniseries has performers, and performances, every bit the equal of those. Each of these first ladies, in her own way, was proudly and defiantly progressive. Betty Ford is played by Michelle Pfeiffer. Michelle Obama is played by Viola Davis. And Eleanor Roosevelt, a very vocal proponent of women's rights, is played by Gillian Anderson.
Show creator Aaron Cooley and director Susanne Bier have a consistent, but at times confusing, approach to the series. The First Lady jumps among the three narratives, but even those individual stories aren't told chronologically. In each of them, we leap back and forth, seeing the first ladies both as presidential wives and as girls and young women, played by younger actresses.
As the flashbacks and episodes pile up, so do the insights: the career paths not followed, the sometimes rocky romances, the long-time family dynamics. The downside is that the tales told here not only are needlessly complicated, but frustratingly obvious. At times, it's like a greatest achievements — and greatest missteps — compilation from three different presidential administrations. There is value, though, in juxtaposing how three prominent first ladies fought to find and use their voices.
Even though I'm lukewarm about the structure of The First Lady, and wary of the depictions of some of the specific story lines, I'm also very, very enthusiastic about the lead performances. Michelle Pfeiffer is amazing as Betty Ford – simmering volcanically throughout, but finally exploding with rage and pain late in the series, as her family confronts her about her alcoholism. Gillian Anderson as Eleanor conveys so much even when saying nothing, and her scenes with her husband, Franklin – played surprisingly well by Kiefer Sutherland – range from touching to heartbreaking. As for Viola Davis as Michelle Obama, she persuasively embodies her true-life character, too.
As with all dramatizations of history, it's wise to take "based on fact" stories with several pillars of salt. But this miniseries is worth seeing because it does illustrate, through its various narratives and timelines, just how much progress we've made – and haven't made – regarding so many important issues. It's also worth seeing if just for its impressive leading roles. Gillian Anderson, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Viola Davis, as the first ladies, all get my vote – delivering three of the best TV performances of the year.
Copyright 2022 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/the-first-lady-is-far-from-perfect-but-its-lead-performances-make-it-worth-watching | 2022-05-12T14:40:23Z |
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has confirmed the largest icy comet nucleus ever seen by scientists. The nucleus of comet C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein) is about 80 miles in diameter, which is larger than the state of Rhode Island, NASA says.
The comet's nucleus is about 50 times larger than that of most comets, and its mass is estimated to be a gigantic 500 trillion tons.
"This comet is literally the tip of the iceberg for many thousands of comets that are too faint to see in the more distant parts of the solar system," David Jewitt, a professor of planetary science and astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles, said in a statement.
"We've always suspected this comet had to be big because it is so bright at such a large distance. Now we confirm it is," Jewitt added.
Comet C/2014 UN271 was discovered by astronomers Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein using archival images from the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. The comet has been observed since 2010, when it was 3 billion miles away from the sun, and has been studied since then.
NASA says there was a challenge in measuring the comet's nucleus because it was too far away for the Hubble telescope to determine its size. Instead, scientists had to make a computer model that was adjusted to fit the images of the comet's bright light that they got from the telescope's data.
Despite traveling at 22,000 mph, the massive comet is still coming from the edge of the solar system. But NASA assures us that it will never get closer than 1 billion miles away from the sun — and even then, that won't be until 2031.
The previous record-holder for largest comet nucleus was discovered in 2002. Comet C/2002 VQ94 was approximately 60 miles across.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/the-hubble-telescope-confirms-the-largest-comet-nucleus-ever-seen-by-astronomers | 2022-05-12T14:40:29Z |
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
About 30 hours after a mass shooting in the New York City subway, Mayor Eric Adams had this to say.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ERIC ADAMS: My fellow New Yorkers, we got him. We got him.
CHANG: The suspect, Frank James, is accused of firing 33 times on a subway train during rush hour yesterday morning. No one died, but 10 people were shot, and several others were hurt in the incident. NPR's Jasmine Garsd joins us now from New York. Hi, Jasmine.
JASMINE GARSD, BYLINE: Hi.
CHANG: All right. So what more can you tell us about this arrest?
GARSD: Frank James is believed to be the shooter, and he was apprehended on a Manhattan street corner just a few hours ago at around 1:45 p.m. this afternoon. He's 62 years old. He was arrested without incident. Bystander videos show police taking him into custody. And it came from a tip.
CHANG: Wow. OK. So what do we know about this man so far?
GARSD: What we know about him so far is that he had a myriad of prior arrests from various states dating back to the early '90s, and they ranged from criminal sex acts to theft. He seems to have lived a very chaotic life, moving across cities and states. And he also posted quite a few videos on YouTube and Facebook, criticizing New York Mayor Eric Adams and criticizing his policies on crime and homelessness. And he talked about having PTSD. I'm sure in the coming days, a much clearer picture is going to emerge.
CHANG: Yeah, I'm sure. Well, at this point, what comes next in the investigation?
GARSD: Well, first off, authorities still don't know why he allegedly went on this attack yesterday. He is now facing federal charges and up to life in prison for this. So to that end, authorities made it clear this investigation remains open, and they are still asking for tips on how and why James did this.
CHANG: OK. Well, while his motive remains unclear, you know, the shooting - it occurred as New Yorkers are being asked to start commuting back to their offices just as COVID numbers are declining. And, Jasmine, I understand that you were on the subway today. Like, what was the mood on these trains? What did it feel like to be inside?
GARSD: Well, this is a notoriously tough city. Almost everyone I spoke to told me they were just trying to go about their day as usual. In recent months, there have been very violent incidents on the subway, some deadly. Carlos Mannobanda (ph) was heading to a doctor's appointment this morning, and he said he was a little bit nervous. I asked him, what would make you feel better right now?
CARLOS MANNOBANDA: More police activity, interaction with customers and - presence, more presence, I think.
GARSD: I heard this from a few people on the subway this morning. But, you know, a lot of people I spoke to also told me they don't think the answer is more police. They pointed out that NYPD has already increased police presence in the subways before this latest shooting happened. Eli Garcia (ph) was heading to work, and he told me he wasn't nervous. He just felt that this was an anomaly. And I asked him, what should be done to avoid these types of violent outbursts?
ELI GARCIA: Fund services that will help the people that need the help. Like, homeless services, mental health are a great start.
GARSD: And this is kind of at the heart of the debate here in New York City and, I think, in cities across the U.S. We're seeing gun violence rise. And the question is, is the solution more police, better mental health and homeless services, all of the above? It's hard to say.
CHANG: Yeah. Well, I know that there was some criticism of how long it took to find this suspect. What do you make of that criticism? Was it fair?
GARSD: Well, you know, this has to do with the fact that at least one of the cameras at the station where the shooting happened weren't working. And people I spoke to today did express that. We pay taxes. We pay the transit system. Why don't we get the basics?
CHANG: That is NPR New York correspondent Jasmine Garsd. Thank you so much, Jasmine.
GARSD: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/the-suspected-gunman-in-the-new-york-city-subway-shooting-has-been-arrested | 2022-05-12T14:40:30Z |
DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST:
Ukraine is about to get more weapons and military equipment from the U.S. President Biden delivered the news to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy this afternoon. The $800 million in new security aid comes on top of more than $2.6 billion the Biden administration has already provided. This latest offering includes artillery systems, artillery rounds, armored personnel carriers and helicopters. It could dramatically increase Ukraine's ability to withstand the Russian onslaught in the next phase of the war.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby joins me now to talk more about the package and what it could mean for Ukraine. Mr. Kirby, welcome back to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
JOHN KIRBY: Thank you, Daniel. It's good to be with you today.
ESTRIN: Before we get to the new military aid, let's first talk about where the war is headed. Russian forces are gathering in eastern Ukraine, in the Donbas region. We are expecting a new assault. When might that happen? And what might it look like?
KIRBY: Difficult to know with great specificity exactly when their new offensive and push will occur. To some degree, elements of that have already started. They are flowing in fresh troops. They're flowing in artillery, even helicopter support, as well as other what we would call enablers, command and control capabilities, into the Donbas region. So they are clearly doing what we call shaping. They're setting the conditions for eventual more aggressive military operations. In the meantime, the forces that retreated out of Kyiv and out of Cherhiniv in the north are moving now to the east, across Belarus and into Russia, into Belgorod, for instance, and Valuyki and beginning to refit, resupply and get themselves ready for insertion. So, again, it's difficult to know exactly when more aggressive operations are going to be conducted, but we don't believe there's a whole lot of time between now and that moment. I would say perhaps weeks at the outset but maybe not even that long.
ESTRIN: Weeks. OK. So let's get to the new weapons package. The president's statement says that the U.S. is providing, quote, "new capabilities tailored to the wider assault we expect Russia to launch in eastern Ukraine." What exactly is the U.S. providing that is tailored to fighting in the east?
KIRBY: The most demonstrative example of that is the howitzers, the 18 howitzers and the 40,000 rounds of artillery that go along with those howitzers. When you look at the Donbas region and you look at the kind of capabilities that the Russians are flowing in, they're also flowing in artillery and tanks, what we call long-range fires. Now, these are rounds, these are rockets, these are shells that are designed to cause damage from a distance but not so far away as you need for a missile strike. So the Donbas region is relatively flat, not the same sort of geography that you had up in the north of Ukraine, not wooded, not forested, not hilly. And so it lends itself to more conventional warfare, like tanks and artillery. And so that's what we - that's why we put that in that package. It's also why, if you look in that package, you'll see counter-artillery radar because that can be a real lifesaver for the Ukrainians. Since we expect the Russians to use a lot of artillery in that region, this counter-artillery radar will help them defend against those threats.
ESTRIN: Well, can we speak specifically about the Russian missile threat projectiles? Because so far, half of the missiles fired into Ukraine have been mostly fired from the outside, from Russia, Belarus, the sea. Speak specifically about weaponry in this new package that can confront that missile threat.
KIRBY: Well, in addition to the counter-artillery radar, you'll see that there is an air defense radar - portable, towed from a vehicle - air defense radar system, several of them, as a matter of fact. And that will also help the Ukrainians defend against airstrikes in the Donbas. Now, I will add that the Ukrainians already have long-range air defense at their capability. They have short-range air defense as well. So this will add to their ability to deal with the increased air threat that will likely come from the Russians from airstrikes and missile strikes. And you're right, they're flying most of their missions, the manned missions. They are not venturing inside Ukrainian airspace because they know the Ukrainians have a sophisticated and nimble air defense capability.
ESTRIN: President Zelenskyy has been asking for more sophisticated weaponry since the very beginning of this war. Why didn't you give it to them earlier?
KIRBY: We have been in constant conversation with the Ukrainians about their needs. And the package that you're seeing today is actually an outgrowth of those conversations in just the last few days talking to the Ukrainians about this fight in the Donbas and what they could really use. We have tailored each package to what we think they're going to need the most. And that conversation will continue going forward.
ESTRIN: Now, this is a huge package. Are you concerned Russia could see all this weaponry as an escalation?
KIRBY: There's not a day that we don't think about escalation management, as we should. It's the responsible thing to do here at the Defense Department. But we also have a concomitant requirement and responsibility to help Ukraine defend itself against the kinds of threats that they're facing. And so every decision we make, we're balancing all that, but we're leaning as far forward as we can on helping Ukraine defend itself. That's the prerogative. That's the priority. And we can't predict perfectly how Mr. Putin is going to interpret these systems. But these are all systems designed to defend Ukraine, to help Ukraine defend itself.
ESTRIN: How quickly are you getting these weapons to the Ukrainians?
KIRBY: Very quickly. Now, look, I can't tell you that today. You know, the first shipment is going to be in the air, but it won't take long. In the past, in the last couple of packages that the president has signed, we've been able to go from the day he authorizes it to actually in the hands of Ukrainian fighters in as little - at least the initial shipments - in as little as six days - six days.
ESTRIN: And a quick answer...
KIRBY: So we're going to be moving very, very quickly here.
ESTRIN: ...How quickly can you get them trained up, the Ukrainians?
KIRBY: So not all these systems are going to require training, Daniel, maybe the artillery, perhaps the radar systems. And they are not that complicated. The Ukrainians know how to use artillery of their own. So we think we can begin doing some training of the trainers in a very short period of time. And that will obviously probably take place outside Ukraine, of course.
ESTRIN: John Kirby, Pentagon press secretary, thank you so much for speaking with us.
KIRBY: My pleasure. Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/the-u-s-will-provide-an-additional-800-million-in-security-aid-to-ukraine | 2022-05-12T14:40:36Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Next door to Ukraine, Poland has become a key player in Russia's war. As a member of the European Union and NATO, it is a strategic center of gravity for military and humanitarian aid, and it has welcomed Ukrainians who have fled. Yesterday, I sat down with Poland's ambassador to the United States. Marek Magieroweski said Poland is trying to integrate about 2.7 million refugees as quickly as possible.
MAREK MAGIEROWESKI: This outpouring of solidarity and sympathy towards our Ukrainian brethren has been really remarkable, and I'm so proud of my nation. On the other hand, Poland is filling up right now, so mayors of many Polish cities are now in talks with their counterparts and colleagues in Europe and beyond in order to find a solution - how to relocate those Ukrainian migrants. Of course, they are still welcome in Poland. We are ready to take in many more refugees.
FADEL: Right.
MAGIEROWESKI: For example...
FADEL: I mean, I was on the Polish border...
MAGIEROWESKI: Yeah.
FADEL: ...And I watched so many stream across the border, and it was striking to watch women and children - no men.
MAGIEROWESKI: Mostly.
FADEL: And they came in because, obviously...
MAGIEROWESKI: Ah. Yes.
FADEL: ...The men could not come out.
MAGIEROWESKI: Yeah. A few weeks ago, the Polish Parliament passed a law which essentially facilitates the integration of Ukrainian refugees into the Polish society. For example, they can apply for Polish IDs. They can set up their own businesses. They can send their children to Polish schools. By the way, about 180,000 Ukrainian children have already been incorporated into the Polish schooling system.
FADEL: You know, I have to ask you, though, Ambassador - when I was in Poland, it was incredible and heartwarming to watch the way Polish citizens just showed up to help strangers, but a lot of critics look at the policy when it came to Ukrainian refugees and compare it to the policies of a much smaller group of refugees - from places like Syria, from places like Afghanistan - where the Polish government decided to build a wall and not allow them to come in, and there was rhetoric like they might bring epidemics with them from the president.
MAGIEROWESKI: There was a distinct difference between these two migration crises because, in this case, when we are now facing that conflagration in Ukraine, Poland is the first country in which those refugees can seek asylum, unlike, in the case of all those African and Syrian and Iraqi refugees who were trying to cross the border with Poland illegally, pushed literally by the Belarusian military. So it was not a migration crisis. It was an artificially created conflict. The reaction of the Polish government was absolutely correct and justifiable.
FADEL: So what do you say to critics that want to paint it as something racial, frankly?
MAGIEROWESKI: It was definitely not. I would like to remind you that, after the Chechen Wars in the '90s, we admitted about 60,000 refugees from Chechnya because we came to the conclusion that it was our moral obligation to help those people who were oppressed, again, by the Russian invaders.
FADEL: Now, we've talked a lot about the humanitarian crisis, which Poland is on the front line of, but you're also on the front line of this actual war.
MAGIEROWESKI: Of the military crisis.
FADEL: Of the military crisis, exactly. And some of these strikes have been 30 miles from the Polish border. How concerned are you about a wider war engulfing Poland and Europe?
MAGIEROWESKI: Of course, we are pretty much concerned about this ongoing war. I think that we are dealing now with pure evil, and this has always been a very consistent stance of Poland, of the Polish authorities. We know Russia very well. We had foresight. We have always been trying to alert the world that those near-imperial ambitions of the people who are sitting in the Kremlin are really dangerous to the rest of the world. Ukraine is not the last item on Mr. Putin's menu, but if we have more U.S. and NATO troops on Polish soil, if we have more military equipment, if we are better armed - also as NATO member - the more secure we will feel in the future.
FADEL: What does that look like? Being better armed, having more troops - I mean, what are the asks here?
MAGIEROWESKI: We have purchased F-35s. We have purchased Abrams tanks. We are arming ourselves because we know very well - we are acutely aware of the fact that, in spite of being a member of NATO, we have to be ready to defend ourselves. I don't believe in a major confrontation between NATO and Russia right now, and that's why we have to arm Ukraine. We have to deliver them the most sophisticated weapons.
FADEL: Should they be getting fighter jets? I mean, that was something that, over...
MAGIEROWESKI: I will explain this to you.
FADEL: ...A bunch of diplomatic missteps...
MAGIEROWESKI: Yeah.
FADEL: ...It didn't go through.
MAGIEROWESKI: There was a controversy...
FADEL: Right.
MAGIEROWESKI: ...Also surrounding our Soviet-made aircraft. They account - those MiGs that you have just mentioned account for one-third of our fleet of combat aircraft. We can't deplete our fleet by one-third. It would be absolutely absurd and unacceptable in terms of our defense policy, and that's why we came up with that proposal to put those aircraft at the disposal of NATO. Those are not only Polish aircraft. Those are also NATO aircraft, and it should be a unanimous decision and a common effort of all NATO member countries to decide whether the Ukrainians should be supplied with these aircraft.
FADEL: So do you agree with the decision so far that these fighter jets have not gone to Ukraine?
MAGIEROWESKI: The proposal is still on the table. Again, we should move on and find the right solutions - how to arm Ukraine in the most effective manner - because I don't believe in a diplomatic solution of this conflict. I do believe in a military solution - namely, a definitive and total defeat of the Russian Army in Ukraine.
FADEL: But how does a military victory come about without also a diplomatic path?
MAGIEROWESKI: Believe me, that transfer of military equipment to Ukraine has been massive over the last few weeks, and they are capable - they will be capable of crushing the Russian Army. And if we talk about a hypothetical end of those hostilities, there are some conditions that the international community should set to Russia. They should withdraw all their troops, not only from Ukraine proper, but also from those territories annexed and occupied since 2014 - from Crimea and from those two Eastern republics. They should pay war reparations to Ukraine. Ukraine is now devastated. And all those war criminals who have committed unspeakable crimes in Ukraine should be tried and sentenced.
FADEL: And my last question - and you got at this a little bit, but is Poland preparing for war?
MAGIEROWESKI: We are always prepared for war. And of course, in light of this growing aggressiveness of the Russian Federation and President Putin himself, we need to be even better prepared. On a final note, he wants to win the Cold War - not the new Cold War. He wants to win the Cold War which ended at the beginning of the '90s.
FADEL: I guess that's why I just can't imagine a situation in which Vladimir Putin says, OK, I'll accept defeat in the way that this has gone.
MAGIEROWESKI: Maybe he will not accept defeat, but maybe his society will understand that that's enough. That's enough.
FADEL: Ambassador, a pleasure to speak with you. Thank you so much for your time.
MAGIEROWESKI: Thank you very much.
FADEL: Marek Magieroweski is Poland's ambassador to the United States.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/theres-no-diplomatic-path-to-end-russias-assault-on-ukraine-polish-diplomat-says | 2022-05-12T14:40:42Z |
DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST:
Two prison guards in Illinois are standing trial on federal civil rights charges this week. They're accused of beating 65-year-old Larry Earvin so severely, he died. A third guard has already pleaded guilty. But there's evidence the pattern of abuse is much broader. Shannon Heffernan with member station WBEZ's Motive podcast reports.
SHANNON HEFFERNAN, BYLINE: In 2018, Larry Earvin was allegedly beaten by staff in a part of Western Illinois Correctional Center that is known for having no cameras. His autopsy showed almost half his ribs were fractured, and his cause of death was listed as homicide after a, quote, "altercation with staff." But in order to understand the broader implications of this trial, it's important to know what happened in the years before Earvin's death. WBEZ identified nine additional people who reported very similar stories to Earvin's - beatings, often in the same part of the prison, sometimes even by the same guards. One of those alleged victims is Roger Latimer. He says that in 2017, he was dragged down a sidewalk and taken to an area of the prison not under camera surveillance.
ROGER LATIMER: At that point, the officer on the left starts kicking me with his boots, over and over again. It was very terrifying. I thought I was - this is the way I die - is I get kicked to death.
HEFFERNAN: Latimer's medical records from an outside hospital indicate he had four rib fractures, bruises and a concussion. The nurse wrote in her records that she tried to take pictures of Latimer's injuries, but guards would not let her. She wrote that the patient said, quote, "They're just trying to cover this up. No one will know what they did to me if you don't take the pictures." When Latimer heard about Larry Earvin's death, he recalled all the ways he tried to report his experience - contacting prison officials and local prosecutors.
LATIMER: It was like, gee, it sounded like he was dragged down a sidewalk and kicked in the ribs. It's like - so this is still happening. It's so upsetting because I tried to reach out.
HEFFERNAN: The Illinois Department of Corrections would not answer a detailed list of questions about the blind spot where men report being beaten. Officials also would not answer questions about why no action was taken, despite documented reports of abuse. In a written statement, they said they installed more cameras since Earvin's death, but they insist footage should not be available to journalists or the public. Jenny Vollen-Katz is with the John Howard Association, a nonpartisan prison watchdog group, and says cameras are not enough. She argues that information of what happens behind prison walls needs to be available to people outside the corrections department.
JENNY VOLLEN-KATZ: When all of that information is only reported internally, we tend to see, you know, a lack of response, which is deeply concerning, but also unfortunately not unusual in a correctional environment.
HEFFERNAN: The trial that is underway is of two of the men accused of beating Earvin - Alex Banta and Todd Sheffler. A third, Willie Hedden, has already pleaded guilty. But the trial has raised issues about the system beyond those three guards. Several staff have already testified they saw co-workers beating Earvin and did nothing to stop it. Earvin's daughter-in-law, Toscia Pippion, was at the trial and says the problem is bigger than just the three men who've been charged.
TOSCIA PIPPION: Everybody should be held accountable for what they did. I don't care if you kicked him. I don't care if you pushed him. He needs to be held accountable for it.
HEFFERNAN: Neither of the guards on trial agreed to an interview. If the jury finds them guilty, they could face a sentence up to life in prison.
For NPR News, I'm Shannon Heffernan.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/trial-begins-for-illinois-guards-accused-of-beating-a-prisoner-so-severely-he-died | 2022-05-12T14:40:48Z |
DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST:
We recently asked you, our audience, to share the stories of people who brighten the day and enrich the lives of those in their communities. I think we all deserve a break from the daily news. So you wrote in, and today we want you to know about...
FIONNUALA AND CEILIDH CLIMER: Mr. Alvin.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
That is Fionnuala and Ceilidh Climer. They're 5 years old, and they're twins from Skokie, Ill.
ESTRIN: Now, Mr. Alvin is Alvin Carter. He drives their school bus and is a custodian at Elizabeth Meyer School. Fionnuala says this is how he greets them every morning.
FIONNUALA CLIMER: Hello, No. 1 princess. Hello, No. 2 princess.
ESTRIN: And she says on the days that you wear a dress...
FIONNUALA: He says, can I borrow your dress? And I say, no, and I start laughing.
CHANG: Siobahn Climer, the twins' mom, says she knew about Mr. Alvin even before she met him.
SIOBAHN CLIMER: I heard about him from our neighbors, whose kids were in middle school and high school. They're like, oh, when you go to kindergarten, you're going to get Mr. Alvin.
CHANG: Mr. Alvin has been driving the school bus for 28 years for the same school and always for the kindergarteners.
ALVIN CARTER: I love them.
ESTRIN: Mr. Alvin has eight children of his own. They're adults now, but he says the kids on his bus remind him of when they were young. Over the years, Mr. Alvin has tried to retire, and his children tell him it's time, but he says he just can't.
CARTER: I remember the faces I see in the morning. I'm like, oh, I can't do this. I got to be there.
CHANG: He has got to be there, even at lunchtime.
CARTER: I'm sitting in the lunch room with them, and it's like, I can't leave. I can't even leave to go eat lunch because we always have conversation, conversation, conversation, conversation.
CHANG: Those conversations, those relationships, everything got put on hold when school closed during the pandemic. Mr. Alvin says a few months in, he heard that kids and parents were worried about him, so he revved up the empty school bus, and he drove it around to kids' houses.
CARTER: I stop, and I honk, and I stand at the window to let them see that I'm OK. There's a little one in the bus right now that she used to stand by the window with her older brother and sister just to wave at me.
ESTRIN: In addition to taking them to and from school, Mr. Alvin hopes to motivate each student on his bus.
CARTER: Because I would like them to be successful in life. So if it starts at kindergarten, then it might continue.
ESTRIN: While he doesn't claim any credit, some of his former students are now doctors, nurses and engineers. Mr. Alvin still honks at them when he sees them and loves to run into them. But he says, sometimes it's just too much.
CARTER: Sometimes I got to try and, like, hide because I run into so many of them in Target. I'm like, oh, boy. Like, you try to hide, but they still come find you. I don't know how, but they know, oh, there's Mr. Alvin over there.
CHANG: Try as he might, he just cannot hide. And, really, you know, little stops him from chatting, as Ceilidh has witnessed.
CEILIDH CLIMER: He talks to people even if it's snowstorm or rainstorm. He is very special.
CHANG: And if you want to tell us about someone special in your community, find us on Twitter at @npratc. There's a pinned tweet right at the top.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE WHO SONG, "MAGIC BUS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/veteran-school-bus-driver-has-brought-joy-to-children-and-the-community-for-decades | 2022-05-12T14:40:50Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Good morning. I'm Leila Fadel.
Eleven-year-old Andrii Sidorov of Kyiv was forced to leave behind his prized collection of Legos when he fled to Ireland. He was safe there. But Andrii's father tells The Washington Post his son felt lost. So his father posted on Facebook, asking people for any Legos they could spare. Within a day, they were flooded with packages from strangers as far away as Australia. Andrii now has more Legos than he did in Ukraine, making a difference far from home.
It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/when-a-ukrainian-boy-fled-kyiv-he-left-behind-his-lego-collection | 2022-05-12T14:40:56Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
The idea of buying an electric vehicle is gaining momentum around the country, but it's mostly about sedans and hatchbacks, and those aren't necessarily the most popular choice in rural America, where the pickup is king. The startup Rivian has been making plug-in trucks since September, and now the big automakers are entering the arena. Ford's F-150 Lightning comes out this spring. Chevy and GMC also have their own electric trucks in the works. As Elizabeth Rembert of Nebraska Public Media reports, the electric pickup may be what helps rural America embrace more green vehicles.
ELIZABETH REMBERT, BYLINE: Kent Urwiller drives a Tesla around rural Nebraska. He says it's a real conversation starter, especially for the crowd at the local convenience store, where trucks usually fill the parking lot.
KENT URWILLER: There was a bunch of old farmers in there, and one of them was like, I might think about getting one of those if I can get a pickup. And then another one was like, no way in hell i'm getting one of those. And I was like, it is really nice. And they asked me if I did it just to go green, and I'm like, no, I actually got it just because I wanted to try something different.
REMBERT: Urwiller himself is interested in the electric pickup. He's a Chevy enthusiast, proud of his pristine 1984 Chevy Silverado. He's looking at the Ford e-truck to see if it would work for the fleet of pickups he has at his internet service company.
URWILLER: Our guys usually go, like, less than 150 miles a day. And we have a fuel barrel out here on our property, and we are filling it once every 8 to 10 days.
REMBERT: Getting away from gas is a big plus for rural drivers as fuel costs spike. They quickly add up when you have to trek long distances to grocery stores or schools. And Ford is trying to convince customers it has an electric vehicle that can handle life in the country. Ford claims its truck has a driving range of up to 320 miles and can tow 10,000 pounds. You can plug tools into it, and it can power a house for up to three days. Larry Lynch lives in Michigan and runs a YouTube account with videos about electric vehicles. He signed up for the truck and says he's been surprised by the buzz an electric pickup is generating among rural drivers.
LARRY LYNCH: I get half the people who are, like, just hardcore truck, rural truck guys who are just excited for this. I didn't think traditional truck people would be so interested as they are.
REMBERT: Brad Brodine farms in Nebraska and says technology has been good for agriculture. After all, he's now using huge, sophisticated tractors and harvesters after growing up watching his dad plow behind a horse.
BRAD BRODINE: Farmers kind of sit back, and we want to make sure things are going to work because everything's expensive. We don't mind trying new things. You know, if we think it's going to work, we're pretty excited about it because innovation has been a good thing in agriculture.
REMBERT: John Murphy follows the auto industry for Bank of America and says rural drivers are key to EVs catching on. He says all of the electric truck options could bring a transformation to rural America.
JOHN MURPHY: Electric pickups may drive the real tipping point for electric vehicles, meaning your mainstream Midwestern truck buyer may join the forces of the Teslas on the coast to really start tipping the scale.
REMBERT: Wanda Young is a chief marketing officer at Ford. She says the automaker knew it needed to get the Lightning right for old-school drivers who identify so strongly with their trucks.
WANDA YOUNG: You cannot separate a farmer from their truck. You know, it's just like their favorite pair of jeans. We get to see so many of our customers who are coming in, and they're from all different kinds of vocations, from plumbers to landscapers to electricians. And they are talking about how to make this transition to electric.
REMBERT: Even if rural drivers take their time before embracing electric, it does seem the demand for an electric truck may already be there. Ford has already increased its production capacity to meet demand, and about 75% of the people who signed up for the F-150 Lightning so far are new to Ford, suggesting they're not trading in their old gas F-150s just yet. For NPR News, I'm Elizabeth Rembert in Lincoln, Neb. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-13/will-electric-pickup-trucks-get-rural-america-to-switch-from-gas-to-electric | 2022-05-12T14:41:02Z |
Most people know Edmond Rostand's 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac as a romantic, swashbuckling classic, staged with swords and capes and a big prosthetic nose. But a new production opening Wednesday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, with film star James McAvoy as Cyrano, dispenses with all that.
Instead, there's beatboxing, a multiracial cast in modern dress and Scottish actor McAvoy with his own regular-sized nose, rapping about how very large it is. Cyrano tells the story of a romantic triangle — the poetic soldier Cyrano loves the beautiful and witty Roxane, who in turn loves the handsome, but tongue-tied Christian. So, Cyrano helps the young man win Roxane by providing him with the words he doesn't have.
"This is about three people who are objectified and who suffer because of their objectification," says McAvoy. "Whether they're objectified because they are beautiful or ugly or not. It's about the feeling. And I think that not having the nose allows us to see all their pain." And wit. And passion.
The spartan staging, where actors frequently speak into microphones and sit looking directly at the audience, instead of each other, provides a feeling of closeness. "From an acting point of view, it makes eye contact feel so intimate," says Evelyn Miller, whose Roxane is portrayed as a college student wearing a denim jumpsuit. "To turn and look [at another actor], after doing a five-minute scene where you haven't looked at them at all — you've just been listening profoundly and intensely — to suddenly turn and make eye contact feels so intimate."
Listening to the language profoundly and intensely in this contemporary adaptation is what director Jamie Lloyd is after — not just for the actors, but for the audience. "We paint on the back wall ... a particular sentence that Cyrano says: 'I love words. That's all,'" he says. "And in a way, that became the kind of defining idea of the entire production; it was only about the words, in a play that features characters that are obsessed with language."
He says they use language in ways that can be wonderful or damaging. At one point, Cyrano wins a duel, purely with his linguistic gifts. You don't need to see a sword to know that he's cut his opponent to the quick.
Lloyd commissioned playwright Martin Crimp to write the adaptation. Since Crimp is fluent in French, he read the Rostand in the original. "The thing that I responded to most strongly as a writer is the language, is the virtuosic display," Crimp says. "One rule [for me] was that the rhyming couplets were really important. If I got rid of those, I'd be throwing out the baby with the bathwater."
Lloyd highlights the language in different ways: Because the actors talk directly into their microphones, they can speak softly and everyone in the theater can hear them. "In many ways, it's more like screen acting than stage acting," he says. "And, in fact, even more than that, it's more like radio acting."
For McAvoy, the style of this nose-less Cyrano, which has played in Glasgow and won an Olivier for Best Revival in London, forces audiences to lean in. "I've never experienced silences in the audience like this," the actor says. "I've experienced pauses and things like that. But the silence in the audience is unbelievable."
It's a response McAvoy hopes Cyrano gets from Brooklyn audiences, as well.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/a-stripped-down-cyrano-a-london-import-is-all-about-language | 2022-05-12T14:41:08Z |
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer is promising a transparent investigation after video showed a Grand Rapids police officer shooting a driver in the back of the head. The video shows this happened after the officer and driver struggled outside the car. Last night, people protested the death of Patrick Lyoya. Reporter Dustin Dwyer of Michigan Radio is in Grand Rapids and is covering this story.
DUSTIN DWYER, BYLINE: It was Monday morning, 10 days ago, 8:11 a.m. A Grand Rapids, Mich., police officer stops a driver in a residential neighborhood. Police say the reason for the stop was that the license plate on that car didn't match the description of the vehicle. And as that traffic stop that turned into a foot chase, then a struggle, and it ended with the police officer shooting and killing Patrick Lyoya.
INSKEEP: And a lot of this is captured on video. We're going to play a little bit of one of the videos that was released Wednesday by the Grand Rapids Police Department. This begins as a traffic stop. You see the officer pull Lyoya over, and Lyoya, instead of staying in the car, which is what they tell you to do, steps out of the car. And then there's a conversation on the street. Let's listen.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER: Can I see your license?
PATRICK LYOYA: What did I do wrong?
UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER: The plate doesn't belong on this car. Do you have a license or no?
INSKEEP: You hear him saying, what did I do wrong? What happens next?
DWYER: Well, he sounds confused at first. And then what Lyoya tries to do is he starts to kind of walk away from the officer, and then that officer tries to grab him, and Lyoya then runs away. The officer chases after him. You see a struggle. That struggle goes on for more than a minute. Toward the end of this bodycam video, you do see Lyoya reach for the officer's Taser and grab it. And that's - just after that, the police officer's bodycam actually becomes deactivated in this struggle.
INSKEEP: I guess we should be clear. The officer still has his hand on the Taser, has the finger on the trigger, but Lyoya has grabbed the barrel of the Taser at that last second. Then that cam goes away. There are other angles, however, from other cameras, including a cell phone video taken by a passenger in a car, and that captures the actual shooting. What does it show us?
DWYER: Well, it shows us that the Taser goes off twice. And then you see that Lyoya and this officer are on the ground struggling. The officer tells Lyoya to let go of the Taser. Lyoya at this point is facedown. The officer is on top of him, kind of straddling him, trying to push and keep him down. And lastly, you see the officer then reach for the gun at his hip and shoots at the back of Lyoya's head. And that's the shot that kills him.
INSKEEP: Just a shocking moment. How have people in Grand Rapids responded to this?
DWYER: Well, there's anger. There's grief. A lot of people had heard this video described in the past ten days. There had been a number of demonstrations calling for these videos to be released. It's been tense this whole time. There were demonstrations last night. Robert S. Womack is a county commissioner. He's spoken to the Lyoya family, who has called this an execution. The Lyoya family - they're Congolese refugees who came to this country fleeing violence. Womack said he saw the video, and he said it did add extra context to the struggle that led to the shooting.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ROBERT S WOMACK: But at the same time, whenever you put your knee on a person's back and you take out a gun and you put it to their head, in our community, they look at it as an execution.
DWYER: But what Womack wants now is he says he wants to see charges against this police officer. And for now, Michigan State Police are still investigating. And until that investigation is complete, Grand Rapids says it's not releasing the name of the officer.
INSKEEP: Dustin, thanks for the update.
DWYER: Thank you.
INSKEEP: That's Dustin Dwyer of Michigan Radio. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/a-video-shows-a-michigan-officer-on-a-black-mans-back-before-he-fatally-shot-him | 2022-05-12T14:41:10Z |
What Mark Sheridan was asking for used to be commonplace.
He says he just wanted a little more time.
Sheridan, a longtime Republican campaign attorney, represented the GOP candidate for governor in New Jersey, Jack Ciattarelli, during his campaign last year.
New Jersey's 2021 election followed a story similar to 2020's: On election night, the Republican, Ciattarelli, was ahead, but as more votes were counted across the state, the race tightened and then flipped in favor of Democrat Phil Murphy.
Six days after Election Day, tens of thousands of votes remained uncounted, and it was still possible those votes could move Ciattarelli into a position where his campaign would want a recount.
For that reason, Ciattarelli held out from conceding the race, which — before 2020 and former President Donald Trump's sustained campaign against the U.S. voting system — may have gone mostly unnoticed. (Trump still has not conceded that election and continues to insist without evidence that he won.)
But post-2020, candidate concessions, as well as the role they play in a functioning democracy, have taken on a new and prominent spotlight.
Murphy, Ciattarelli's opponent, called the decision to wait "incredibly dangerous."
Sheridan, Ciattarelli's campaign attorney, was in the awkward spot of explaining to reporters that the campaign was waiting for more votes to be counted before conceding, without seeming like the campaign was calling the election's integrity into question.
Sheridan didn't believe Trump's lies about election fraud, but he could sense that the Ciattarelli campaign was being lumped in the same category.
"The pressure started to mount," Sheridan said. "I made it clear to [reporters] that we're simply waiting to see where the vote total takes us. And I had no interest in becoming Rudy Giuliani standing in front of a mulch pile, making crazy statements about election fraud," he said, referencing Giuliani's infamous appearance at a landscaping business in Philadelphia.
Ciattarelli conceded the race a few days later — 10 days after Election Day.
But experts say the pressure that surrounded that decision and the intense scrutiny that came with it are a preview of 2022, when concessions will be monitored like never before, as more candidates may feel emboldened by Trump not to admit defeat.
No requirement to concede
The concessions process — when a losing candidate admits defeat in an election, often in a speech and with a phone call to the winning candidate — may be the most important part of democracy that isn't enshrined anywhere in law.
"Concessions are a norm," says Amel Ahmed, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. "There is a legal requirement to vacate office, but that's the only legal requirement. Concession is just a ritual."
The reason the U.S. celebrates Inauguration Day with a parade and with pomp and circumstance, Ahmed says, is because each transfer of power in a democracy is almost like a leap of faith for the entire institution.
In more fragile democracies, the time after election day is a delicate, dangerous time, so a concession goes a long way toward calming a losing candidate's supporters.
"For any of us who study democracy, it is that moment where you just hold your breath," Ahmed says.
And over the past few years, since Trump began his misinformation campaign against U.S. voting, experts in the U.S. have been holding their breath a lot.
Republican candidates like California's Larry Elder have used tactics similar to Trump's in the time leading up to Election Day, leading to fears that they would similarly question the results afterward if they lost.
"So there are all sorts of reasons why the 2020 election, in my opinion, was full of shenanigans," Elder said before the gubernatorial recall election last year in California. "And my fear is they're going to try that in this election right here in recall."
Elder did concede after he lost, as did Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the governor's race in Virginia, in the other high-profile contest of 2021.
But Matt Masterson, who oversaw election security efforts within the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency leading up to Election Day 2020, says he expects more candidates to push the boundaries on concessions in 2022, since Trump faced so few consequences for not conceding in 2020.
"I think we have to assume that in some cases, hopefully not many cases, but the incentive structure suggests that perhaps in more and more cases, the loser will not accept [defeat]," Masterson says.
The time period after voting has stopped but before election results are certified is also considered among the most fertile times for conspiracy theories to flourish, because people are so hungry for information.
Sheridan, the Republican attorney in New Jersey, traced the current shift in concessions further back than Trump, although he did say the former president has worsened the problem.
"It goes back to Stacey Abrams. She still has never conceded that Georgia gubernatorial race," Sheridan said. "So we've got ... years of people calling into question elections any time they're close."
More than a week after voting ended in Georgia in 2018, Abrams gave a carefully worded speech in which she accused her opponent, then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp, of voter suppression, while also acknowledging he would be certified the victor of the election.
"You see, I'm supposed to say nice things and accept my fate. They will complain that I should not use this moment to recap what was done wrong or to demand a remedy," she said. "And I will not concede because the erosion of our democracy is not right."
Abrams is running for governor in Georgia again this year, potentially setting up a rematch of that election, should Kemp win the Republican nomination.
What election officials can do
For local election officials, waiting to see how candidates behave during the time when votes are being tallied is among the most unpredictable parts of the job.
Masterson says election officials essentially need to plan as if candidates won't concede and be prepared to clearly communicate with voters about how the process actually works in case candidates lob accusations.
"We have to continue to push out information to voters to resist that mis- or disinformation," he says.
David Maeda, the state elections director in Minnesota, says he was recently at a training conference for city clerks where one of the main themes was developing simple one-page explanations for voting processes.
Maeda says he hasn't heard of local candidates in Minnesota avoiding concessions. "But that will be something to watch this fall," he says.
Ahmed, of UMass Amherst, says if indeed more candidates decide not to concede in elections, that will be a sign of other dangerous things to come, like more political violence.
People need to believe they have a fair shot to compete in the democratic system, she says; otherwise they'll be motivated to disrupt that system any way they can.
"Candidates don't realize they're really playing with fire," Ahmed says.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/after-2020-a-candidate-conceding-an-election-is-no-longer-a-sure-thing | 2022-05-12T14:41:16Z |
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
In 1957, a pharmacist known as Billy Miller had just moved to Bangor, Maine, when he got a call from an old friend.
BILLY MILLER: He said, there's a triangle part in an upcoming symphony concert in September. Would you like to play it? And I said, sure. Why not?
CHANG: That triangle part led to another gig and then another, adding up to 65 years as a percussionist in the Bangor Symphony Orchestra in Maine.
DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST:
It was just a community orchestra in 1957. Miller says a lot has changed.
MILLER: We've done nothing but improve from year to year. Every time we got a new conductor, he took us to another level.
ESTRIN: Miller has now worked with seven conductors at the Bangor Symphony Orchestra. These days, it's a professional ensemble under the baton of Grammy Award-winning music director Lucas Richman.
CHANG: Miller has also helped the orchestra by fundraising and managing personnel and even serving on the board, all while running his family drugstore. Today, the principal percussion chair in the BSO is endowed in his honor.
MILLER: I got everybody fooled. They think I'm great. They think when I hit a simple crash cymbal, it's great, or a triangle beat. But I proved this weekend that I wasn't perfect.
ESTRIN: Well, what happened last weekend? Miller played his last performance ever with the orchestra. But when he came up to give his farewell address, he made a confession.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MILLER: I have to tell you the truth. Right now I'm having a situation where I couldn't find my suspenders.
(LAUGHTER)
MILLER: If you'll notice, my right hand is holding my pants up.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: We love you, wardrobe malfunctions and everything.
CHANG: Billy Miller retired from the drugstore 10 years ago, and he's 87 years old now. But he has no plans to stop playing music. He says it's like ice cream.
MILLER: I want more (laughter), more ice cream. I never had enough ice cream in my life. Did you?
(SOUNDBITE OF BANGOR SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PERFORMANCE OF HALL'S "GREETING TO BANGOR")
ESTRIN: That's "Greeting To Bangor" by composer R.B. Hall, performed by the Bangor Symphony Orchestra last weekend. And that's Billy Miller banging in Bangor on the bass drum.
(SOUNDBITE OF BANGOR SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PERFORMANCE OF HALL'S "GREETING TO BANGOR") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/after-65-years-percussionist-finally-says-farewell-to-bangor-symphony-orchestra | 2022-05-12T14:41:22Z |
Fanned by 100 mile an hour winds in the dead of winter, the Marshall Fire raced into the suburbs east of Boulder last December. It burned from home to home, igniting a whole shopping center and a hotel.
More than three months later, that hotel's eerie four story high elevator shaft is the only thing that remains in the rubble. Suburban neighborhoods around the Boulder turnpike are leveled. More than a thousand homes were destroyed, making Marshall the most destructive wildfire ever in Colorado. The steady hum of giant bulldozers is heard all around, as the machines scoop up twisted burnt debris; torched patio furniture, smashed ceramic garden pots and even the skeletons of charred cars.
"When I drive through our neighborhood and it looks like a war zone, I can't help but just be still shocked," says Lonni Pearce, who lost everything in the fire.
The University of Colorado professor was underinsured - a common problem after disasters - and she's not sure she and her family will rebuild. For now, they feel lucky to have found a place nearby to rent. But this spring, as the fierce winds like those that whipped the Marshall Fire into an inferno have returned to the area, so has the trauma.
"It just felt like, ok, can this really be happening again?" Pearce says.
So many red flags
It's become hard to remember a day recently when the heavily populated - and tinder dry - Colorado Front Range wasn't under a red flag warning for extreme fire danger. Since the Marshall Fire, there have been several close calls, including the recent NCAR Fire, which forced Arzelia Walker to briefly evacuate her home of forty years in south Boulder.
"You sort of start to feel anxious," Walker says, referring to the winds. "The fact that the Marshall Fire was in the dead of winter is terrifying."
Like a lot of this college town of about 100,000 people at the doorstep of the Rocky Mountains, Walker's neighborhood abuts open space and forest land.
"Our big winds tend to come in the winter so that's not been a problem so much in the past because there's been snow," she says.
But climate change has made winters warmer and drier. The irony of the NCAR Fire, named after the climate change research lab it threatened, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, wasn't lost on many Boulderites. Fortunately, firefighters got a handle on it before it got bigger than 200 acres though.
"Definitely a scare," says Brian Oliver, the wildland division chief for Boulder Fire. "You can see the neighborhood just a couple hundred yards away from the fire line, that black edge there."
Boulder is on edge
On a recent windy afternoon, Oliver stood on the mesa where NCAR sits, with its 360 degree view of the city and its striking flatiron rock formations. Red flag warnings prompted him to station fire engines in strategic places around town. A pair of heavy air tankers was also on call in nearby Fort Collins, assuming it was safe for them to fly in the wind.
"There's definitely a feeling of, I'm not sure the word to use, on edge is a good way to put it," Oliver says. "Because we haven't gotten a break."
Fires, floods, the pandemic, a mass shooting a year ago at the grocery store just down the hill, Oliver says it's been relentless. When the NCAR fire ignited, evacuation alerts went out to an estimated 19,000 people, more than probably needed it, and traffic was bottlenecked. But Oliver says he'd rather be overly cautious than have people trapped behind a fire. Firefighters will never be able to stop modern wildfires like these.
"I equate that to trying to fight a hurricane," he says. "We don't mobilize a force to go turn a hurricane around. We get everybody out of the way and then we try to come back in and clean up after we can."
These aren't the wildfires burning into newly built communities out in the woods and wildland that lately have grabbed headlines. Boulder capped growth and sprawl some 40 years ago. But climate change, Oliver says, is bringing the fires into the city.
Get ready for fire years, not seasons
Federal leaders, including Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, toured Boulder County this week trying to sound that alarm. One of their stops was the still charred hillsides of the Calwood Fire in a canyon north of town. In late October of 2020, it burned about 10,000 acres and destroyed homes. The same day, what had been the state's largest wildfire until last year, the Cameron Peak Fire, also ignited in neighboring Larimer County.
"It is clear that fire seasons no longer exist here in Colorado, we have fire years," says Rep. Joe Neguse, the Democratic congressman who represents the two counties. "It is all the more reason and motivation for us to take wildfire mitigation and resiliency seriously."
Neguse touted the $130 million in new fire funding in the infrastructure law President Biden signed in November. It will go to prevention and hiring more fire crews in the western states.
The spending plan won't help the scores of people in crisis in Boulder County right now. But Lonni Pearce, whose home burned down last December, found the news encouraging.
"It feels like this is a little bit of a tipping point," she says. " Okay, things are really real now and we need to, not just as individuals, but as communities, start to do things differently."
From changing landscaping around homes to building codes, Pearce says, westerners have to live with fire now, even in cities.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/after-a-rough-year-new-wildfire-warnings-have-boulder-colo-on-edge | 2022-05-12T14:41:29Z |
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Every war ripples out beyond the immediate conflict zone, and here's one way Russia's war on Ukraine could have consequences across many continents. Russia and Ukraine are two of the world's biggest grain producers. The war has broken supply chains. And so while many Ukrainians are going hungry now, this may soon lead to food shortages across Africa, the Middle East and other regions. David Beasley is executive director of the World Food Programme, and he joins us now from Kyiv. Welcome.
DAVID BEASLEY: Thank you, Ari - good to be with you.
SHAPIRO: All right. Let's start with where you are now in Ukraine and then zoom out. Last year Ukraine was the biggest provider of food by volume to your organization. Fifty percent of the World Food Programme's wheat came from Ukraine. And this is the season when farmers would ordinarily be planting. As you travel across the country, what are you seeing?
BEASLEY: Well, you're seeing devastation, families torn apart from their communities and having to flee from harm's way. And everybody's very concerned about, No. 1, how are they going to feed the people inside Ukraine? No. 2, how do you keep the economy afloat here? And No. 3, how do we make certain that we can get these very precious and critical food supplies to the millions of - actually, billions of people around the world that depend upon this Ukrainian food?
SHAPIRO: How difficult is it for Ukrainians to find food right now?
BEASLEY: Inside Ukraine, it is difficult, particularly in the war-stricken areas. We're doing everything we possibly can to reach these people, the hardest-to-reach people.
SHAPIRO: Now let's talk about what this means for hungry people in other parts of the world. Half of Africa's wheat imports come from Ukraine and Russia. So what happens if this growing season is disrupted?
BEASLEY: You first need to understand is before the Ukrainian war, we were already seeing a spike in fuel costs, food costs, shipping costs. And just when you think it couldn't get any worse, boom, Afghanistan, and then boom, Ukraine. So now we are already cutting dozens of millions of people down to half rations, like, for example, Yemen. Imagine telling your child, I can only feed you half of what you need this month. And...
SHAPIRO: You're talking about the increased cost of the food, but is the food even going to be there if farmers are not planting their fields because their fields have become a war zone?
BEASLEY: Ari, this is a catastrophe because guess where the Ukrainian farmers are right now. They're on the frontlines fighting for the freedom of their country. It's going to have an impact on the entire world. No doubt in my mind, the devastation that it will have on our operations could truly lead to not just starvation but destabilization of nations and mass migration.
SHAPIRO: How does mass hunger and starvation lead to global destabilization and mass migration?
BEASLEY: When people don't have food, when they can't feed their little girl or their little boy, they're going to do whatever they got to do, including leaving home. And people don't want to leave home. I can tell you from experience that people will not leave their home if they have food and some degree of peace. But if they don't have both of those, they would do what any mom and dad in any place on the planet Earth would do. They're going to find that place where they can feed their family.
SHAPIRO: You're painting a picture of a very dark future. Let's talk about what could be done to avoid that. Obviously, it would help if the war in Ukraine ended. Obviously, it would help if climate change were addressed. If those two things are not addressed, are there steps the international community could take to avoid this worst-case scenario?
BEASLEY: Well, I have been saying all along, even before the Ukrainian war, if you can end these wars, we can end world hunger. We're facing a daunting task ahead of us, and it's going to require everybody working together - private sector, government sector, United Nations, NGOs, everyone willing to help out in ways they have not thought of before.
SHAPIRO: That's the World Food Programme's executive director David Beasley. Thank you for joining us.
BEASLEY: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF TYCHO'S "DYE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/as-the-war-in-ukraine-continues-so-does-the-threat-to-a-global-food-crisis | 2022-05-12T14:41:30Z |
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Today, Frank R. James has a court appearance on federal terrorism charges. He's the man accused of entering a crowded subway train car on Tuesday morning, setting off smoke grenades and opening fire with a gun. Ten people were hit by bullets, 13 others injured in the understandable panic. NPR's Quil Lawrence joins us from New York. Quil, good morning.
QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE: Good morning.
INSKEEP: What's known about Mr. James?
LAWRENCE: He was born in New York. He's lived in many other places, including Philadelphia, Milwaukee. He's 62 years old. He's got a string of criminal charges against him in the 1990s, but no felonies. Police say that if he'd had a felony, he wouldn't have been able to purchase the 9 mm handgun, which NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig said he bought out of state.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JAMES ESSIG: The gun used in this, a 9 mm Glock, which was recovered at this crime scene, was purchased by Mr. James in 2011 in Ohio.
LAWRENCE: And that was the pistol that was discovered at the crime scene and was traced back to James. The rest is whatever we can figure out from these long, bigoted, ranting videos he posted online, which include references to his own possible mental health issues and criticism of New York City Mayor Eric Adams and crime in the city.
INSKEEP: So we get a sense there that any motive here is going to be rather confused at best, but what other evidence might suggest what he intended?
LAWRENCE: I mean, it seems like he was preparing for something big. The police found this rented van. They found gasoline, more smoke grenades, a hatchet. And in - there was more ammunition abandoned at the scene. But also, in what appeared to be his former residences, there was ammunition and weapons discovered. So it's not easy to say what else he might have been planning, whether this attack went as he planned it. It's unclear.
INSKEEP: In any event, he's going to do no more because he was apprehended yesterday. There have been so many stories about the chase for him and the way that the police tried to track him down in the city. How, in fact, was he apprehended?
LAWRENCE: Yeah. So he was named as a person of interest when they found the keys for the rented van. And then the police flooded traditional media, as well as social media, with pictures and information about him. And then they started scanning surveillance footage. The police chief, Keechant Sewell, said that they shrunk his world very quickly. They tracked him getting back on to a train and then going into Manhattan. However, it's just - it's not clear that all of this necessarily mattered. What seems to have mattered were tip lines. Several people in the public say they've called in. But police sources have told the Associated Press that one of the people who called in was James himself, and he said he was in a McDonald's in lower Manhattan. And that is, indeed, where police found him - on a corner nearby, about 30 hours after the attack. They took him in without incident.
INSKEEP: In other words, he seemed to be ready to come in, according to this report.
LAWRENCE: Yeah. If he indeed called the tip line on himself and said, come and get me, yes, he seemed to have no other plan other than getting arrested. But this is all speculation.
INSKEEP: The subway is so central to New York City life. What's it like to be in the city now?
LAWRENCE: Yeah, you know, it really is like the bloodstream of the city. I was on the subway on the day it happened, only a couple of hours later, on the same route. And, you know, New Yorkers are tough, but they've been through a lot. And there's already a lot of COVID anxiety, people looking to see who's wearing a mask on the subway and who isn't. And after this, you know, people had to get back on the subway. He was still at large Tuesday afternoon. So, you know, kids had to go back home on the subway. People had to get back on their commute. So there's a lot of anxiety.
Gun violence is up. Last night, just a couple of hours after James was arrested, there was a teenager grazed by a bullet outside one of Brooklyn's busiest subway hubs. And there have been several other gun crimes committed in the time that it took to apprehend James. So Mayor Eric Adams was elected as a tough-on-crime Democrat. It's kind of hard to see, though, what he can do about someone buying a gun in a different state and bringing it to the city, planning this sort of attack.
INSKEEP: NPR's Quil Lawrence is in New York City. Quil, thanks so much.
LAWRENCE: Thanks, Steve. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/brooklyn-subway-shooting-suspect-will-have-a-court-hearing-on-terrorism-charges | 2022-05-12T14:41:36Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Rhode Island is the first state to legalize supervised drug injection sites. The two-year pilot program calls for establishing safe places where people can use heroin and other illicit drugs. But even with a green light from state government, Lynn Arditi of The Public's Radio says it may be months before the first supervised injection site can open.
LYNN ARDITI, BYLINE: Representative Stephen Casey is an unlikely crusader for supervised injection sites. A Democrat, he's also a Catholic and self-described conservative. He's against abortion rights, and he supports the Second Amendment right to own a gun.
STEPHEN CASEY: So my first reaction was, no way. As a rescue guy, I'm like, we can't give them a shoot-up center.
ARDITI: Casey is also a firefighter and licensed emergency medical technician in Woonsocket, R.I.
CASEY: Guy comes home from work and goes into the bathroom. His wife doesn't even know he's doing it. And he ODs in the bathroom.
ARDITI: EMTs try to revive people with naloxone, a medication that reverses an opioid overdose. But sometimes they don't get there in time. Last year, 430 people in Rhode Island died of drug overdoses, the highest on record. Studies of supervised injection sites in Canada and Australia show they reduced fatal overdoses and lowered the number of overdose-related 911 emergency calls. The sites also were associated with less use of drugs in public outdoor spaces, and there was no apparent increase in crime.
JOHN EDWARDS: Yeah, we're going to let them come in and use their drugs because that's when they have overdoses, and we want to be there to save them.
ARDITI: That's Representative John Edwards. A Democrat from Tiverton, Edwards sponsored the bill to create the new harm-reduction centers. Clients would bring their own drugs and be given clean needles and a safe space to use them. Clients also would be allowed to smoke their drugs. Staff would be trained to administer naloxone when someone overdoses. Representative Casey says they'd also offer information about drug treatment and other health services.
CASEY: This is something that - it just might work. And if it wasn't going to cost the state any money, we'd be crazy not to try it.
ARDITI: At least 100 supervised injection sites operate around the world, mainly in Canada, Europe and Australia. Last November, New York City opened the nation's first supervised injection site. Similar sites have been proposed in other cities. A plan to open one in Philadelphia is currently blocked in court, and the Biden administration hasn't taken a position on it yet. Scott Burris of the Center for Public Health Law and Research at Temple University says that while supporters of supervised injection sites are keeping their eye on what happens in Philadelphia, Rhode Island has a distinct advantage - supervised injection sites are already legal in the state. The next hurdle - finding a place to open the sites. The law requires anyone who wants to open a supervised injection site to first get approval from the local city or town council. The city council in Woonsocket, where Representative Casey is an EMT, recently proposed a resolution to prohibit the sites in their city.
Lisa Peterson is chief operating officer at VICTA, a private substance abuse and mental health treatment program that's looking to partner with other groups to open a supervised injection site in Providence. Peterson says that even some elected officials who support the program are reluctant to say so publicly. That's because for much of the public...
LISA PETERSON: This does seem really radical, and an elected official who supports it in theory might worry about what their constituents think.
ARDITI: So while Rhode Island was the first to legalize supervised injection sites, it's going to take work to persuade public officials to allow a site in their backyard.
For NPR News, I'm Lynn Arditi in Providence. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/communities-are-divided-over-rhode-islands-plan-for-safe-drug-injection-sites | 2022-05-12T14:41:42Z |
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
A major Russian warship in the Black Sea has sunk, according to a state-owned Russian news agency, the result of what Ukraine says is a pair of missiles it launched from the region around Odesa. This comes 50 days since Russia invaded Ukraine, and Ukraine is now bracing for a new offensive expected in the east. But even as the Russians are regrouping for that offensive, the Ukrainians are celebrating what they say is a key tactical and symbolic victory. NPR's Tim Mak joins us now from Odesa. Hi, Tim.
TIM MAK, BYLINE: Hey there.
CHANG: OK. So what do we know about what happened to this ship?
MAK: Well, so what everyone agrees on is that there was some sort of explosion and a fire. The Russians claimed that the ship, the Moskva, named after Moscow, had some kind of accidental fire on board that reached its munitions, resulting in an explosion. The Ukrainians say they launched a pair of Neptune anti-ship missiles that caused substantial damage. I spoke this evening to Eugene (ph), the spokesperson for the military governor of Odesa. His combat brigade has a policy of not providing last names for security purposes.
EUGENE: They've been fired from this region, let's say. I probably told previously that we have some assets to destroy Russian navy, and this was one of them, let's say.
MAK: The vessel with some 500 crew members had been partially evacuated. Now, Russia's Defense Ministry said Thursday evening Ukraine time that the ship has sunk. And that's according to a Russian state-owned news agency. A senior U.S. defense official said Thursday afternoon that the incident caused what - happened some 60 nautical miles from Odesa, where I am right now. However, that American official did not weigh in on what caused this fire on the ship.
CHANG: Interesting. Well, Tim, how big a deal is it that this particular warship has reportedly been destroyed?
MAK: Well, this development has huge symbolic meaning for the Ukrainians. You know, I've been all over Ukraine since this invasion began. And one of the most famous stories about this war is what happened on Snake Island in the early days after the invasion. You'll remember when a Russian naval vessel demanded these Ukrainian border guards to surrender, and they responded - I'm trying to put it in a polite way - essentially using profanity to tell the Russian warship what they should do to themselves.
CHANG: Right.
MAK: Now, this act of defiance has essentially become lore in Ukraine. And Ukrainian officials say that the Moskva was that warship, so striking it, substantially damaging it, even reportedly now having sunk it, that brings this story full circle. Eugene, that military spokesperson, talks about that symbolic resonance and also how this development affects the situation on the battlefield.
EUGENE: It carried 16 ballistic rockets. So their offensive abilities now got very weak.
MAK: So what has happened to the Moskva seems to have shifted Russia's naval posture. A senior U.S. defense official said Thursday that four or five Russian ships have begun heading south, away from the Ukrainian coast, after the incident.
CHANG: Well, speaking of the U.S., there has been talk of possibly sending someone from the Biden administration to Ukraine. Do you know anything else about that?
MAK: Well, the U.S. is mulling that over right now. The New York Times has reported that U.S. lawmakers Senator Steve Daines and Congresswoman Victoria Spartz were in Kyiv today. President Biden said before getting on Air Force One this afternoon that they're, quote, "making that decision now about whether and who to send."
CHANG: That is NPR's Tim Mak in Odesa, Ukraine. Thank you, Tim.
MAK: Thanks so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/day-50-of-war-major-russian-black-sea-warship-is-damaged-as-an-oil-ban-looms | 2022-05-12T14:41:49Z |
DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST:
In Grand Rapids, Mich., demonstrators are gathering again this evening to protest a white police officer's killing of a Black resident during a traffic stop. The shooting happened 10 days ago, but police just yesterday released video footage of the shooting. Twenty-six-year-old Patrick Lyoya was a refugee who fled violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo with his family. Today, they spoke out against the shooting, calling for the officer's arrest.
Dustin Dwyer of Michigan Radio has this report. And just a warning - it contains audio from the moments before Lyoya's death.
DUSTIN DWYER, BYLINE: This afternoon, Dorcas Lyoya, Patrick Lyoya's mother, stood inside a church, her cheeks wet with tears, trying to describe what it was like seeing her son killed by a police officer. She spoke through a translator, and she said her family fled to the United States to escape war.
DORCAS LYOYA: (Through interpreter) And I thought that I came to a safe land, having a safe place. And I start thinking now I'm surprised and astonished to see that my son, it's here that my son has been killed with a bullet.
DWYER: The family is calling the killing an execution, and they want criminal charges to be filed. In the videos of the shooting released by Grand Rapids police yesterday, you see Lyoya get out of his car after being pulled over by a police officer for an incorrect license plate. Lyoya stands outside his vehicle, looking confused.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PATRICK LYOYA: What did I do wrong?
UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER: The plate doesn't belong on this car. Do you have a license or no?
DWYER: Lyoya asks the car passenger to look for his wallet. Then he tries to walk away. It's not entirely clear how much he understands the officer.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER: No, no, no. Stop. Stop. Put your hands on your head (ph).
DWYER: The officer tries to grab him, and Lyoya runs. The officer chases and tries to tackle him. They struggle for more than a minute. And at one point, you see the officer try to Tase Lyoya, and Lyoya grabs the barrel of the Taser in his hand. Then with Lyoya on the ground facing down and the officer on top, the officer reaches for his gun and shoots at the back of Lyoya's head, killing him.
Grand Rapids Police Chief Eric Winstrom said during a press conference Wednesday that the shooting is still being investigated by the Michigan State Police, and he's not yet willing to draw any conclusions about what the videos show.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
ERIC WINSTROM: There's a lot of factors. There is what happened before, how the stop - how did the - you know, why the foot pursuit - there's what happens after, when CPR was started. I've been asking about that. How long did the body stay on scene? So there's a range of questions. I don't have all those answers because this is not a Grand Rapids Police Department investigation.
DWYER: And while that external investigation continues, there's another thing Winstrom says he won't do. He won't name the officer who pulled the trigger. That's despite calls from Lyoya's family to do just that, calls that are echoed by the protesters marching in the streets of Grand Rapids.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: (Chanting) Patrick.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) Patrick.
DWYER: For NPR News, I'm Dustin Dwyer in Grand Rapids, Mich. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/demonstrators-call-for-the-arrest-of-cop-who-killed-an-unarmed-black-man-in-michigan | 2022-05-12T14:41:50Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The maverick billionaire Elon Musk says he wants to buy Twitter - the whole thing. It's a blockbuster move by Musk, who is one of Twitter's most dedicated users and also one of its most persistent critics. We're joined now by NPR's David Gura, who's been following this morning's developments. Hi, David.
DAVID GURA, BYLINE: Hey, Leila.
FADEL: So, David, what exactly is Musk proposing here?
GURA: Well, Elon Musk lays out his proposal in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He announced it with a tweet. I made an offer, he wrote, with a link to the filing. Musk is Twitter's largest shareholder, and he wants to buy the rest of Twitter's stock. He says he's willing to pay $43 billion, which is a premium for the company - about 15% more than it's trading at right now. You know, appended to this filing is a letter. Musk wrote the chairman of Twitter's board. And in that letter, he says Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company. And Musk goes on to argue in that letter that the company has, as he puts it, extraordinary potential, and he will unlock it.
FADEL: Wow, a $43 billion offer. Does Twitter have potential that can be unlocked?
GURA: Well, Twitter has not been as wildly successful as some of the other big social media companies. I mean, just compare it to Facebook, for instance. Twitter has just over 200 million users, which is significantly less than what Facebook has - more than 2 billion. But many of Twitter's users are dedicated. They use it fanatically, like Musk does himself. On Twitter, he has more than 81 million followers. But he's made a point that there are a lot of users who could be using the site even more. Just a few days ago, Musk posted a list of the 10 most-followed accounts on Twitter, including former President Obama, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry. And Musk suggested they tweet rarely and post very little content. And he ended that tweet by asking, quite provocatively, is Twitter dying?
FADEL: So what are Musk's other criticisms of Twitter?
GURA: It continues to be this roiling debate about free speech and social media and the role companies could play or should play in policing these platforms. Elon Musk has called himself a free speech absolutist, and this is something he also addressed in that letter to the chairman of Twitter's board. Musk wrote, I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy. Right now, Musk argues, Twitter is not living up to that potential.
FADEL: So Musk is known for his antics and provocative comments and tweets. Should this offer be taken seriously?
GURA: Well, we'll see. I mean, it's been less than two weeks since Elon Musk became Twitter's largest shareholder. He bought just over 9% of the company. And then Twitter invited him on to its board. After that, there was a lot of speculation about what that would mean for how the company is run. And then there was a surprise announcement, just a few days later, from Twitter's still fairly new CEO that Musk had changed his mind. He wasn't going to join the board. So there's a lot of theater here. This is a takeover attempt, and Twitter has to take this bid seriously. Forty-three billion dollars is well over what Twitter is valued at currently. Musk's offering to buy it at a premium, as I said.
And there's some history here worth revisiting. Elon Musk, who is, of course, the founder and the CEO of Tesla, once said on Twitter, back in 2018, am considering taking Tesla private at $420 - funding secured. That tweet got him into a lot of trouble. And Tesla, of course, is still a public company. The last thing I'm going to say is we got to keep in mind Musk is the richest person in the world. He is worth north of $250 billion. So there is no question $43 billion for Twitter is something that Elon Musk could afford.
FADEL: Wow. NPR's David Gura, thanks.
GURA: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/elon-musk-wants-to-buy-twitter | 2022-05-12T14:41:56Z |
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Climate-driven events can leave hundreds of thousands of people without power and in the dark. People thinking about hurricanes or wildfires or bomb cyclones are, more and more, installing home generators. NPR’s Jeff Brady reports
JEFF BRADY, BYLINE: outside christopher Glenn's Oregon house, next to the garage is a home standby generator installed after an experience in 2019.
CHRISTOPHER GLENN: We had a major snowstorm that brought about three feet of snow to our backyard, and we were without electricity for approximately a week.
BRADY: Glenn's spouse works remotely. And without electricity, he couldn't work. They also have an organic tea business that was shut down during the outage.
GLENN: A customer in Ohio or Florida or Texas, they don't care if we're with or without power out here in Oregon. They want to know why we're not responding.
BRADY: Beyond snowstorms, Glenn also is concerned about wildfire season. Like in California, Oregon utilities sometimes turn off electricity so power lines don't spark fires. Glenn says the next time the power goes out, this big white box next to his garage will keep the lights on.
(SOUNDBITE OF GENERATOR REVVING)
BRADY: The generator powers the entire house, the business and charges an electric car. And the cost - $9,000, including installation. Despite that, the home generator business is booming. One manufacturer, Generac Power Systems, had a 50% jump in revenue last year, according to president and CEO Aaron Jagdfeld.
AARON JAGDFELD: Our typical homeowner would live in a single family, unattached house, probably lives a little bit more suburban than urban, right? So this is not a product that would be for if you live in a condominium or an apartment.
BRADY: These large home standby generators typically burn natural gas or propane. Paul Hope with Consumer Reports says because they were expensive, they account for only about 5% of the generator market.
PAUL HOPE: The vast majority of generators run on gasoline and are different sizes of portable generators.
BRADY: These cost as little as a few hundred dollars. You'll have to choose what gets power during an outage. You can connect a generator directly to your circuit breaker box to power your house. That requires an electrician. Without that, you have to run extension cords from the generator to individual appliances.
Safety is a big issue. The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates about 70 people die each year from carbon monoxide poisoning from portable generators. The agency says the machine must be at least 20 feet from a house, but that can be a problem for some people, says Hope.
HOPE: Maybe they don't have five or six heavy duty outdoor-rated extension cords to run, you know, from a generator that's at least 20 feet from the house. So they naturally try to bring it a little bit closer, plug some things directly into the generator and, you know, use fewer cords that way.
BRADY: But that risks carbon monoxide poisoning. Most new generators have automatic shutoffs if carbon monoxide levels get too high. Finally, Hope says you also should consider the climate change consequences of backing up your power this way.
HOPE: The sort of tragic irony of generators is they're actually horrible fossil fuel-burning polluters.
BRADY: So they contribute to the same climate change that's producing more severe weather and outages. A cleaner but more expensive option is installing solar panels and batteries. Those will keep the power on like a generator but only as long as there's enough sun to charge the batteries. Jeff Brady, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/encore-home-generator-sales-spike-with-mass-outages-climate-change-and-covid | 2022-05-12T14:42:02Z |
DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST:
How do you give a whale a pregnancy test? That's not the start of a joke. At the New England Aquarium in Boston, scientists found an unusual method for confirming whale pregnancies, a critical step in saving them from extinction. Earlier this year Eve Zuckoff from member station WCAI reported this story.
EVE ZUCKOFF, BYLINE: When a species is on the brink of extinction, every birth is cause for celebration. That's the case for North Atlantic right whales. There are only about 336 left in the world. After barely surviving centuries of whaling, the blubbery mammals risk colliding with boats or being entangled in fishing gear as they migrate between Florida and Canada each year.
LIZ BURGESS: These are phenomenal animals. They have a lot of resilience. They came back from the brink of extinction, so we still have a lot of hope that if we can make some changes out there, then they can keep thriving.
ZUCKOFF: That's Liz Burgess, one of the scientists at the New England Aquarium who says that the situation for right whales is now so dire that researchers are aggressively looking for signs of pregnancy in whales' excrement.
BURGESS: It's precious. It contains a wealth of information.
ZUCKOFF: For the last two decades, they've been studying hormones trapped inside right whale poop to detect not only pregnancies but male sexual maturity, metabolism and stress. This winter, Burgess and her colleagues began testing samples from one of the critically endangered whales, a female researchers have named Koala whose floating poop was scooped up in Canadian waters.
BURGESS: It looks like terra cotta right here in the frozen state. On the water, usually, it's a brilliant orange.
ZUCKOFF: The poop is kept in a freezer with samples from more than a hundred other right whales. Once it's freeze dried and crushed into a cinnamon-colored powder, scientists test a sample for the hormone progesterone. Burgess' colleague Katie Graham says the levels can be hundreds of times higher for pregnant females.
KATIE GRAHAM: And for Koala's sample, I was, like - got that excited feeling in my stomach. Like, oh, my gosh, maybe she's going to be pregnant. And so as soon as I saw the number pop up, I was like, wow, that's a lot of progesterone.
ZUCKOFF: The results are in. Thirteen-year-old Koala, who's one of only about a hundred remaining breeding-age females, is expecting her first calf. Scientists say it's also encouraging because as recently as 2018, not a single right whale calf was detected. This winter, 11 have already been spotted. Liz Burgess calls finding out a right whale is pregnant a huge deal.
BURGESS: This species is in a really critical state right now. There are more deaths than there are births. So knowing that there's potentially another calf on the horizon to add to this population is absolutely crucial.
ZUCKOFF: But she says determining pregnancy is only the first part of the battle. Now researchers will try to locate the whale they call Koala in the breeding grounds or northern feeding areas, where, hopefully, a healthy calf will be by her side.
ESTRIN: That was Eve Zuckoff from member station WCAI in Woods Hole, Mass.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE FUNK ARK SONG, "EL BEASTO") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/encore-how-do-you-give-a-whale-a-pregnancy-test-one-way-check-its-poop | 2022-05-12T14:42:09Z |
(SOUNDBITE OF NIRVANA'S "SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT")
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
That's one of the most famous opening riffs in rock and roll history. And soon, you might be able to take home a piece of it for a price.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT")
KURT COBAIN: (Singing) With the lights out, it's less dangerous. Here we are now, entertain us.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Nirvana's 1991 single, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," became an anthem for Gen Xers. The music video remains one of the most popular of all time.
MARTIN NOLAN: That is a video that has been watched over 1 1/2 billion times.
INSKEEP: Martin Nolan is executive director of Julien's Auctions, where, next month, they will host a sale of Cobain's memorabilia, including the iconic blue guitar played in that video.
FADEL: Nolan says the treasured piece of rock history is a left-handed 1969 Fender Mustang, and its auction comes at a time when many people are looking back fondly at the '90s.
NOLAN: There's a lot of money being spent on memorabilia today. People are nostalgic. They're looking for a memory - a legacy from their youth.
INSKEEP: Julien's Auctions has partnered with the Cobain family on sales for 20 years. A used paper plate that once held a piece of Cobain's pizza - and on which he'd written a set list for a show here in D.C. - went for $22,000 in 2019. Nolan says the guitar will go for a good deal more - anywhere from $600,000 to $800,000.
FADEL: Other items up for auction include Cobain's 1965 Dodge Dart and an illustration that Cobain drew of Michael Jackson doing the moonwalk. But if your pockets aren't quite deep enough, Nolan says they'll also be auctioning off NFTs of Cobain memorabilia, which he says appeal to younger generations.
NOLAN: Their mindset is different. They've grown up with iPhones. They've grown up with the technology that we didn't have, and so they're all about less clutter - like, less stuff. They're not that - really interested in owning stuff, but they're still curious.
INSKEEP: Might be better to have the guitar - if you can afford it - but Nolan says the enthusiasm for Cobain speaks to his enduring popularity.
NOLAN: You know, anything that represents Kurt Cobain - people want to own. And that's his legacy, and they want to keep his memory alive.
FADEL: The auction starts May 20, with a portion of the proceeds going to the mental health charity, Kicking The Stigma.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "COME AS YOU ARE")
COBAIN: (Singing) Memoria... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/guitar-from-nirvanas-smells-like-teen-spirit-video-will-be-sold-at-auction | 2022-05-12T14:42:10Z |
Chick Corea is known as one of the most powerful pianists, composers, and bandleaders in the history of jazz. He earned 27 Grammy awards and blazed trails across bebop, straight-ahead, free jazz, fusion and Latin jazz over the course of nearly 6 decades.
When he died unexpectedly last February from a rare form of cancer, he left dozens of musicians heartbroken. On Apr. 15, Jazz at Lincoln Center will celebrate Corea's legacy with a concert of his music performed by band members from every phase of his long career.
"His creative power, and his force, was so strong that you couldn't help but get swept up with it when you played with him. And it was exciting," says concert director and bassist John Patitucci. He played with Corea on hundreds of gigs since 1985.
"He was so prolific. He wrote so many pieces. So many tunes. We used to joke with him: If we gave him a half-hour, he would write a Suite of music, not just a tune. And he was able to combine so many elements, and retain an original sound, and a voice."
Corea's touch on the piano --the way his fingers bounced off the keys—made his sound unique.
A Defining Touch
Armando "Chick" Corea was born in 1941 in Chelsea, Massachusetts. His father was a bebop trumpet player. His grandparents on both sides were Italian immigrants. Yet in high school, he gravitated to Latin music when he joined a dance band.
"And the Conga player was one who really introduced me to Latin music, Corea told NPR during a 2016 interview. "So I connected with the Latinos right away, and the music and the rhythm of it."
When Corea moved to New York in the 1960s, that connection deepened. "Because the Puerto Ricans and Cubans were in New York. Eddie Palmieri was there. Tito Puente's band was there. My first major gig was with Mongo Santamaria."
In the late 1960s, Corea joined Miles Davis's band where he helped pioneer a sound that came to be known as "Jazz-Rock Fusion." He went on to form his own fusion group, Return to Forever, which sold hundreds of thousands of records. By the time bassist Christian McBride met him in 1993, he says Corea was already a living legend.
"And someone who we were just in awe of."
McBride went on to play with Corea on and off for 26 years. He says Corea was always kind, open, and genuinely interested in other people.
"If you met Chick on the street, you would not think that this man has been responsible for so much incredible genius music that the world loved so much. Just a regular dude. And I will miss that about Chick. A beautiful, beautiful man."
Chick Corea kept churning out new music until his death last February at age 79. He said his collaborations meant everything to him.
"Working with other musicians is what music is to me. If there were not other musicians, it would be some kind of abstractness of loneliness, out sitting on a cloud somewhere. And the particular music that I love is not just casual interaction with other musicians, but actually creative interactions with other musicians. That's what keeps me going man. I just love to create."
Celebrating Chick Corea takes place Apr. 15-16 at the Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/how-the-late-jazz-great-chick-corea-is-being-remembered-in-concert | 2022-05-12T14:42:16Z |
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Well, it is only April, and 2022 is already on track to set a record for the number of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in state legislatures. Some focus on sports, others on transgender medical care, and still others on classroom instruction.
NPR's Melissa Block joins us now to talk about what's behind this wave of bills. Hi, Melissa.
MELISSA BLOCK, BYLINE: Hi, Ailsa.
CHANG: OK, so how many bills are we even talking about here - like, in how many states?
BLOCK: Well, according to the LGBTQ rights group Freedom For All Americans, so far this year, there have been more than 200 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in nearly 40 states...
CHANG: Wow.
BLOCK: ...Which means there's just been explosive growth. And this year, more than a dozen of those bills have been passed into law. Just yesterday, we saw the Kentucky legislature override the governor's veto and pass a bill that bans transgender girls from participating in girls sports. Last week, Alabama's governor signed a bill that criminalizes gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth. That law makes it a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
CHANG: Wow. OK. So obviously, these bills are about different things, but what trends are emerging? Like, what are LGBTQ advocates seeing?
BLOCK: Well, first of all, they're just trying to keep up with the sheer numbers of them. I talked about this with Jenny Pizer. She is senior counsel with the group Lambda Legal.
JENNY PIZER: It's increased at a feverish pace. Last year was overwhelmingly terrible, and this year is even worse.
BLOCK: For example, Pizer is tracking a whole wave of copycat bills like the ones signed in Florida and Alabama that opponents call don't say gay. These are bills that ban classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity.
PIZER: It's spreading, really, like a kind of hateful, misguided wildfire in state legislatures.
BLOCK: Also, Ailsa, LGBTQ advocates are seeing an evolution toward bills that are specifically aimed at transgender people and particularly trans youth. It started with bathroom bills that prevent trans people from using bathrooms that match their gender identity. Then came the trans sports bans and trans medical care bans.
CHANG: Well, when it comes to these so-called don't say gay bills - the ones that deal with classroom instruction - they've been framed by supporters, like, around parental rights. But we've seen that some of these supporters - they're taking their justifications way further. They're using the word grooming, saying that if you oppose these bills, you actually support the grooming of children.
BLOCK: That's right. It's really homophobic and dangerous language, and it harkens back to a theme from the '70s, when the anti-gay-rights activist, the singer Anita Bryant, launched a campaign that she called Save Our Children. And she was using language like this.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ANITA BRYANT: Just biologically - that God made mothers so that we could reproduce - homosexuals cannot reproduce biologically, but they have to reproduce by recruiting our children.
BLOCK: And that throwback smear - the obviously false claim that LGBTQ people are predators or pedophiles - that's gained traction as these bills advance. Here's Sarah Longwell. She's a political strategist and an anti-Trump conservative Republican.
SARAH LONGWELL: Watching the QAnon conspiracy theory go from the darkest corners of the right-wing dark web to being somewhat mainstream, coming up in the focus groups I do - just from middle-aged women talking about Q and pedophilia - it's become this obsession on the right.
CHANG: Well, Melissa, I mean, listening to this language, this rhetoric, where do you think all of this is heading?
BLOCK: Well, these bills have strong backing from deep-pocketed conservative organizations on the Christian right, like the Alliance Defending Freedom. And, of course, it is an election year, so Republican Sarah Longwell expects to see quite a bit more of this. She says that issues around LGBTQ rights have become weaponized by the right into incredibly potent wedge issues. She calls them a political cudgel. She also admits how surprised she is to see these culture wars come roaring back.
LONGWELL: I got married to my wife in 2013, we had kids, and those fights that I was so engaged in in the early 2000s, all the way up to the Supreme Court making the decision to legalize gay marriage - they had started to become kind of a memory.
BLOCK: Longwell told me, I thought we were past it as a country. I was overly optimistic.
CHANG: That is NPR's Melissa Block. Thank you so much, Melissa.
BLOCK: You're welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/hundreds-of-anti-lgbtq-bills-have-already-been-introduced-this-year-here-may-be-why | 2022-05-12T14:42:23Z |
Inside the Washington, D.C., jail, where a group of defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol have been held for as long as a year or more, a bitter divide is growing, current and former inmates say.
A combination of that intense proximity, the stress of criminal cases and a fight over more than a million dollars donated to support the defendants has contributed to the rift.
One inmate described the situation to NPR as "too many rats together in a small cage for too long."
"Tempers naturally get short," he said, with "cliques solidifying further into independent 'camps' as time progresses."
That inmate, like several others, told his story to NPR on the condition of anonymity to describe the pressure-cooker environment inside the jail. A dozen current or former inmates of the D.C. jail ultimately spoke to NPR and said that the divisions among some of the highest-profile defendants in the country are now boiling over.
It all started in the weeks immediately after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. FBI agents conducted a campaign of "shock and awe," in the words of a top prosecutor, making arrests as the Department of Justice rushed to bring charges. Most of the people arrested were allowed to go free while their cases worked their way through court. Judges decided a smaller group — often those facing the most serious charges or those who prosecutors worried might flee the country — should be locked up while they awaited trial. That decision presented authorities with a challenge: Where exactly should the government hold them?
Some ended up scattered in jails close to their homes. But a few dozen (the precise number has fluctuated) were incarcerated in the city where the Jan. 6 attack took place, in Washington, D.C.'s Correctional Treatment Facility. The District's Department of Corrections decided for the inmates' "own safety and security" to detain all of the Jan. 6 defendants in just one part of the facility, a section known as C2B.
The combination of a court backlogged with COVID-19-related delays, plus the lumbering nature of a massive federal criminal investigation, has stretched the "pretrial" period to as long as a year or more for some detainees. And so the decision to hold a disparate group of alleged Capitol rioters from all over the country — including people linked by prosecutors to the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and QAnon — in one section of the jail for a protracted period has had unintended consequences.
Initially, the inmates seemed so unified and bonded that a defense attorney told a judge the jail had developed a "cult-like" atmosphere. Experts on extremism worried that the jail was radicalizing the inmates. But recently, conflicts have blown up between the inmates and grown into what another attorney referred to as a "schism" and what an inmate compared to a "middle school lunchroom."
The main driver of this conflict, according to C2B inmates, along with their attorneys and family members, is the growing pool of money donated in the name of the Jan. 6 defendants. An alphabet soup of groups has sprung up to support the Jan. 6 defendants — from A4J (Americans For Justice Inc.), to CAPP (Citizens Against Political Persecution), to PFP (Patriot Freedom Project) and PMP (Patriot Mail Project). As donations have grown, so have resentments. And the conflict that has built inside the jail has been amplified outside by a kind of power struggle over who speaks for the so-called political prisoners.
Detainees describe a pressure-cooker environment
When Brandon Fellows first arrived in C2B in the summer of 2021, he hoped to find camaraderie with his fellow "patriots," as he calls them.
About 140 police officers were injured defending the Capitol. About 250 people have pleaded guilty to one or more criminal charges related to the attack, which the FBI classifies as an act of domestic terrorism. Fellows, however, calls Jan. 6 "the best day of my life."
Fellows, 28, is facing comparatively minor charges compared to some others in the D.C. jail. Prosecutors say he breached the Capitol, put his feet up on a senator's desk and smoked a joint, but did not attack police. He has pleaded not guilty and was locked up because a judge found he violated the terms of his pretrial release. Prosecutors said Fellows harassed his probation officer and ignored court orders. (Fellows apologized in court.)
Due to COVID-19 protocols, Fellows and other inmates in C2B spent long stretches of the last year alone in their cells for 22 or 23 hours a day. Many of the inmates declined to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and were restricted from going to the barbershop or getting in-person visits.
When they did have access to recreation time, many bonded. They sang the "Star-Spangled Banner" at 9 every evening, held Bible studies, compared notes on legal cases and even hosted a short-lived jailhouse show called the "Hopium Den," where inmates put on skits and did comedy routines roasting one another. Some inmates said the jokes could be brutally mean. But Troy Smocks, a former Jan. 6 detainee who recently finished his sentence for posting online threats against elected officials, said it "relieved pressure" in an often hopeless environment. For years, the D.C. jail has been notorious for unsanitary, substandard and, in the words of D.C.'s attorney general, "squalid" conditions.
Still, factions started to form.
"Being incarcerated with a group of people who are from vastly different backgrounds, income brackets, education levels and viewpoints — compounded with the stress of solitary confinement, being away from our loved ones and looking down the barrel of 6- to 15-year prison sentences — is very stressful, so naturally there is going to be tension," said one inmate, who asked to speak anonymously to discuss the conditions inside the jail.
A handful of inmates said their experience of being arrested had turned them away from Donald Trump. "I stopped caring about politics because that's what got me incarcerated," said one inmate, "and I don't ever want to be a pawn in someone else's game again." Another said he would never go to another political rally in his life.
The opposite is true of Fellows. He said the government had made an "enemy" by prosecuting him and that he rejected a plea offer from the government that would have resulted in a sentence of time served — meaning, he would go free. "I just don't negotiate with terrorists," he said. (The U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, D.C., generally does not discuss plea negotiations and declined to comment on Fellows' case.)
Others have gotten more deeply invested in the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory and have even been writing letters to a post office box that they've heard reaches Trump.
There have been deep divides over donations
An even deeper divide has grown around the issue of money. Inmates use money for items at the jail commissary, time on the phone, bills back home and, perhaps most important, legal assistance.
Many inmates were eager to hear about the launch of the Patriot Freedom Project, which said it would provide financial help to Jan. 6 riot defendants and their families, including cash grants, gifts and legal aid.
Early on, the group raised big money: The pro-Trump writer and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza donated $100,000. "These are people who have a very good, close to the ground assessment of who needs what," D'Souza said on his podcast, "so there's no money going to administrative costs or any sort of rigmarole."
"I hear he donates $100,000 to us," remembers Fellows, who had arrived at the jail not long before the announcement. He said he expected the funds to be distributed equally among all of the jailed Jan. 6 defendants.
"I divided it by the amount of people in C2B, and I got all excited," he said.
But then Fellows said he found out the group, led by Cynthia Hughes of New Jersey, was going to pick and choose which defendants and families to support.
The people that have received aid from the Patriot Freedom Project have praised the group effusively. "If Cynthia didn't create the Patriot Freedom Project many families would have suffered," the wife of one inmate told NPR.
"I don't know where we would be if we didn't have that support," said the wife of another detainee.
By April 2022, the group announced it had raised almost $1.2 million. But resentments have built among the defendants who said they did not receive donations from the group.
"I personally have not gotten a dime out of it," Fellows told NPR, even though the Patriot Freedom Project featured Fellows' photo on its website until recently.
Fellows is not alone in his frustration. As NPR has reported, experts in charity law said the group presented some "red flags." For example, Hughes has disclosed a history of financial problems documented in legal filings. The group's board also initially consisted of just Hughes, Hughes' sister-in-law and Hughes' son. After facing criticism, Patriot Freedom Project replaced Hughes' family members on the board, public records indicate. Hughes said, as of now, "I don't have financial problems."
Initially, many of the criticisms of the group simmered in group chats on the outside, or quiet conversations in the jail, as people hoped they were next in line for help.
But after NPR's reporting, a group of inmates organized and contacted NPR. In all, a dozen current and former inmates of C2B said they wanted the Patriot Freedom Project to be more transparent. Several were not willing to go on the record because they were concerned about backlash. And defendants are often reluctant to talk publicly, because they worry their comments might be used against them in court. But five people decided to go public with their criticism.
"The people that gave to Patriot Freedom Project believed that they were giving to help with the legal and financial cause for the men and women themselves. It wasn't for [Cynthia Hughes] to select and choose," said Troy Smocks. Smocks' photo was also featured on the group's website until recently, even though he said the group has not given him any money.
"The Patriot Freedom Project's disbursement process is a disgrace to both donors and defendants alike," Thomas Sibick said in a statement. Sibick has pleaded not guilty to several charges, including the alleged assault of Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone during the riot.
Jacob Lang, who has pleaded not guilty to allegations that he assaulted police with a shield and a bat, praised Hughes and Patriot Freedom Project for providing support to some families and defendants. "I truly commend Cindy for stepping up to the plate and helping out these patriot families when no one else was there for them," he said. But he agreed more transparency was needed so "everyone would sleep better at night."
In the past, the group has pointed to the "Statement of Activities" document posted on its website. That document claims that the group has spent $665,000 on legal aid and financial support to defendants' families. But that leaves nearly half a million dollars yet to be disbursed — a major point of frustration as trials for many defendants begin.
Allegations of antisemitism and bullying arise
Several defendants said Patriot Freedom Project had reacted "defensively" to their concerns.
Three sources, who requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation, claimed Hughes had discussed taking legal action against a Jan. 6 defendant for criticizing the group — one of the "patriots" referenced in the group's name. (Hughes did not respond to NPR's questions about that claim.)
Ronnie Sandlin — who prosecutors allege breached the Capitol, smoked a joint in the rotunda, and tried to "rip" the helmet off a police officer — said he was even more concerned by the group's "belligerent responses to any suggestion that they should be transparent with the fund." (Sandlin has pleaded not guilty to all charges.)
A particular sore point for some of the inmates of C2B is fear that donations are distributed through "favoritism."
Hughes is personally close to one defendant, Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, whom she has described as an "adoptive nephew." Hale-Cusanelli's defense attorney is actually court-appointed, and so the government — not Patriot Freedom Project — pays for Hale-Cusanelli's defense. But other inmates said they were concerned they had to "suck up" to Hale-Cusanelli to get access to donations.
"Looking at where the money is and looking at the parties that don't get along with him, I would say that there's evidence to support that," said Fellows.
And Hale-Cusanelli is, by many accounts, a polarizing figure.
Federal prosecutors have accused Hale-Cusanelli, a former Army reservist, of being a white supremacist and Holocaust denier. Hale-Cusanelli allegedly breached the Capitol on Jan. 6 but has not been accused of violence or property damage. He has pleaded not guilty but was detained before trial because a federal judge found that he posed a danger to the community.
The allegations made by prosecutors are consistent with his behavior inside the jail, according to Smocks.
"He would sit at the table closest to his cell and draw antisemitic characters on the table," said Smocks. He compared the drawings to Nazi-style propaganda cartoons.
Smocks has a "lengthy criminal history," according to prosecutors, and has previously been convicted of bank fraud, forgery and other offenses. Supporters of Patriot Freedom Project have suggested that undermines his credibility.
Seven other current and former inmates of the D.C. jail, however, agreed with Smocks and told NPR that Hale-Cusanelli had made antisemitic comments or drawings — such as depicting Jewish people as pigs and dropping an atomic bomb on Israel. The drawings were "hateful and inflammatory," said one detainee. "It perpetuates a stereotype that I resent about Trump supporters being racist and intolerant, because we're not."
Still, sources inside the jail said Hale-Cusanelli had a group of supporters, in part, because of his connection to the Patriot Freedom Project. (Those supporters did not respond to NPR's messages seeking comment.)
One detainee compared the situation to "the movie Mean Girls, but with racist, antisemitic extremists."
Jonathan Crisp, Hale-Cusanelli's defense attorney, said the claims about the supposed antisemitic drawings were false but declined to comment further.
Recently, the Patriot Freedom Project launched its own podcast and appeared to address the allegations against Hale-Cusanelli. Jan. 6 defendant Kash Kelly, who is Black, told Hughes that it was false to claim anyone in C2B was a white supremacist. Neither Hughes nor Kelly specified exactly which people they were talking about. Kelly did not respond to a message from NPR seeking comment.
Others close to Patriot Freedom Project have suggested their critics are just trying to get a bigger portion of the donated funds.
Fellows, for example, has raised more than $30,000 via the crowdfunding platform GiveSendGo. He said if people want to support Jan. 6 defendants, they should give directly to individuals, not third-party groups.
"I think there's enough evidence to warrant an investigation — a third-party audit," said Fellows. "And in the meantime, people should just honestly not donate to Patriot Freedom Project."
State regulators in a handful of states have said they're looking into whether the group is complying with state charity registration requirements. On April 6, the California Department of Justice sent a second letter to the organization saying it must provide records within 30 days or potentially lose tax-exempt status in the state.
In response to NPR, Hughes did not directly respond to the criticisms from Jan. 6 defendants or answer specific questions.
"I started Patriot Freedom Project to help the J6 prisoners and their families," Hughes wrote, in part, in a statement to NPR. "Patriot Freedom Project will never stop fighting for these people, their families, and their children." On the Patriot Freedom Project's own podcast, Hughes was more defiant in her defense against critics of the group, saying: "They don't affect me because my work speaks for itself."
Inside the jail, some inmates said they have faced blowback for speaking to NPR and have been labeled "snitches" or federal informants. They said they were concerned that the jail grievance system could be used to retaliate against them.
As trials move closer and closer, that pressure has only intensified.
NPR contacted the spokesperson for the D.C. Department of Corrections to ask how the department is handling the conflict in the jail. The agency did not respond.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/in-a-d-c-jail-jan-6-defendants-awaiting-trial-are-forming-bitter-factions | 2022-05-12T14:42:29Z |
DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST:
The CIA director, William Burns, delivered a rare public speech today and pulled back the curtain just a bit on the spy agency's role in the war in Ukraine. He also addressed some of the unusual ways the spy agency has been sharing intelligence both before and since the Russian invasion. NPR national security correspondent Greg Myre joins us with the details. Hi, Greg.
GREG MYRE, BYLINE: Hi, Daniel.
ESTRIN: What did the CIA director say? What's he been up to?
MYRE: Well, we should remember William Burns was the U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008, so he studied Vladimir Putin very closely for years. He likes to joke he got his gray hair - most of it, at least - dealing with Putin. And last fall, the CIA began seeing developments that did suggest Russia was planning an invasion of Ukraine. So in November, President Biden sent Burns to Moscow to speak with Putin, and Burns said the visit was not encouraging.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
WILLIAM BURNS: I was troubled by what I heard. While it did not yet seem that he had made an irreversible decision to invade Ukraine, Putin was defiantly leaning in that direction, apparently convinced that his window was closing for shaping Ukraine's orientation.
ESTRIN: OK. So Burns meets Putin in November. He's convinced Putin is leaning towards war. How did that shape the response from the U.S. intelligence community?
MYRE: Really, in two key ways - first, Biden took the very unusual step of authorizing the declassification of intelligence and making it public. Now, this was to show the threat of a Russian invasion was real. It was also to debunk false narratives that Russia was putting out and to help convince U.S. allies and the larger international community to prepare for a war. And then second, the CIA has worked very closely with Ukraine, and this wasn't a given. Russian intelligence is very active in Ukraine, and anything the U.S. shared with Ukraine that was sensitive might get picked up by the Russians. But Burns says he believes this information the U.S. has provided has been very beneficial.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BURNS: We have been equally committed to rapid and effective intelligence sharing with our Ukrainian partners throughout the fighting and for months beforehand.
ESTRIN: Greg, let me just ask you - there's this long-standing belief that Russia's intelligence service is one of the best in the world. So how did it get Ukraine so wrong?
MYRE: Excellent question - no clear answer. Putin is a former intelligence officer. He's put a lot of effort and resources into Russia's intelligence community, and yet they completely miscalculated on Ukraine. The Russians thought Zelenskyy - President Zelenskyy would be a pushover. They thought the Ukrainians would actually welcome the Russians, and they never expected such a tough fight. Now, we should add, many analysts in the U.S. have been surprised by how well the Ukrainians have fought, also. But Burns said he thinks that over time, Putin has really just stopped taking advice, and this has led him to make some very bad decisions.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BURNS: His circle of advisers has narrowed, and in that small circle, it has never been career-enhancing to question his judgment or his stubborn, almost mystical belief that his destiny is to restore Russia's sphere of influence.
ESTRIN: Wow. So if that is what he thinks Putin wants, what does the CIA director think lies ahead in the war?
MYRE: Well, Burns says everyone should be prepared for a protracted conflict. Putin has gone all-in in this war - no sign he's ready for a negotiated solution. And Burns said the kind of raw brutality, as he put it, that we've seen in Ukraine reminds him of when he was a diplomat in Russia way back in the mid-'90s. At that time, Russia was waging war against its own citizens, the Chechens, and absolutely reduced Chechen cities and towns to rubble and killed thousands of civilians in the process.
ESTRIN: NPR's Greg Myre, thank you.
MYRE: My pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/in-rare-public-speech-the-cia-director-spoke-about-the-spy-agencys-role-in-ukraine | 2022-05-12T14:42:30Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The House investigation of the 2021 attack on the Capitol is in its final stages. The question is, what's next for the January 6 committee? Democratic Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren of California is a committee member. And she says, they are in a tricky position.
ZOE LOFGREN: We're a legislative committee. We're not a prosecutorial body.
FADEL: Over the last few days, reports emerged of a split inside the committee over whether to make a criminal referral for former President Donald Trump. But Lofgren told our co-host, A Martinez, they are not divided.
LOFGREN: Well, first, those reports are incorrect. The committee has never even had a discussion of this. And the press is spinning around, and commentators, that somehow there's some division, we've never had a discussion.
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
Not even informally?
LOFGREN: Now, I did point out that there is no legal import. Essentially, a criminal - so-called criminal referral is the committee sends a letter, right? And it doesn't have any legal impact. That doesn't mean we wouldn't do it and we haven't had a discussion of it. We've accomplished a great deal, but we're not quite done. And we expect and plan to have public hearings in the very near future to lay out what we've discovered not only about what happened on January 6 but the elements of the plot leading up to January 6.
MARTINEZ: Are you planning on having those discussions at some point very soon?
LOFGREN: Well, at some point, we very well may. But the real issue, I think, is to make sure that the American public. And that would include the Department of Justice, has the evidence (laughter) that we have compiled.
MARTINEZ: The public hearings, what's the timeline for that?
LOFGREN: Well, we haven't set a date yet, so I'm not going to leap ahead of the chairman's announcement. But we think quite soon - this spring for sure.
MARTINEZ: How likely do you think it is that the committee will ask former President Donald Trump to testify?
LOFGREN: That is something we haven't finalized. So we're looking very seriously at that. Obviously, he's a central figure in this. I am mindful, however, that his track record of truthfulness is a bit squishy. So to finish this without inviting him in, I think, would be a mistake, personally. So again, no final decision has been made on that.
MARTINEZ: But it sounds like you would like him to testify.
LOFGREN: Well, I think we have to - I personally believe that we have to invite him in. It's important to note that members of his close circle have come in. Both his daughter and son-in-law came in for long interviews. But there are many others who were in the inner circle. Just take, for example, you make a phone call - Person A makes a phone call. Well, if you haven't talked to Person A, there are people in the office sitting around that person who overheard their end of the conversation. And it - and he made a call to Person B. There's people sitting around Person B who heard it. So you can piece together quite a bit of information, which we're attempting to do.
MARTINEZ: Would that be a reason to ask former Vice President Mike Pence to testify?
LOFGREN: Well, again, we have not made a decision on that. But I will say that we have received very substantial information about the vice president's activities from a whole variety of witnesses, as well as documentary evidence.
MARTINEZ: If the committee were to ask Donald Trump to testify and he declines, would there be something missing? Would there be something lacking in that final report without his testimony?
LOFGREN: Well, you know, again, it's hard to know without knowing what he would say. I am aware that some of the press, I think, including NPR, did analysis of how often he lied.
MARTINEZ: But even if he were to lie, you'd want that on the record, though, wouldn't you?
LOFGREN: Well, as I say, we've not made a final decision. I personally believe we should invite him in. That's just my view. The committee has not yet made a decision on that.
MARTINEZ: Congresswoman, how does this committee's work compare with your previous work as an impeachment manager three times over, wondering what you've seen as - or felt some of the similarities and differences have been?
LOFGREN: This is the most wide-ranging, in-depth investigation I've ever been involved in.
MARTINEZ: More than the impeachment?
LOFGREN: Yes.
MARTINEZ: In what way? How has it gone?
LOFGREN: I mean, we have interviewed more than 800 people. We have more than 100,000 documents. It's an intense, wide, professional investigation. And it's yielded a very broad picture of the plot that led up to the January 6 events. We're not quite done. But we have uncovered quite a bit of information.
MARTINEZ: What do you hope the results of the investigation will do for the way Americans look back on what happened on January 6, 2021?
LOFGREN: Well, I hope that by presenting the facts that we've uncovered, people will understand it wasn't just some random day. It was a bad day for America, where, you know, there was violence. Hundreds of people were injured. People died. People broke into the Capitol. It didn't happen in isolation. It was the product of quite an extensive plot to upend the Constitution and to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. So I hope that by the time we've presented our entire report, people will have a renewed passion for our Constitution, for our rule of law, and understand that the system of democratic transition of power is not just, you know, ours by right. We have to defend that with thoughtful rhetoric and adherence to the rule of law. I hope that that passion for America is renewed a little bit with this report.
MARTINEZ: That is California Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren. Congresswoman, thank you very much.
LOFGREN: You bet.
FADEL: She spoke to our co-host, A Martinez.
(SOUNDBITE OF ANDREW GIALANELLA'S "WHAT IT MEANS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/jan-6-panel-must-invite-trump-to-testify-committee-member-rep-lofgren-says | 2022-05-12T14:42:36Z |
Five years ago, Donald Strayer thought he'd bought a dream home for his extended family. It was on a pretty spot in Ohio's Appalachian mountain foothills, with room for him and his wife, his daughter's family, plus their horses and goats. And he could actually afford it.
Strayer had been turned down for a bank loan because of bad credit — he says it's because of hospital bills years ago. The 58-year-old former forklift driver has a chronic lung disease and lives off disability. Instead of a regular mortgage, he signed what's known as a land contract directly with the seller.
The price was $39,900. For a down payment he sold his childhood home, which he inherited when his dad died, "the only thing I had in the whole world."
For years he made monthly payments of $350 on his new home. And then "one day the sheriff just showed up," he says. "It was foreclosed and they wanted to take my property."
It turned out the seller's family — to whom Strayer had been sending his payments — was keeping the money instead of paying down the mortgage. That left Strayer out a major investment, with no equity and no legal right to the property.
Land contracts and other kinds of alternative financing have been around a long time, with roots in the race-based redlining that blocked Black Americans from traditional mortgages. But legal aid experts say they became more common after the Great Recession, and as housing and rental costs have skyrocketed. They may be the only option for some, but these alternative deals pose a financial risk to families with the least to lose.
"For many American families, homeownership has been the largest source of wealth over the past century," says Tara Roche with The Pew Charitable Trusts. "Mortgages are a key step to achieving that financial security."
People of color and those in rural areas are more likely to use these risky arrangements
A first of its kind national survey by The Pew Charitable Trusts finds 36 million Americans — about 20% of all borrowers — have used alternative ways to finance a home at some point, including 7 million currently in such arrangements. The borrowers are largely low-income, more likely to live in rural areas, and disproportionately Hispanic and Black, reflecting the racial gap in homeownership.
Unlike mortgages, alternative financing deals are usually not recorded with any government office. They don't start with a bank or mortgage company, and so are not subject to the same state or federal regulations.
"In most of our cases, we have handwritten notes that wouldn't pass muster," says Peggy Lee, an attorney with Southeastern Ohio Legal Services. She says some of her clients have even been duped into thinking a verbal contract was binding, though they're not recognized in Ohio.
This leaves borrowers with higher costs and fewer protections. They can be suddenly evicted without a right to a normal foreclosure process. They're shut out of tax and other homeowner benefits. The legal ambiguity prevented many from being eligible for COVID-19 financial relief or the moratorium on evictions, creating a double whammy for families most likely to suffer during the pandemic.
Another crucial distinction: usually the seller maintains the property deed until the last payment, yet the tenant is responsible for maintenance and repairs.
In 2014, Marisela Orozco signed a contract to buy a house from the co-worker of a friend in Kansas City, Missouri, for $22,000. At the time she didn't have authorization to live in the United States, spoke little English, and did not understand how property titles worked.
The house was in rough shape, Orozco told member station KCUR and the Midwest Newsroom, which investigated the high prevalence of these arrangements in the region.
"Walls not done. Little bit of the bathroom finished. No good plumbing," she said. "But I say, 'OK,' we fix it up'. And I move in with my kids, fixing things little by little when I have the money."
But after 44 months of regular payments, and more than $10,000 in home improvements, the owner disappeared, never giving Orozco the title to the house.
Repeat offenders engage in "profit-driven 'churning'"
Legal aid attorneys say they've seen more alternative financing since the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, when millions lost their homes to foreclosure. Large investors bought the houses in bulk, many of them in disrepair and in economically struggling areas, then marketed alternative financing schemes to resell them.
Several state attorneys general have filed suits alleging deceptive practices. Pennsylvania recently won a partial victory when a judge ordered that 285 homes be immediately deeded to people who'd signed alternative leasing arrangements.
Some experts worry about the possibility of another spike coming out of the pandemic, as mortgage bailouts and moratoriums expire and foreclosures start to rise.
In rural Ohio, attorney Lee says given the severe housing crunch, a dilapidated home may be the only one some people can afford. But she finds it distressing to see clients invest thousands fixing up a place, believing it will pay off, when the seller never actually intends to turn it over.
"They just want to shift the burden of making repairs by letting them think they're going to build some sort of equity in the home," she says. "And then, oops, the first time something goes wrong... they're in eviction court."
The Pew survey finds a lot of repeat offenders, calling it "profit-driven 'churning'" when an owner initiates the sale of the same house over and over.
States are starting to consider more protections for borrowers
Since it's hard to track alternative financing arrangements, there's been a lack of data on who uses them, where they live, and what their experiences are. Pew's Roche hopes the information in the survey "can help inform policymakers, who are considering policies for alternative home financing borrowers."
Some states have been trying to better protect consumers, and Roche is seeing an uptick this year in proposed legislation.
Sarah Mancini, with the National Consumer Law Center, would like to at least ensure a house is habitable, the same protection a renter would have. And in case of problems, she says there should be a process more akin to foreclosure, so tenants aren't at risk of sudden eviction.
Beyond that, Mancini would like to see traditional, smaller mortgages more available, and not as difficult to get approved.
"We know there's a racial wealth gap. We know that individuals of color are more likely to have experienced a bump in the road at some point that may have caused a payment default," she says.
Instead of requiring an "unreasonably high credit score," she says lenders should look at someone's current income and ability to pay.
Steve Vockrodt of the Midwest Newsroom and Laura Ziegler of KCUR contributed reporting to this story.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/millions-of-americans-are-resorting-to-risky-ways-to-buy-an-affordable-home | 2022-05-12T14:42:43Z |
(SOUNDBITE OF THE TV THEME PLAYERS' "THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW")
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Good morning. I'm Leila Fadel. Lucky the cockatiel loves this music. So when Lucky was found on the porch of a Pennsylvania church, well, it was the theme from "The Andy Griffith Show" that ended three years on the lam. A social media post by an animal rescue group looked like Lucky. The Rannels family told WGAL they were pretty sure, but it wasn't until Lucky whistled and danced along to the iconic tune that they were certain. A happy reunion followed. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/missing-cockatiel-is-identified-with-the-help-of-a-tv-shows-theme-song | 2022-05-12T14:42:49Z |
DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST:
Unionizing at Starbucks has been on a roll lately but not today. After four stores voted unanimously to unionize this week alone, a store in Northern Virginia voted no in a close tally.
NPR's Andrea Hsu has been following the union campaign, and she joins us now. Hi, Andrea.
ANDREA HSU, BYLINE: Hi, Daniel.
ESTRIN: Where exactly are you?
HSU: I'm in Springfield, Va. It's less than an hour outside D.C. I'm actually in the parking lot of the store that just voted. It's one of a handful of stores in this area that have petitioned for a union and the first one to vote. It was an in-person vote over two days, and the final tally was 10-8 against the union.
And, you know, I've spent some time with the workers here, and this was a surprise to them. They went into this vote pretty confident they were going to win this election. A bunch of employees had gathered right here in the parking lot, and they expected to go from here to a celebration.
Instead, after the tally was announced, they milled about the parking lot, consoling each other with hugs. And now everyone's cleared out. Galen Berg, a shift supervisor who led the union campaign at this store, thinks what happened is some workers changed their minds about the union after hearing warnings from the company over what could happen if they unionized.
GALEN BERG: We weren't going to be able to get raises in the next coming months. We were not going to be able to work at other stores. And definitely our partners believe that; so yeah, really disappointed, incredibly disappointed.
ESTRIN: But there have been other wins for the union this week, right?
HSU: Yeah. Two stores in the Boston area on Monday and then yesterday, one in Pittsburgh and one in Eugene, Ore., and those were all unanimous votes for the union. Now, we should note, these are small elections. There's only, you know, 20 or 37 employees per store. And in a lot of these elections, half or fewer than half actually vote. So to win, the union just needs a majority of ballots cast to be yes votes.
In fact, this low turnout is something that Howard Schultz, the interim CEO at Starbucks right now, is reported to have noted. He'd like to see more employees voting. Here in Springfield, actually, all 19 workers at this store did vote. One of the ballots was voided. And again, the vote was 10-8 against the union. This is the first time Starbucks workers have voted against a union since December when one of the three stores in Buffalo voted no.
ESTRIN: OK. Now, you mentioned the interim CEO, Howard Schultz. What else has he had to say about this union campaign?
HSU: Well, he clearly doesn't like it. His position at Starbucks through the many decades that he has led the company has been Starbucks doesn't need a union because it's already a great place to work. The benefits are generous - health care and retirement, stock options and free college tuition for, you know, part-time and full-time workers. And in his first couple of weeks back as CEO, he has made clear that his feelings towards unions haven't changed.
In a memo to employees, he warned that some union organizers, you know, store employees, are intentionally and aggressively sowing divisions within the company by, in his words, attempting to sell a very different view of what Starbucks should be. He is holding what Starbucks is calling collaboration sessions where he's meeting with store employees, hearing their concerns. And so these are also venues for him to share his thoughts.
ESTRIN: Real quick, Andrea, for the stores that have voted to unionize, what is next?
HSU: Well, collective bargaining, negotiating a contract with Starbucks, and that could be harder than winning the election. The process has begun in Buffalo in the first stores to unionize, and there are more elections to come. As of today, about 220 stores have petitioned for votes, and there are more vote counts next week. And remember, there have also been other notable wins for Labor, the biggest one being a massive Amazon warehouse on Staten Island, which voted to unionize a couple weeks ago.
ESTRIN: OK.
HSU: More than 8,000 workers are now part of the upstart Amazon Labor Union.
ESTRIN: Thank you.
HSU: And a second Amazon warehouse is set to vote at the end of this month.
ESTRIN: NPR's Andrea Hsu, thanks.
HSU: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/more-and-more-starbucks-stores-are-voting-to-unionize | 2022-05-12T14:42:50Z |
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
And now more on Ukraine. Russia is moving more troops, artillery and helicopters into Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. Meanwhile, the U.S. and NATO are sending Ukrainian forces even more arms, including more sophisticated weapons, ahead of what could be this war's deciding battle. And in the middle of all this, Ukraine says it has destroyed the flagship of Russia's Black Sea naval fleet. The cause of the sinking is unconfirmed, but Russia says an onboard fire crippled the ship.
Joining us now to talk about all of this is NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman. Hi, Tom.
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Hey, Ailsa.
CHANG: OK, so what more do we know about Ukrainian forces supposedly attacking this Russian ship?
BOWMAN: Well, first of all, the Russians initially would only say there was some sort of a fire aboard. And now Russian state media, just within the last hour or so, is quoting its defense ministry as saying the ship has sunk. Now, there were about 500 sailors aboard this cruise, we were told, and some were evacuated to other Russian ships. Russia now says all 500 have been evacuated and the ship sank while being towed to port.
So what happened? Earlier, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said the Pentagon could not confirm that Ukrainian missiles hit the Moskva, but it was not refuting it, saying the ship was within range of the Neptune missiles. Kirby said there was a significant explosion and a fire.
So whatever happened, it's clearly very significant. This is the flagship of the Russian Black Sea fleet. Four or five other Russian ships in the Black Sea headed south after the incident. And of course, this comes, Ailsa, just three weeks after a Russian supply ship was sunk, Ukrainians say, by a missile again at a port in the Sea of Azov. So this will focus the Russian attention on their ability to resupply themselves and the danger of sailing closer to shore. Those missiles, Ailsa, have a range of 180 miles.
CHANG: Wow. Well, as we said, Russian troops and arms are heading to the Donbas region while Ukrainians are getting a lot more Western support. Tom, can you just tell us, at this point in this war, what are the challenges for each side?
BOWMAN: Well, it would be harder for Ukraine. The fight will be on flat, open ground, not like Kyiv, urban and suburban areas where Ukraine had small units kind of darting in and out from behind houses, shooting anti-tank missiles at Russian vehicles on the road. This will be large formations of troops facing each other. So the U.S. and NATO are sending tools for that job - 155 mm howitzers, helicopters, anti-artillery radar, attack drones. Ukrainians need these weapons desperately and fast. And defense analysts are wondering if it can get there in time. Also, moving some of this heavier equipment from Poland and Romania across Ukraine to the east could mean getting targeted by Russian aircraft or missiles. That's a concern.
Now, Russia also knows the terrain in the east. They've been fighting there for years, have better supply lines, but its forces have been badly mauled (ph) trying to take the capital, Kyiv. Many units are lacking enough troops and combat power. So the question is, can they put together an effective fighting force? Ukrainian forces are in this area in large numbers; most of its army, by the way. So Russia will try to box them in.
CHANG: Yeah.
BOWMAN: Everyone agrees this battle in the coming weeks will be brutal and maybe decisive for how the war turns out.
CHANG: That is NPR's Tom Bowman. Thank you very much, Tom.
BOWMAN: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/more-russian-troops-and-artillery-head-into-eastern-ukraine | 2022-05-12T14:42:57Z |
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan is promising a transparent, independent investigation into a police shooting of a Black man in Grand Rapids, Mich.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Protesters gathered last night to demonstrate against a police killing in their city. That followed yesterday's release of footage by Grand Rapids police in which Patrick Lyoya was shot and killed by a white police officer while face down during an altercation following a traffic stop.
INSKEEP: Dustin Dwyer of our member station Michigan Radio is in Grand Rapids and joins us now. Dustin, good morning.
DUSTIN DWYER, BYLINE: Good morning.
INSKEEP: So there's a lot of video here. Walk us through what happened.
DWYER: It was Monday morning, 10 days ago, 8:11 a.m. A Grand Rapids, Mich., police officer stops a driver in a residential neighborhood. Police say the reason for the stop was that the license plate on that car didn't match the description of the vehicle. And it was that traffic stop that turned into a foot chase, then a struggle, and it ended with the police officer shooting and killing Patrick Lyoya.
INSKEEP: And a lot of this is captured on video. We're going to play a little bit of one of the videos that was released Wednesday by the Grand Rapids Police Department. This begins as a traffic stop. You see the officer pull Lyoya over, and Lyoya, instead of staying in the car, which is what they tell you to do, steps out of the car, and then there's a conversation on the street. Let's listen.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED OFFICER: Can I see your license?
PATRICK LYOYA: What did I do wrong?
UNIDENTIFIED OFFICER: The plate doesn't belong on this car. Do you have a license or no?
INSKEEP: You hear him saying, what did I do wrong? What happens next?
DWYER: Well, he sounds confused at first. And then what Lyoya tries to do is he starts to kind of walk away from the officer, and then that officer tries to grab him, and Lyoya then runs away. The officer chases after him. You see a struggle. That struggle goes on for more than a minute. Toward the end of this body cam video, you do see Lyoya reach for the officer's taser and grab it. And that's - just after that, the police officer's body cam actually becomes deactivated in this struggle.
INSKEEP: I guess we should be clear - the officer still has his hand on the taser, has the finger on the trigger, but Lyoya has grabbed the barrel of the taser at that last second. Then that body cam goes away. There are other angles, however, from other cameras, including a cellphone video taken by a passenger in a car, and that captures the actual shooting. What does it show us?
DWYER: Well, it shows us that the taser goes off twice. And then you see that Lyoya and this officer are on the ground struggling. The officer tells Lyoya to let go of the taser. Lyoya at this point is face down. The officer is on top of him, kind of straddling him, trying to push and keep him down. And lastly, you see the officer then reach for the gun at his hip and shoots at the back of Lyoya's head. And that's the shot that kills him.
INSKEEP: Just a shocking moment. How have people in Grand Rapids responded to this?
DWYER: Well, there's anger. There's grief. A lot of people had heard this video described in the past 10 days. There had been a number of demonstrations calling for these videos to be released. It's been tense this whole time. There were demonstrations last night. Robert S. Womack is a county commissioner. He's spoken to the Lyoya family, who has called this an execution. The Lyoya family, they're Congolese refugees who came to this country fleeing violence. Womack said he saw the video, and he said it did add extra context to the struggle that led to the shooting.
ROBERT S WOMACK: But at the same time, whenever you put your knee on a person's back and you take out a gun and you put it to their head, in our community, they look at it as an execution.
DWYER: But what Womack wants now is he says he wants to see charges against this police officer. And for now, Michigan State Police are still investigating, and until that investigation is complete, Grand Rapids says it's not releasing the name of the officer.
INSKEEP: Dustin, thanks for the update.
DWYER: Thank you.
INSKEEP: That's Dustin Dwyer of Michigan Radio.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: OK, New Yorkers start their commute this morning knowing an alleged subway attacker is in custody.
FADEL: Frank R. James is accused of getting on a crowded subway train Tuesday morning, setting off two smoke grenades and then firing a handgun 33 times. Ten people were hit by bullets, a dozen more injured in the panic that ensued. The suspect is scheduled to have his first court appearance today on federal terrorism charges that could carry a life sentence if convicted. Police still don't have a clear motive.
INSKEEP: NPR's Quil Lawrence is covering this story in New York. Quil, good morning.
QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE: Good morning.
INSKEEP: How was Mr. James apprehended?
LAWRENCE: Well, he was named as a person of interest, and then the authorities flooded all of traditional and social media with pictures and info. They were scanning hours of surveillance, and they were able to sort of track him getting back on the subway and going to Manhattan. Several tips may have been called in by the public, but it's not clear that mattered because police sources have told the Associated Press and other news outlets that it was James himself who called the tip line, and then the police found him in Lower Manhattan.
INSKEEP: Which is a wild detail. So what is known about him?
LAWRENCE: Born in New York. He's lived in Philadelphia and Milwaukee. He's 62. He has a criminal record in the '90s but no felonies. The police say if he'd had a felony, he wouldn't have been able to purchase his 9 mm handgun, which NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig said he bought out of state.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JAMES ESSIG: The gun used in this, a 9 mm Glock, which was recovered at this crime scene, was purchased by Mr. James in 2011 in Ohio.
LAWRENCE: And that's the pistol that was discovered at the crime scene and traced back to James. The rest is just whatever people can glean from these long, bigoted, ranting videos that he had posted online over the years, which included references to his own possible mental health issues and criticism of New York Mayor Eric Adams and crime in New York City.
INSKEEP: Given that evidence, such as it is, what does the motive look like it might be?
LAWRENCE: You know, how all that led to this, it's all speculation from those videos, but there's nothing clear or logical that you can draw out. He'd clearly prepared to do something. The police found his rented van, gasoline, a hatchet, more ammunition, abandoned at the crime scene. They found more guns and ammunition at what appeared to be one of his residences in Philadelphia. But what he planned to do and how it came to this is really not easy to say.
INSKEEP: You know, Quil, I've not been able to think about this story the last couple of days without having the thought that it's amazing that no one is dead - nevertheless, a terrifying incident. How has this affected the mood of the city, where you're at?
LAWRENCE: I was on the subway within hours of the attack, on the same route, actually. And it - New Yorkers, you know, they're a tough lot, but there is a lot of anxiety on top of all the COVID anxiety. People are always looking around on the subway. There's always a few people without masks, but almost everyone's masked. Gun violence is up in the city. Last night after the arrest, a few hours after the arrest of Frank James, a teenager was grazed by a bullet outside one of Brooklyn's busiest subway hubs, and there were several other gun crimes committed in the time it took to apprehend James. So Mayor Eric Adams was elected as sort of a tough-on-crime Democrat. He's a former cop. But it's hard to say what would have prevented someone from buying a gun in a different state and bringing it to New York City and using it in a mass shooting on the subway.
INSKEEP: Quil, thanks so much.
LAWRENCE: Thank you, Steve.
INSKEEP: NPR's Quil Lawrence.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: The Biden administration says it's helping Ukraine in its investigation of war crimes.
FADEL: So what does that American help look like? The U.S. and European allies have joined Ukraine in accusing President Vladimir Putin of committing war crimes. It's a charge that's easy to make and hard to prove.
INSKEEP: NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas is on the story. Ryan, good morning.
RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: What form does the American help take?
LUCAS: So I spoke with Beth Van Schaack about this. She's the State Department's ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice. And she says the Justice Department and State Department are working with European allies to support the Ukrainian prosecutor general who is investigating on the ground. The State Department is also helping fund outside experts, experienced war crimes lawyers and investigators who are assisting Ukrainian authorities. Van Schaack says all of this is important.
BETH VAN SCHAACK: It's extremely important for the sanctity and integrity of history to document these crimes, to make sure that we have preserved and authenticated the evidence that is being generated in the various crime scenes around Ukraine.
LUCAS: It's also important, she says, that victims know that the world sees what they went through and that it is working to try to deliver justice.
INSKEEP: How is it exactly that nongovernmental groups would help to investigate possible war crimes?
LUCAS: So before the war began, the U.S. was funding a group of international experts who were helping Ukraine investigate possible war crimes following Russia's takeover of Crimea and Donbas in 2014. This group is made up of prosecutors, investigators, forensic experts - all people with extensive experience working these types of cases. One of these people leading the effort is Clint Williamson. He's a former U.S. ambassador for war crimes issues. He says the group is ramping up its operations now and focusing on possible crimes since Russia's full-scale invasion. As part of this, they want to deploy teams of international experts to Ukraine to insist investigators there. At least one such team is currently on the ground. Now, Williamson says Ukraine has very capable investigators, but they've mostly dealt with lower-level crimes in the past, and the scope and scale of what they're facing now is very different.
CLINT WILLIAMSON: You know, you're potentially looking at command responsibility cases that can go up to senior political and military leaders. So this becomes just a much more complex investigative and prosecutorial approach.
LUCAS: And that's where the outside experts' experience and expertise can come in.
INSKEEP: That word prosecutorial - there is a difference between reporting a story, getting the idea of what's happened, which we've already done, and actually building up criminal evidence to that criminal standard. What types of evidence likely come into play?
LUCAS: Well, all sorts of things. Investigators will be interviewing eyewitnesses, of course. They'll be looking at ballistics evidence to see what munitions were used. They can identify where specific Russian military units were and who was in command. The U.S. and its allies in particular can also provide intelligence, things like communications intercepts. Here's Van Schaack again.
VAN SCHAACK: So gathering all of this together will be very important direct evidence of either orders having been received or individuals admitting to having participated in the Commission of International Crimes.
INSKEEP: All of this with an eye toward potential trials. But what's the venue for the trial?
LUCAS: Well, one option would be the International Criminal Court, which has opened an investigation. The U.S. is not a party to the court, so that complicates things a bit. But there are Ukraine's courts, of course, which have jurisdiction here. And there's also the possibility of courts in some European countries whose laws allow national authorities to prosecute international crimes. But this is still very much, of course, an ongoing war, and the important thing now is to document what's going on.
INSKEEP: NPR's justice correspondent Ryan Lucas. Thanks.
LUCAS: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/news-brief-brooklyn-subway-shooting-grand-rapids-shooting-russian-war-crimes | 2022-05-12T14:43:03Z |
DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST:
Now an update on the worst attack on the New York City subway in decades. Sixty-two-year-old Frank James was arraigned today in federal court. James is accused of shooting 10 people and injuring at least a dozen more at a busy Brooklyn subway station Tuesday morning. Meanwhile, investigators are searching for signs of a motive, and so are extremism researchers. They have been poring through his apparent social media presence, and so has NPR's Odette Yousef. She covers domestic extremism, and she joins us now. Hi, Odette.
ODETTE YOUSEF, BYLINE: Hi there.
ESTRIN: First, we should be clear that, at this point, Frank James is just a suspect who's been charged. But what can you tell us about his social media activity?
YOUSEF: Well, Daniel, early yesterday afternoon, it seemed that several accounts apparently connected to James stopped being publicly available or publicly viewable. But prior to that, I was able to find at least two Facebook accounts, Twitter and Instagram accounts. And the place where he seemed to be most active was YouTube. I found at least four YouTube channels where he was posting just tons of videos of himself giving talks or rants that appeared to be directed to a primarily Black audience. But nothing that I or the extremism researchers I spoke with suggested that James was connected with any established extremist organizations.
ESTRIN: OK. So you reviewed those accounts before they were taken down. What did you gather from his online presence?
YOUSEF: Well, to be honest, you know, what I saw was kind of a cocktail of conspiracy theories, bigoted views about gay people, immigrants and interracial couples, lots of pro-gun posts and an apparent belief that there would inevitably be a race war in the United States. You know, I think a lot of extremism researchers' antennae went up because some of his user handles incorporated the number 88, which is an alphanumeric phrase that neo-Nazis use for the Hitler salute since H is the eighth letter of the alphabet. But, you know, James' use of that also could have been a reference simply to his birthday, August 8. But altogether, his online presence didn't necessarily cohere to any known extremist ideology. Here's Carla Hill. She's an extremism researcher at the Anti-Defamation League.
CARLA HILL: Even though we don't agree with extreme ideology, extremists can be quite cohesive, you know, explaining their ideology and be consistent over time. And that's not what we find here.
YOUSEF: You know, James did post one item on Facebook from a neo-Nazi group called The Base, suggesting that maybe Black people could take lessons from how it organizes and trains. And some on social media seemed eager to brand him an extreme leftist or affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement, but that simply wasn't clear. He seemed to be for Black liberation, but he also discounted civil rights and social justice movements as a waste of time.
ESTRIN: OK - not a very consistent ideology. But in all of this material he was posting online, were there any signs that he could carry out violence, or were there any red flags that should have been spotted?
YOUSEF: I asked Caroline Orr Bueno about this. She studies online extremism at the University of Maryland. She said the many references he made to violence may read as significant. But, you know, sometimes things are clearer in retrospect.
CAROLINE ORR BUENO: Honestly, I don't know how much that would have stood out because the content he was posting was not that different than you'd see from, you know, a fair number of people online.
YOUSEF: I'll mention that, you know, his lawyers have asked the court for a psychological evaluation of him. But I'll note that, you know, in the stuff he posted days before the attack, there was no clear articulation of a plan to commit violence.
ESTRIN: OK. NPR's Odette Yousef, thank you.
YOUSEF: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/nyc-subway-shooting-suspect-had-a-history-of-posting-offensive-material-online | 2022-05-12T14:43:09Z |
TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. Comic Gilbert Gottfried died Tuesday of a form of muscular dystrophy that affected his heart. He was 67. Gottfried typically performed in persona as an annoying, cranky, sometimes crude guy with a raspy, irritating voice that he sometimes exploited to say things considered inappropriate or in bad taste. With that voice, he played the evil, devious parrot in the Disney animated film "Aladdin." But Gottfried's sense of humor sometimes got him into trouble, like when he tweeted jokes about the 2011 tsunami in Japan and was then dropped as the voice of the duck in the Aflac insurance TV commercials.
I spoke with him in 1992. I was in our Philadelphia studio. He was at NPR's New York bureau. When he arrived there, I learned he was only doing interviews in his on-stage persona. I couldn't talk Gottfried into just being himself. So what could I do? I went ahead with the interview. It led to a hilarious moment in the interview that's always stuck with me. We started with a clip from "Aladdin" with Gottfried as Iago, the evil pet parrot of the evil ruler, Jafar. Here's the two of them plotting together.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ALADDIN")
GILBERT GOTTFRIED: (As Iago) Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Jafar, why if you were the chump husband?
JONATHAN FREEMAN: (As Jafar) What?
GOTTFRIED: (As Iago) OK. OK. You marry the princess, right? And you - then you become the sultan.
FREEMAN: (As Jafar) Marry the shrew, I become the sultan - the idea has merit.
GOTTFRIED: (As Iago) Yes, merit, yes. And then we drop papa-in-law and the little woman off a cliff. (Screaming) Kersplat (ph).
(LAUGHTER)
FREEMAN: (As Jafar) I love the way your foul, little mind works.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
GROSS: Who were the comics that you heard growing up?
GOTTFRIED: Let's see - all of them. I liked Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy because I loved a ventriloquist who could get away with being on the radio. I thought he had the biggest scam in show business. I always admired him for that. Like, he was a ventriloquist on the radio. It's like being a magician on the radio.
GROSS: Did you hear Jackie Mason when you were growing up?
GOTTFRIED: Yes. (Imitating Jackie Mason) You know, a person like you, this is not against you personally, I think you're a terrific, you know what I mean?
GROSS: That's perfect. That's really - you would have had me fooled.
GOTTFRIED: Yes.
GROSS: What did you think of him?
GOTTFRIED: I always liked Jackie Mason. (Imitating Jackie Mason) But what he thinks to me personally, this I can't tell you.
GROSS: (Laughter) You do a really funny impression of two other comics, of David Brenner and Jerry Seinfeld in deep conversation.
GOTTFRIED: Yes.
GROSS: Can you do that?
GOTTFRIED: Well, I always thought David Brenner in a conversation with Jerry Seinfeld would be (imitating David Brenner) hey, Jerry, Jerry, you ever eat pizza? You ever eat pizza? (Imitating Jerry Seinfeld) Why do people eat pizza? Hey, Jerry, you ever drink a cup of coffee? Everybody likes coffee, huh? (Imitating Jerry Seinfeld) Why do people drink coffee? Who are these people?
GROSS: (Laughter) Do you think that Brenner and Seinfeld have heard this?
GOTTFRIED: Yes. Yes, they both heard it. And in fact, a few times, Jerry Seinfeld has said to people (imitating Jerry Seinfeld) I don't think that sounds anything like me.
GROSS: (Laughter).
GOTTFRIED: (Imitating Jerry Seinfeld) Where does he get the idea that I talk like that? I don't have a funny way of speaking.
GROSS: How did you start doing other comics?
GOTTFRIED: Just basically to annoy people. Like, I started out annoying people, and I want to take it to the nth degree.
GROSS: (Laughter) Probably your comics - other comics are your closest friends, so I'm sure this is also a technique for ensuring you have no friends left.
GOTTFRIED: Yes.
GROSS: Is it effective?
GOTTFRIED: Yes.
GROSS: (Laughter) I was listening to Howard Stern a couple of weeks ago and got the impression you were in the hospital for a while.
GOTTFRIED: Yes, I had a burst appendix. It was a burst appendix. I was actually rushed in to the operating room. I was about an hour away - they said I had about an hour ago - an hour to go before I would just be out of it altogether, before I made most of America happy. And if I was any sicker, I would have been on the cover of People magazines - "Gottfried's Courageous Fight."
GROSS: (Laughter) Well, what were your symptoms? Did you call an ambulance or something?
GOTTFRIED: Yeah, I went into the hospital. They didn't even know what was wrong. I was there for about three days. And I could have actually died actually on the operating - they were amazed I made it. And if I died, then I would have been on "Entertainment Tonight." And "Entertainment Tonight" would be playing their maudlin theme music. That's when all of a sudden they say, so-and-so died today (vocalizing) and they drag it out.
GROSS: The world of comedy mourns one of its own tonight.
GOTTFRIED: Yes, (vocalizing). It's like they play their regular theme music but on a slow speed.
GROSS: (Laughter) Have you been on "ET" yet?
GOTTFRIED: Yes. Yes. And I never actually speak to the people who are the hosts. It's - when they do that show, they send out, like, just any flunky they can get to interview you and then they splice it together to make it look like you're talking to Mary Hart.
GROSS: So (laughter)...
GOTTFRIED: So they usually give you the wrong question, and you totally make a fool out of yourself on that show.
GROSS: So I guess being in the hospital didn't make you change your mind about staying in persona all the time?
GOTTFRIED: No, no, I'm staying this way. In fact, when I was in the hospital, I thought maybe I'll be more obnoxious. So I tried being Buddy Hackett for a while, but it just didn't work.
GROSS: (Laughter) Now, I know I am not able to get Gilbert Gottfried out of persona. But what about the surgeons? I bet you didn't talk to them this way.
GOTTFRIED: No, they knocked me out during surgery, so they wouldn't have to listen to me.
GROSS: (Laughter) Yeah, but when the anesthesiologists were coming - you know how the anesthesiologists interview you beforehand?
GOTTFRIED: Yes.
GROSS: They do...
GOTTFRIED: As a matter of fact, the anesthesiologist interviewed me and also showed a clip from some shows that I'd been on. It was a very professional hospital. The anesthesiologist sat in a chair. I lied on the couch. And she said, here's a very funny guy. But let's first watch his - a clip from his latest special.
GROSS: (Laughter).
GOTTFRIED: And then she even took a break for commercial.
GROSS: (Laughter) Did she know who you were?
GOTTFRIED: Yes, yes. And then after they wheeled me out, they brought on Charo.
GROSS: (Laughter) Did you ever go to the Catskills and hear any of the Borscht Belt comics there?
GOTTFRIED: Yeah. Let's see. I've seen some. I always liked Borscht Belt. There would always be the comic going, and the Jews and the Italians and my kids in their room and the Jews who talk to the Italians - the Italians and the Irish, and the Jews and the kids.
GROSS: That's it.
GOTTFRIED: Yes.
GROSS: (Laughter) They didn't have persona comics in those days, did they? You think, like, Jackie Mason is - or Myron Cohen were in persona? Would you call it that?
GOTTFRIED: It's hard to tell what Myron Cohen was. Myron Cohen was like a Jew trying to sound like he's British. It's like - when Myron Cohen would talk, it was always like, (imitating Myron Cohen) an adorable old Jewish woman just walking along the boardwalk when all of a sudden, an elderly man comes along.
It was like British Yiddish.
GROSS: That's true, isn't it? That's true.
GOTTFRIED: He was always trying desperately to sound like he's actually a refined Englishman.
GROSS: Except the punchline would always be in Yiddish.
GOTTFRIED: Yes, it would be, (imitating Myron Cohen) an adorable old Jewish woman is walking along the boardwalk when an elderly Jewish man approaches her. He says to her, can I take you out on a date? The Jewish woman says, well, I'm busy Thursday, to which the Jewish man replies, (speaking Yiddish).
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: Would you get the joke when...
GOTTFRIED: Yes, yes. Well, I just could laugh along with everyone else and go (laughter). Yeah, (speaking Yiddish), yeah. That was - oh, I could see that coming from a mile away.
GROSS: (Laughter) What's the first thing you ever said in front of a microphone?
GOTTFRIED: Oh, I don't remember. That's a good question, though.
GROSS: You don't remember your first time out?
GOTTFRIED: I do, but I - vaguely.
GROSS: Tell me what you remember about it.
GOTTFRIED: It was - I was about 16 years old, and it was, like, open mic night in Greenwich Village. Like, not even - they didn't even call it open mic. This was before the comedy boom, so it was, like, called hootenanny night.
GROSS: (Laughter).
GOTTFRIED: So you had about a hundred and fifty people who was, like, doing folk songs - like, 2,000 people sounding like Bob Dylan. Even the waiter sounded like Bob Dylan. Everyone sounded - it was like - the waiters would come over - (imitating Bob Dylan) can I take your order, sir? Can I bring some more bread to your table?
GROSS: (Laughter) So everybody was doing folk stuff, and you were doing comedy?
GOTTFRIED: Yes. And so it was unusual. Then the comedy boom came later on. Now it's like every single cable station and network station has a comedy show 24 hours a day, practically, where there's a comic standing in front of a brick wall going, hey, do you ever notice these late-night TV commercials, and you watch it late at night and then you clap your hands together and they got the lady with the clapper? Hey, I've fallen and I can't get up. And you know when you get on a plane and they give you those little bags of peanuts, and then you get in one of these cabs - hey, what kind of language are they speaking? Do they speak the same language as the people in the 7-Eleven? What is that?
GROSS: (Laughter) Can we make a deal?
GOTTFRIED: Sure.
GROSS: When you decide to come out of persona...
GOTTFRIED: OK.
GROSS: ...And start doing interviews out of persona, are you going to give me a call?
GOTTFRIED: OK.
GROSS: All right.
GOTTFRIED: But first I'll do Barbara Walters.
GROSS: Oh, sure. That's what they all do.
GOTTFRIED: (Laughter) That has to be...
GROSS: And you're going to cry.
GOTTFRIED: Yeah.
GROSS: You're going to - and you're going to talk about how - that you were abused, and that's why you're in persona...
GOTTFRIED: Yeah.
GROSS: ...Because the world was too insensitive to you.
GOTTFRIED: All of my relatives were alcoholics, and they all beat me, Barbara.
GROSS: And so after you tell her all of that, then you're going to come on and talk with me.
GOTTFRIED: Yes.
GROSS: Well, thanks. Thanks a lot.
GOTTFRIED: (Laughter) Thank you.
GROSS: (Laughter).
My interview with Gilbert Gottfried was recorded in 1992. He died Tuesday. He was 67.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONNY ROLLINS' "MANGOES")
GROSS: If you'd like to catch up on FRESH AIR interviews you missed - like this week's interview with actor Molly Shannon or writer Delia Ephron or the author of Pandemic, Inc., about the people who came up with schemes to exploit the pandemic for profit - check out our podcast. You'll find lots of FRESH AIR interviews.
FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorrock, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Ann Marie Baldonado, Thea Chaloner, Seth Kelley and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Therese Madden directed today's show. I'm Terry Gross.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONNY ROLLINS' "MANGOES") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/remembering-comic-gilbert-gottfried | 2022-05-12T14:43:10Z |
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Ukrainian officials are claiming that a Russian warship in the Black Sea was seriously damaged by a Ukrainian missile attack on Wednesday. There is another version, though, of this story. Russia's Ministry of Defence tells a different story of a fire on the missile cruiser that caused ammunition on board to explode. Neither version of these events can be independently confirmed, but both involve a seriously damaged and abandoned Russian warship. Joining us now from near the port city of Odesa, Ukraine, is NPR's Brian Mann. Hey there, Brian.
BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: Hi, Steve.
INSKEEP: What have you learned?
MANN: Well, from both sides, as you're hearing from the Russian and Ukrainian officials we're hearing from today, it sounds like the Moskva was substantially damaged. It did have to be evacuated. This is a large vessel, roughly 500 crew members. And neither story is very favorable to the Russians. They say that there was some kind of accidental fire on board that did reach munitions. They say the fire was eventually contained - but, again, a full evacuation of their crew. What the Ukrainians say, officials here near Odesa, where I am now - they say that they launched a couple of Neptune ship cruise missiles at this vessel and struck it successfully. They're claiming that as a major victory over a ship that they've been wanting to target throughout this conflict.
INSKEEP: Well, let's think through the significance of this. This is a guided missile cruiser. It's got 16, as I understand it, cruise missiles on board. They're ship-to-ship cruise missiles, but you can fire them at land. I've seen videos in recent days of cruise missiles being fired from Russian ships onto land targets. So how significant is it that, one way or another, it was knocked out of action?
MANN: Well, here again, there are differing accounts. What the Ukrainians say is that this takes out of action roughly 1 in 5 cruise missiles that the Russians had available from Black Sea vessels. If that's accurate, that's some percentage of their strike force that's reduced. But there is, Steve, also a symbolic role here. You'll remember that there was this moment early in this fight when the Moskva, the ship, confronted people on an island and demand that they surrender. The people on the island told them in polite terms, to go to hell, and that's become kind of a rallying cry. So for this vessel to be damaged - again, whether it's from a Ukrainian missile or because of some kind of operator error aboard the vessel - this is a symbolic moment for the Ukrainian side, a morale-building moment. And again, in a fight where the Russians have had debacle after debacle in terms of, you know, public perception, not a good moment. So some impact, perhaps, on the military side. But, also on the public relations side in this war, a significant moment.
INSKEEP: Yeah, I just want to underline that even if the Russian version of this is true, that's a matter of incompetence. That's a matter for which somebody would be probably prosecuted. I mean, fires break out, but you're supposed to contain them, and you're also supposed to keep your ammunition safe. A warship that's not been hit by enemy fire blowing up like this...
MANN: Yeah.
INSKEEP: ...Is in no case a good thing. So how does this fit into the broader situation on the ground where you are in Ukraine?
MANN: You know, the Russians, as we know, have been regrouping. There have been moments of incompetence throughout for the Russians. So, again, you're right - this fits into that very ugly narrative for them. But they are pushing forward again. We've heard of Russian advances around Mariupol, also attacks on Kharkiv. And so the fighting continues. The village where I am right now, people are tense. There are checkpoints here. So, you know, this war is pressing forward despite symbolic moments like this for Ukraine.
INSKEEP: People keep waiting for a heavier Russian advance from the east heading west, correct?
MANN: That's absolutely correct. And there has been continued fighting, but so far, we haven't seen that big push yet.
INSKEEP: Brian, thanks for the update. Really appreciate it.
MANN: Thanks, Steve.
INSKEEP: NPR's Brian Mann is outside Odesa, Ukraine. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/russian-warship-is-damaged-but-ukraine-and-russia-offer-different-explanations | 2022-05-12T14:43:17Z |
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
It has been nearly two months since Texas Governor Greg Abbott directed his state's child welfare agency to investigate parents of transgender children. The order has left parents in fear of facing a child abuse investigation for helping their trans kids receive gender-affirming treatments, treatments that are recommended by the American Medical Association. It has also had a serious impact on the agency that is tasked with conducting these investigations.
Eleanor Klibanoff has been talking to some of these workers. She is the women's health reporter at the Texas Tribune, and she joins us now. Welcome.
ELEANOR KLIBANOFF: Thanks for having me.
CHANG: So I understand, like, some of these workers have resigned because of Abbott's directive. Can you just tell me what have they told you about their reasons for leaving?
KLIBANOFF: You know, most of them are social workers. They got into this job to investigate serious concerns of child abuse and neglect. And now they're being sent out or fear being sent out on investigations where a child is receiving medical care in consultation with a doctor and being asked to sort of intervene between that relationship between the parents and the child's doctor. And that paired with some of the, you know, concerns over how these cases are being handled has left them, many of them say, with no choice but to resign.
CHANG: What about those staff members who have decided to stay? Like, what are they saying to you?
KLIBANOFF: Well, you know, there's been, from what I've heard, a lot of sort of small acts of resistance. Several of them signed on to an amicus brief in the legal case expressing their concerns about this directive. In the Austin area office, several of them wore don't mess with trans kids T-shirts to work one day. They've been hanging up rainbow signs. But that, you know, I think for many of them, is starting to feel insufficient. They feel like they are really stuck between a rock and a hard place here.
These cases are currently on pause. The investigations, they're no longer - you know, while this moves through the court system. So they're not actively having to undertake investigative activities, but they're very fearful for what this could mean if that pause was lifted.
CHANG: And as far as the resignations go, how has the state of Texas responded? Have they said anything about the departures from this agency?
KLIBANOFF: They did not answer specific questions about the departures and what the impact of that would be. You know, they've just said that they will follow the law in their child abuse investigations. But, you know, this is an agency that has struggled for a long time with employee recruitment and retention. They struggle on a lot of fronts - with, you know, their foster care system, with child abuse investigations. And many of these employees personally worry a lot about what it means to have long-tenured, experienced investigators and supervisors walk out the door.
CHANG: Yeah. I was just going to ask you, the people who have decided to leave these jobs - are any of them still openly struggling with that decision, processing it and worried about the consequences of what leaving this agency means for the people still there?
KLIBANOFF: Absolutely. I mean, I wouldn't say any of them are. I would say all of them are. I mean, they are really tied up in knots about this. I mean, in a lot of cases, they were working under sort of subprime conditions as it were. And now they know that by leaving, they're just increasing caseloads. They're just getting those cases reassigned. I mean, almost every supervisor I talked to said they are haunted by the fact that, if these cases fall through the cracks because people resign or because they're taking on other investigations they feel they shouldn't be involved in, that children in Texas will die. That's the stakes of these investigations.
CHANG: Yeah. That is Eleanor Klibanoff, women's health reporter at the Texas Tribune. Thank you so much for your reporting.
KLIBANOFF: Thank you for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/texas-welfare-workers-are-resigning-over-orders-to-investigate-trans-kids-families | 2022-05-12T14:43:23Z |
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Air travelers and commuters will have to keep their faces covered a little bit longer. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is extending the mask mandate for public transportation. Instead of expiring next week, it continues through May 3. NPR's Pien Huang reports.
PIEN HUANG, BYLINE: Masks are needed on the train. Masks are needed on the plane. The CDC says that passengers and workers must continue to wear masks on ferries, subways, buses, taxis and rideshares, too, for at least the next three weeks. James Hodge, a public health law professor at Arizona State University, says the measure makes sense.
JAMES HODGE: We do have upward trends of infections. CDC is responding to the data, and it's implementing the measure it has the authority to do.
HUANG: The CDC - with the Transportation Safety Administration, or TSA - has required masks on public transport for the past 14 months. The order has almost expired a few times, but the agencies keep extending it. This to the chagrin of travel industry trade groups, who, along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, sent a letter to the White House this week asking for the mask mandates to stop. They said it imposes costs on travelers and that enforcement often falls on workers, like flight attendants, dealing with passengers who don't want to wear their masks. And some experts argue that the CDC is sending mixed messages by extending the mask mandate for travel.
Dr. Monica Gandhi is an infectious disease physician at UC San Francisco. She points out that according to CDC's own metrics, 95% of U.S. counties have low COVID community levels, meaning people there can live, learn, work and shop without masks.
MONICA GANDHI: The entire country, at this point, really doesn't have an indoor mask mandate. It's really not consistent to have a mask mandate on a plane or a bus versus the whole community.
HUANG: Another discordance - the mask mandate applies to city buses, but not to school buses. Still, Zinzi Bailey, a social epidemiologist at the University of Miami, says the CDC's mask mandate for travelers can make a meaningful difference.
ZINZI BAILEY: When we are in enclosed public spaces with other people who may be from a variety of different locations, it's prudent to have a mask, right?
HUANG: That's especially true now. In the past two weeks, the U.S. has seen a 20% increase in cases. So far, it's been mostly concentrated in certain areas like the Northeast. Bailey says it's important to try and keep regional outbreaks from spreading.
BAILEY: When we are in a plane, we don't know who we are coming into contact with or who is traveling from where. Without a mask mandate, we are kind of exposing everybody to what might be a localized surge.
HUANG: She says it also protects people at high medical risk who have to be in these enclosed spaces. The CDC says they're extending the travel mask mandate to May 3 to assess the recent rise in COVID cases caused by the spread of the BA.2 omicron subvariant.
Right now, Dr. Ashish Jha, the new White House coronavirus coordinator, says the U.S. is still having a reasonably good COVID moment.
ASHISH JHA: Infection numbers are relatively low. We have fewer people in the hospital right now than at any point in the pandemic.
HUANG: But health officials are watching for any signs that the uptick in cases could lead to big increases in serious disease and hospital strain. That's why the CDC is keeping the travel mask mandate, at least for now.
Pien Huang, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF ORBA SQUARA SONG, "TOMORROW") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/the-federal-transportation-mask-mandate-has-been-extended | 2022-05-12T14:43:29Z |
TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. The midterm elections in November will determine which party controls Congress, so there's a lot at stake. The primaries will also test how much power Donald Trump holds within the Republican Party and whether the party's new litmus test is endorsing the lie that Trump won in 2020. My guest, Shane Goldmacher, a national political correspondent for The New York Times, has been writing about Trump's attempts to be a kingmaker in the party. He's been endorsing a lot of candidates to show the power he has to reward or punish, but some of his endorsements have been backfiring. Goldmacher has also been investigating new secret coalitions of wealthy Republicans trying to wield power outside traditional party machinery. Trump is implying he wants to run again in 2024, but he hasn't yet announced. Goldmacher has been reporting on accusations that Trump is now violating campaign finance law by fundraising for his political endeavors without having announced his run. He's also continuing to find new, previously unheard of ways of cashing in on his status as a former president. Shane Goldmacher, welcome to FRESH AIR.
SHANE GOLDMACHER: Thanks for having me on.
GROSS: You write that Trump wants to be a Republican kingmaker. He's endorsed more than a hundred and twenty candidates to elevate his allies, punish those who've crossed him and turn the lie that the election was stolen into a litmus test for the party. How's this track record so far? If you look at the range of his candidates, how is he doing?
GOLDMACHER: We're about to find out, is the short answer. You know, he's endorsed all these candidates. There's only been one primary so far in 2022, and it was in Texas. And all the candidates that he supported won. But Texas wasn't really a test. In that state, and in some others, he endorsed people who were widely expected to win anyway. His track record historically has been really strong. I mean, this is something that Trump himself has obsessed over, publicly and privately. He keeps track of his endorsement track record. He sees it as a clear barometer of his strength in the party. And he's only had a couple of defeats, and they've been prominent ones. And so he's extended himself pretty broadly ahead of 2022.
I would circle the month of May to tell us whether that track record's going to stay the same this year because in May, you have a series of races that are going to test Trump's sway in the party. Some of them are really well-known and prominent. The biggest one is the governor's race in Georgia, where since the Republican governor certified the 2020 election - Brian Kemp - Trump has been after him. He has personally recruited a challenger and has made it a top priority to try to defeat him. That's one race in May. But you have a series of others - the Pennsylvania Senate race where he just endorsed, the North Carolina Senate race where Trump just endorsed, even the Idaho governor's race where Trump is backing a Republican challenger to the incumbent governor and a House race in West Virginia. There's a whole series of races where we'll have a better sense of Trump's standing in the Republican Party. We know he's personally popular - almost every poll shows it - but can he defeat candidates who he disagrees with even if he's not the one on the ballot? That's the real question.
GROSS: Pennsylvania's an interesting race, which I just want to refer to briefly here, because Trump decided to endorse Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is a famous TV personality. Before he had his own show on TV, he was a regular on Oprah's show. So you've got one reality TV guy endorsing another TV guy (laughter). So it's interesting in that respect. And, you know, I live in Philadelphia, so their ad campaigns have been a little crazy. Have you been seeing their ads?
GOLDMACHER: I mean, relentless. I think it's one of the most expensive races in the country and extremely negative - extremely negative ads, basically a bombardment of attacks on Dr. Oz for being a RINO - you know, many attacks on McCormick for his stances. And I think it's only going to intensify in the coming weeks.
GROSS: Who would you say is further to the right between McCormick and Oz?
GOLDMACHER: You know, it's hard to say who's further to the right. You know, neither of them fit the sort of mold of a current Trump Republican. You know, Oz was a television personality. He came about through "The Oprah Winfrey Show." This is something that the McCormick campaign and his allies have hammered Oz for.
GROSS: Yeah, they call him a Hollywood liberal.
GOLDMACHER: A Hollywood liberal. And there's pictures of him kissing the Hollywood star. And the word RINO is tossed about almost every hour on television in Pennsylvania.
GROSS: The Hollywood star on the Walk of Fame. On the...
GOLDMACHER: Yes, the Hollywood star on the Walk of Fame. There's an image of him reaching down and kissing it, which is the close and open to quite a number of television ads this cycle. You know, so you have Oz on one end, and then you have McCormick on the other, who is a - you know, the CEO or was the CEO of one of the largest hedge funds in the world and, you know, an administration veteran of the Bush administration - very much sort of a traditionalist Republican makeup - you know, Connecticut and, you know, Army veteran and worked for the Bush administration. And he's recast himself in this contest as a MAGA Trump Republican, and so has Oz. And they both lobbied pretty aggressively for Trump's endorsements. They took multiple trips down there. Each of them have met with Trump more than one time. And McCormick met with Trump just before he formally endorsed Oz.
It shows you Trump's power in this party that these two candidates - one a celebrity like Dr. Oz, who has his own name and reputation, and McCormick, you know, a prominent business leader who has his own political history, as working in the Bush administration - have run so heavily as Trump Republicans and so heavily sought his endorsement. It really tells you everything you need to know about the state of the Republican Party in 2022, that in a swing state, in an important key state and one of the most important battlegrounds at the presidential level in the country, the best way to try to become the Republican nominee this year is by becoming as close as you can to Donald Trump.
GROSS: Let's talk about Alabama and Congressman Mo Brooks. To refresh everybody's memory, he was a big supporter of the falsehood that Trump actually won the election. He spoke at the January 6 rally. He voted against certifying the election. Trump endorsed him and then withdrew the endorsement, and that really backfired on Trump. Can you talk about that a little bit?
GOLDMACHER: So one of Trump's early endorsements in this cycle was of Mo Brooks, who, as you just said, was a leader in the efforts to block the certification of the 2020 election. And his alliance with Trump and his role in that were absolutely central to his Senate race. On Mo Brooks's website today, the central image when you go there is of him speaking at that January 6 rally. And until Trump rescinded his endorsement, the logo that he used said endorsed by Trump. He incorporated Trump's name in his own Senate logo. And Brooks was an ally of Trump. He was one of the originators of this idea that somehow Congress could block the electors being certified. And this was something that Trump was obviously very enamored with back at the end of his administration, when it was clear he had lost the White House and didn't want to have lost the White House.
And so in some ways, he was a natural fit for Trump to support for Senate. But in other ways, it was a surprise because Mo Brooks was not known as a powerhouse fundraiser or necessarily a particularly strong statewide candidate in Alabama. And that's sort of what happened. So in the intervening months, two other candidates - prominent candidates - got into the race and passed Mo Brooks in the polls. Now, neither of those candidates were particularly Trumpian by heritage. You know, one of them was the chief of staff to the sitting senator who's leaving, Richard Shelby, you know, who's sort of a classic Republican, you know, of the old school. And yet Trump, watching his endorsements, knowing that his power is being measured by how successful his candidates he supports are, recently withdrew his endorsement of Brooks altogether.
And the reasons he gave - he said basically that Brooks went squishy on this election lie; that he said at one point at a rally, which is true, that voters should move on because Brooks did say that voters should move on. But Brooks has still said that the election was stolen, and he's still about as pro-Trump as you can be. That's the reason Trump gave. But sort of the real reason seems to be that Brooks has been struggling in this race, and Trump has been complaining privately for months about Brooks' struggles and saying, I endorse this guy and why isn't he winning yet? And so he's sort of, like, cutting his losses early, saying he's going to lose this race, I don't want to be taken down with him.
GROSS: Meanwhile, after Trump rescinded his endorsement of Mo Brooks, Mo Brooks spoke out against Trump. Refresh our memory about what Mo Brooks had to say about Trump.
GOLDMACHER: Yeah. So the same day that Trump rescinded his endorsement of Mo Brooks, Brooks went public and said that Trump had asked him to sort of pursue some way to rescind the 2020 election result and reinstall Trump into power. This is something that, you know, Trump has denied saying specifically, although he has floated this idea publicly of somehow he could come back into power.
But what's interesting is the idea that Trump was somehow asking an ally in Congress to - even after he was out of office, even after Biden has been sworn in, even after months in the White House, to somehow reverse the election. And you hear Trump say these ideas publicly. He talks about, you know, the election was stolen and if you stole something from Tiffany's and you were caught with the jewels, well, you'd have to give it back, which I kind of love as a frame of reference for what Trump thinks of as things that are getting stolen, you know. And so somehow for him, an election that wasn't stolen is akin to jewels taken from Tiffany's, and it should be rightfully returned to him. And so Mo Brooks basically said that Trump had asked him to pursue ways to do this and that he said that was unconstitutional and he wouldn't do it. You know, part of this is sort of a feud between these two people who, you know, obviously were disappointed to have lost the endorsement that had been so central to the Brooks campaign.
If I can, I do want to give you one extra little thing that has happened since Trump rescinded that endorsement, which is back to that litmus test question of was the 2020 election stolen? And so one of those two candidates who's running, Mike Durant, had basically dodged that question. He wouldn't give a complete answer. You know, you say some things - it wasn't decided, but he wouldn't say that Biden was wrongfully the president. So it was on March 23 that Trump rescinded the Brooks endorsement. And two days later, on March 25, there's Mike Durant for the first time flipping his stance and saying, quote, "I don't think Joe Biden won."
GROSS: You know, so we've been talking about how the Republican congressman from Alabama, Mo Brooks, says that Trump asked him to say that Biden lost the election and to try to call for a new special election that would help reinstall Trump in the White House. So that's a quid pro quo. And Brooks isn't the only candidate who's said that Trump basically wants something in return for an endorsement. What else have you heard about what candidates say Trump has wanted in return?
GOLDMACHER: I mean, I think that the No. 1 thing he wants is loyalty and the promise to amplify the mistruth that the 2020 election was stolen. There's been a lot of specific things that he's sort of pushed for. One of the ones that struck me was in the Alaska governor's race where he issued what I can only call a conditional endorsement of the sitting Republican governor. And his endorsement was conditional on the governor not supporting the sitting senator from Alaska, Lisa Murkowski, because Murkowski had supported his removal from office for impeachment for his role in the Capitol riot.
And so so much of what Trump is demanding of Republicans comes back to, first, buying his lie about the 2020 election and, second, sort of cleansing the party of the people who are critical of him in the aftermath of the election and the riot on January 6. I don't know that it's a specific quid pro quo in a lot of instances. What it is, is Trump saying the only way you can be a Trump Republican, which is the dominant share of the Republican Party today, is to echo what he says about the 2020 election.
GROSS: Let me reintroduce you here. If you're just joining us, my guest is New York Times national political correspondent Shane Goldmacher. We'll be right back after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF AMY RIGBY'S "PLAYING PITTSBURGH")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Shane Goldmacher, a national political correspondent for The New York Times. He's been writing about the midterms and what they're revealing about divisions within the Republican Party, new dark money groups trying to wield power, Trump's attempts to prove he's a Republican kingmaker, and the ways Trump continues to cash in on his post-presidency, as well as his possible run in 2024.
When Trump endorses a candidate, what does that candidate typically get? Is it easier to attract money with Trump's endorsement?
GOLDMACHER: I mean, this is the fascinating thing, which is it's not so clear exactly what they get. They get a statement from Donald Trump and sort of do with it what you will. For all the energy and effort that goes into winning his endorsement - and there are people flying down to Mar-a-Lago for meetings; there are even candidates showing up at Mar-a-Lago at fundraisers for others to sort of wave their hands and shout at Trump and get a picture with him. But if you win his endorsement, you basically get a paper statement that he says, you have a complete and total endorsement from Donald Trump. He sends them a $5,000 check in most cases from his PAC, which again is sitting on $120 million. So this is a pittance of a financial contribution. But what you get is his imprimatur. What you get is the ability to, as Dr. Oz did days after Trump endorsed him, put up a television ad saying, I'm the Trump candidate, and I have Trump's endorsement. You know, some candidates get a rally in their state, which is extremely valuable. You get thousands of people in one place. You get national media attention and local media attention. You know, Trump continues to be an earned media magnet. He makes more news than most politicians. And when he comes to town, he brings all of the cameras.
But again, he's endorsed - now I think the number is 130 candidates across the country. And for most of them, they just get a statement from him. And, you know, you got to raise your own money to advance it. And there are many people around Trump who think, you know, he's probably overextended himself in this primary season. Why endorse in some of these races where you're looking at three pro-Trump candidates, when whoever wins is going to be a Trump-y person? You didn't need to put your own name on the line and risk a loss, especially since you're not going to really do that much for the person you endorse.
GROSS: I think you say that the candidates who Trump endorses can hold events at Mar-a-Lago, or at least some of them do that. But those are probably really costly events, no?
GOLDMACHER: These are costly events. So he has turned Mar-a-Lago into a fundraising hot spot for other candidates. And look; there is an entire Republican donor set in Palm Beach that likes to engage in politics. But what Trump has done is said, OK, you're a pro-Trump candidate, you know, running against one of the people who voted to impeach him. You get my endorsement, and you get to come to Mar-a-Lago and do a fundraiser. But by the way, you have to pay for Mar-a-Lago. It's not free. You have to pay for the food and the catering and the like. And this is not small amounts of money. You know, we will get new reports on how much has been spent just in the coming days, but last year alone, just payments to Mar-a-Lago, let alone other Trump properties, I think we're on the order of $650,000 for various candidates.
Now, some went and held an event there even before Trump had endorsed them because, look; one of the best ways to get in front of Donald Trump, you do an event at his property, and he's likelier to swing by. Or maybe you get a private meeting with him afterwards or beforehand. You know, the role that Mar-a-Lago is playing in the Republican Party right now as a place that people are being drawn to is totally fascinating and really unlike anything I can recall seeing in American politics.
GROSS: You write that some of Trump's own advisers have warned him that he's making some risky endorsements and that his endorsements, instead of proving he's a kingmaker, might backfire on him.
GOLDMACHER: Absolutely. This is a real concern. Why endorse in some of these races where there are multiple candidates who are pro-Trump? And I do think that it's worth noting, regardless of how Trump does personally with his endorsement picks, the way that the 2022 primaries are unfolding, Trumpism, the sort of movement that he's led, is definitely winning. There's extremely few races where people are openly breaking with his approach to government, who don't want to build Trump's wall, who don't want to do all the things that he said he wants to do, who aren't running sort of these grievance campaigns. His brand of the Republican Party is the new brand of the Republican Party, and his own personal power may get diminished in this primary process in certain races, but his approach to politics very much feels like it's already being validated.
GROSS: So you said that you think Trumpism is winning out in the Republican Party. What does Trumpism mean today aside from supporting Trump?
GOLDMACHER: I think it's not a specific policy agenda so much as an attitude and an approach to politics that is culture based and grievance based and trying to do things like build the wall and, you know, focus on these sort of, you know, transgender rights fights. And you look at the person who has most risen in the post-Trump White House era in the Republican Party, you know, it's Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, who has picked the same kind of fights that Trump did. It's having the right enemies. It's fighting with the media. It's attacking Anthony Fauci. It's, you know, signing bills that make liberals angry. There's an us-against-them attitude among, chiefly, white voters that Trump had tapped into that isn't going away, that remains the dominant strain of the Republican Party, both the media apparatus that supports the party and the leading party officials themselves.
GROSS: Let me reintroduce you again. If you're just joining us, my guest is New York Times national political correspondent Shane Goldmacher. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF TAYLOR HASKINS' "ALBERTO BALSAM")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with Shane Goldmacher, national political correspondent for The New York Times. He's been writing about the midterms and what they're revealing about divisions within the Republican Party - new dark money groups trying to wield power, Trump's attempts to prove he's a Republican kingmaker and the ways Trump continues to cash in on his post-presidency as well as his possible run in 2024.
So we've been talking about how Trump wants to be the Republican Party's kingmaker. Does he have any rivals for kingmaker within the party?
GOLDMACHER: More than he used to. I think that there has been an increased willingness for Republicans to make their own waves and their own separation from him. You know, you have his former vice president, Mike Pence, who's been out there making some speeches, who has broken with Trump on a couple of notable issues after years of basically standing by his side through everything. You have Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, who has not sort of ruled out running whether Trump runs or not and who has been second in most of this sort of way-too-early polls of the 2024 field.
You've got Chris Christie, a former ally and adviser, the New Jersey governor - the former New Jersey governor who recently was in New Hampshire and gave a speech very critical of Trump and talked about his efforts to reach Trump on January 6 and the unacceptable behavior that day. You've got Mike Pompeo, his former secretary of state, who's been traveling in Iowa. You've got Senator Tom Cotton, who recently gave a speech and was critical of Trump on a specific issue of crime on a bill that he had signed that Trump had sort of touted that he called the worst mistake of the Trump presidency.
These kind of breaks with Trump weren't happening when he was in the White House. And, you know, I think each person who does it pushes a little farther and sees those Trump comments snap back at them. Is there an audience for maybe not an anti-Trump but a non-Trump? There are people sort of more clearly in the anti-Trump lane. The governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, has been a Trump critic who sort of created a group in laying the groundwork for a potential presidential run as an anti-Trump Republican.
So, yeah, there's definitely some challengers to a potential 2024 campaign of Donald Trump. That said, there isn't a poll that doesn't show Trump as the most popular Republican in the party still. And a lot of these are people just, you know, dipping their toes in the water and seeing how far the ripples go.
GROSS: I'd love to know if you can tell us anything about what the leaders of the Republican Party in Congress really think about Trump and what they say behind the scenes compared to what they say in public. And I'm thinking here of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and also of Kevin McCarthy in the House. Like, where do they really stand on Trump? Do you know?
GOLDMACHER: I think Mitch McConnell's been pretty clear where he stands on Trump. You know, he spoke extremely forcefully after January 6 about how unacceptable the behavior was.
GROSS: And then he voted to keep him in office.
GOLDMACHER: Exactly. And then at the same time, he voted to keep him in office. And he said that if Trump's the nominee again in 2024, he would support him. There was a recently a terrific interview that Jonathan Swan of Axios did with McConnell in person on stage. And he asked him about, you know, do you have any moral red lines that you won't cross? And McConnell really just didn't want to answer that question. And it's clear that, you know, for so many of these Republicans, it's party first.
You know, there are people who write these tell-all books that are anti-Trump. You know, Bill Barr, his former attorney general, wrote a very critical book of the former president and then afterwards went on television and said, well, if he's the nominee again in 2024, of course I would support the Republican nominee. Even though he had described Trump as basically just short of a threat to democracy, he would still support him again. And I think that there's a lot of, you know, private disagreement and, in some cases like Bill Barr and McConnell, public disagreement but an unwillingness to break from somebody who controls such a big part of the loyalty of the Republican base.
I don't know about you or your listeners, but I sign up for as many fundraising email lists as possible. It's part of my job to track who's raising money from whom. And the volume of emails from the Senate Republican Committee and the Republican National Committee and the House Republican Committee that invoke Donald Trump's name and at times even masquerade as if they appear like they're coming from Trump is overwhelming. The way to raise money from people today is by invoking Trump among Republicans and, frankly, sometimes among the Democrats who get outraged by Trump. But that tells you where they are.
So Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy - they're going to struggle to come to any real breaks from Donald Trump because their supporters still love him. And, you know, you can make a strong argument that leaders should lead their supporters where they think they should go. But pretty often in Congress, leaders lead by going where they think the supporters are already going.
GROSS: Well, let me reintroduce you here. If you're just joining us, my guest is New York Times national political correspondent Shane Goldmacher. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF HOWARD FISHMAN SONG, "DIRTY")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Shane Goldmacher, national political correspondent for The New York Times.
So you've been writing about ways that Trump is cashing in on his post-presidency. What are some of the ways he's doing that?
GOLDMACHER: Oh, let me just count the ways.
(LAUGHTER)
GOLDMACHER: You know, it's a long list - no, truthfully. I mean, one of the ones that's most interesting to me - and this is not the big money. The biggest money away is this SPAC, this effort to create a social media company called Truth Social that has lured in $1 billion of outside investments and has the potential to be a huge cash cow for Trump. It also has lots of signs of failure. This app that wants to compete with Twitter launched, you know, a month ago. And there were weeks of people being on wait lists. Trump himself has only sent one, quote-unquote, truth. Instead of a tweet, they call it truths. You know, there has not been a - you know, the download charts have been dropping and dropping. There's been a lot of signs of lack of success. But that's the big money.
But the little-money stuff is the stuff that really fascinates me. He's been doing everything from holding an event last December that looked like a political fundraiser, but in which the money went, in part, directly to him. He gave a speech, people came. There was, you know, a lectern, all that stuff. And instead of paying $10,000 to his political account, it just went to a entity that was paying him directly. He's published a coffee table book, a $75 coffee table book self-published through a new company that his son has co-founded with another former aide, selling it directly to his supporters. And, you know, my colleagues have since reported that there was actually a different photo book that had been planned by his White House photographer, that he basically front ran that book and got his own book out because photographs of the White House are public domain from the White House photographer. They're put on the Flickr page. And they're public documents.
So there's just a number of ways in which he is, you know, tapping almost this direct-to-consumer base and continuing to bring in money in his post-presidency. Trump Tower remodeled the bar in the lobby, you know? I've been down there, you know? It looks very sort of, you know, what you would imagine, presidential. You've got, you know, mahogany and dark leather and very expensive drinks and, you know, big, big pictures of him as president and some memorabilia there, you know? It's been rebranded the 45 Wine & Whiskey Bar. So there's just a lot of different small things he's doing, as ever the businessman, ever looking for ways to squeeze an extra dollar out of his supporters in his post-presidency, that really just hasn't been done before.
GROSS: He's been marketing messages to people on his 2020 campaign email list in order to sell MAGA merchandise. Is that legal?
GOLDMACHER: Yeah. This is another thing. His Trump store - so it's, like - I don't remember the exact URL. But he has his own private store that he launched while he was in the White House. And, you know, they sell, like, trinkets and Trump things. It's not technically political stuff. Although, they have begun selling those sort of signature red caps. And, yeah, so what they've done is the Trump store has, through intermediaries, rented portions of his campaign supporter list, because who's likeliest to buy overpriced Mar-a-Lago Christmas ornaments or, you know, Trump gold whatever, you know? It's probably the people who signed up for his political email list. And, you know, it's a private business renting out this thing. And then that money in turn raises money for his political operation. It's not illegal. It is definitely unusual.
GROSS: So while we're talking about Trump and money, Trump's 2020 campaign led to millions of dollars that actually had to be refunded to Trump donors. There were complaints of fraud. Can you explain those complaints?
GOLDMACHER: Yeah. This is a story that I wrote last spring. And it's pretty fascinating. If you've ever donated money to a political campaign, you know, there's often a box that says, would you like to make this a monthly recurring political donation? And you check the box. And it's just clearly labeled. What the Trump campaign did is earlier in the year, they began pre-checking the box. And so people automatically were making those donations monthly if you didn't notice that it was pre-checked.
GROSS: So let me stop you. So in order to not make monthly donations, you had to notice that there was a pre-checked box saying you were making monthly donations. And you had to uncheck that box. You had to take action (laughter) if you didn't want to make monthly donations?
GOLDMACHER: Exactly. That's what they did earlier in the campaign. And then they made the box more complicated. They added a second box to take out a bonus donation a few days later. And they added all kinds of extraneous text in each of these boxes. And so by the end of the race, the disclosure that this box that was pre-checked would withdraw a monthly donation was buried beneath seven lines of other text that had nothing to do with the fact that it was going to take this money out every month, and seven lines of text saying there's going to be a second donation. So if you sign up to give $25, you gave that day, they took out another $25 a few days later. And then it took out $25 every month.
And then this is what they did at the end of the race which caused such a spike in refund requests. They didn't take the money out every month, they started taking it out every week. And so while somebody might miss that their donation happened a second time the next month or they take a couple of months on their credit card to miss, you don't usually miss that suddenly, your credit card has four contributions in a single month when you intended to only make one. And so what happened in the reporting that I did was that there was a huge surge of complaints to credit card companies of fraud, saying, this is wrong. I didn't sign up for these kinds of donations.
And you can track the spike pretty clearly through the Internet Archive to how this disclosure box changed at the end of the 2020 race, and how the boxes were pre-checked and then disguised and then made weekly. And at the end of the day, more than $130 million was refunded by the Trump operation with the party to donors in the course of the campaign. And this just dwarfed how much was refunded by the Biden operation, which is a small fraction of that. And percentage wise, it's more than 10%. So 10 cents of every dollar that was raised online in the 2020 campaign by Trump eventually was refunded to his supporters.
GROSS: Shane Goldmacher, thank you so much for coming on our show. And thanks for your reporting.
GOLDMACHER: Thanks for having me on.
GROSS: Shane Goldmacher is a national political correspondent for The New York Times. Our interview was recorded yesterday. After we take a short break, we'll listen back to my 1992 interview with comic Gilbert Gottfried. He died Tuesday at the age of 67. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSETTE EXPLOSION'S "DOUCE JOIE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/the-midterm-elections-will-show-if-trump-is-still-a-kingmaker | 2022-05-12T14:43:31Z |
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The state psychiatric hospital in Montana is in crisis. Since last fall, four patients have died for reasons that could have been prevented. And this week, the federal government said conditions at the state hospital are so bad, it will no longer pay for care there. That has advocates worried that things will only get worse. Montana Public Radio's Aaron Bolton reports.
AARON BOLTON, BYLINE: Federal inspectors visited the Montana State Hospital in the small town of Warm Springs in February, following complaints. They found that since October, four patients had died from preventable COVID infections and serious falls. Marla Lemons worked as a clinical psychologist at the state hospital for 20 years. She says she and other staff tried to tell hospital administrators and state health officials that chronic staffing shortages were making the hospital unsafe for staff and patients. But she says no one listened.
MARLA LEMONS: That's why I left. And that's why many, many people are now leaving again. There's another mass exodus right now.
BOLTON: The inspectors warned the state that the hospital could lose federal funding if it didn't fix patient safety problems. But during three follow-up inspections, they only found more problems. This week, the Federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, said it would no longer pay for care at the hospital because of the unsafe conditions. That's a big deal because CMS funding is often a significant portion of hospital budgets. Ben Miller is the president of Well Being Trust, a foundation that focuses on mental health care.
BEN MILLER: From what I can see, CMS doesn't do what they did in Montana that often.
BOLTON: Miller says CMS sometimes will work with hospitals for years before pulling funding. He says the fact that the agency did that in just two months here shows how bad things are. Republican Governor Greg Gianforte's administration says the unsafe conditions are due to staffing shortages that have been a problem for years and that it will take time to resolve. Ben Miller says losing the federal funding will make solving longstanding problems more difficult.
MILLER: This is the harsh reality of what happens when we don't do a good job addressing issues of mental health and addiction, that people do find themselves back into jails or prisons and/or they find themselves on the street.
BOLTON: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services says it considered offering Montana a plan to continue receiving federal funding. But that's now off the table. State health officials say they never saw a proposed agreement and that losing federal funding won't disrupt day-to-day care at the state hospital. They've now hired a consulting firm to help improve safety issues.
BERNADETTE FRANKS-ONGOY: I'm not sure how that's practical under the present conditions.
BOLTON: Bernadette Franks-Ongoy is the head of Disability Rights Montana, the state's federally designated patient advocacy group. Both patients and families tell her they're worried the hospital could shut down. She says state health officials aren't answering many questions about how they'll maintain care for patients.
FRANKS-ONGOY: They are representing that this is going to be business as usual and that day-to-day care is going to be fine.
BOLTON: The state says it's evaluating whether some state hospital patients can be moved to other facilities. But Franks-Ongoy says people wind up at the state hospital because there is no other place to go. For NPR News, I'm Aaron Bolton in Columbia Falls, Mont. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/the-only-psychiatric-hospital-in-montana-is-losing-federal-funding | 2022-05-12T14:43:37Z |
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep.
The renown of the Trapp family of Esko, Minn., has reached new heights. New heights - that's a joke, see, because Guinness World Records has declared them the tallest family in the world. The family has five members. The shortest is 6'3". The tallest - also the youngest - is 7 foot 3. The family's three kids, now adults in their 20s, were all active in sports and were recruited to play either volleyball or basketball in college.
It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/the-renown-of-the-trapp-family-of-esko-minn-has-reached-new-heights | 2022-05-12T14:43:43Z |
Updated April 14, 2022 at 9:55 PM ET
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal is trying to assuage employee fears in the wake of Elon Musk launching a hostile $43 billion takeover attempt of the social media company.
At an all-staff meeting on Thursday, Agrawal said Twitter's board is considering Musk's offer and will act in the best interest of company shareholders, according to two employees in attendance.
When an employee suggested that Musk's aggressive acquisition bid felt like a hostage situation, Agrawal dismissed the notion.
"I don't believe we are being held hostage," Agrawal shot back, according to the employees.
After the meeting, many were dismayed, saying they feel like they were being left in the dark about what was really going on and that a Musk-owned Twitter represents, to some, a nightmare scenario, given Musk's long history as a volatile business leader.
"The culture here and this platform deserves to be protected, and I hope the Board does the brave thing and refuses the offer," said one Twitter employee who requested anonymity. "Our democracy is more important than a payout," this employee said. "I hope the Board agrees."
But this Twitter worker added: "It does feel like there isn't much we can do as employees," this person said.
Musk revealed his interest in purchasing Twitter earlier in the day by tweeting a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission stating the acquisition depended on the "completion of anticipated financing."
That was unusual, analysts noted, because an investor eyeing a takeover typically discloses financing along with a bid.
"I'm not sure that I will actually be able to acquire it," Musk said at the TED2022 conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, which was his first appearance since making his Twitter purchase public.
When asked if there was a "Plan B," if his takeover failed, he said "there is," but he refused to provide further detail.
Musk's bid could attract other potential Twitter buyers
Musk's offer of $54.20 per share is 38% more than the value of Twitter stock the day before his investment was publicly announced and 18.2% higher than Wednesday's closing price.
"It would be utterly indefensible not to put this offer to a shareholder vote," Musk tweeted on Thursday afternoon. "They own the company, not the board of directors."
Twitter stock closed down 1.35% on Thursday, well below Musk's offer price, however, suggesting investors may be skeptical of the billionaire's bid.
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, a longtime Twitter shareholder, tweeted on Thursday that Musk's offer doesn't come close to the company's "intrinsic value" and said he would reject it. Musk responded on Twitter by asking: "What are the Kingdom's views on journalistic freedom of speech?"
Interesting. Just two questions, if I may.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 14, 2022
How much of Twitter does the Kingdom own, directly & indirectly?
What are the Kingdom’s views on journalistic freedom of speech?
But Musk's approach may open the door to other interested buyers who have their own designs on Twitter, said Scott Kessler, an analyst at research firm Third Bridge.
"This is really perhaps the beginning of a process, and it's not necessarily going to start and end with Elon Musk," Kessler said.
However, analyst Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities wrote in a note to clients that he expects Musk to succeed.
"It would be hard for any other bidders/consortium to emerge and the Twitter board will be forced likely to accept this bid and/or run an active process to sell Twitter," Ives said.
Still, there are unanswered questions, including how Musk would balance his time given that he is already CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and how he would finance his cash offer. Most of his $266 billion net worth is held in Tesla shares. Selling part of his stake could affect Tesla's valuation.
From Twitter's most vocal user to would-be owner
The takeover bid is the latest twist in a wild two weeks for the billionaire and the social media platform.
On April 4, Musk disclosed he'd been buying up Twitter shares and had become its largest individual shareholder. (Earlier this week, a Twitter shareholder filed a securities fraud lawsuit against Musk, alleging his late disclosure of his stake cost investors money and saved Musk around $143 million.)
The Tesla CEO is both a prolific user of Twitter and a vocal critic, so his investment immediately sparked questions about his intentions. In the weeks before his stake became public, he had publicly questioned Twitter's commitment to free speech and mused about creating his own rival social network.
The next day, Twitter CEO Agrawal announced Musk would join the company's board — and had agreed to limit how much more Twitter stock he could buy. Both men said they looked forward to working together on the company's future.
But those plans quickly fell apart. Over the weekend, Musk notified Twitter he would not join the board after all, a decision that Agrawal described as "for the best."
Before his about-face became public on Sunday night, Musk had spent much of the weekend tweeting suggestions, criticisms and jokes about Twitter. "Is Twitter dying?" he asked in one tweet, noting that many of its most-followed users, such as Barack Obama and Katy Perry, rarely tweet.
Musk is a self-described free-speech absolutist
While it's not clear why Musk changed his mind about joining the board, in his filing on Thursday, he doubled down on his vision of Twitter's role in society — and what is needed to realize it.
"I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy," he wrote in a letter to Twitter chairman Bret Taylor. "However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form."
Musk has described himself as a "free speech absolutist" and has been critical of Twitter's rules about what people are allowed to say on the site.
Among Musk's other proposals for Twitter include cracking open the "black box" of the social platform's algorithm so there is more transparency around what tweets get promoted or demoted. That automated process being secret, he said at the TED event, is "quite dangerous."
"I don't like to lose": Musk
But Twitter, which has far fewer users compared to social networks like Facebook and TikTok, is also under pressure to grow its business. Changing its policies against content such as hate speech and false claims about COVID could be a turn-off for users and advertisers.
"This is a moneymaking platform where your ideas are amplified if they're going to help the company make money," said Karen Kornbluh of the German Marshall Fund, who studies online disinformation.
"When you poll people, people say they want moderation, that they don't want conspiracy theories floating freely on their platforms, that they don't want harassment," she said. "So I think it's a misunderstanding of what people want."
At the TED conference on Thursday, Musk said his interest in Twitter was not about economics or making money. "Twitter has become kind of the de facto town square," he said. "So it's just really important that people have both the reality and the perception that they are able to speak freely within the bounds of the law."
He added: "I don't like to lose."
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/twitter-ceo-addresses-employees-worried-about-elon-musks-hostile-takeover-bid | 2022-05-12T14:43:49Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine seven weeks ago today. Since then, the U.S. and European allies have accused Russian forces of committing war crimes. The Biden administration says it's helping Ukraine investigate. So what does that American help look like? NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas joins us now with more. Hi, Ryan.
RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: Good morning.
FADEL: Good morning. So what is the U.S. doing right now to assist Ukraine in its investigation?
LUCAS: So I spoke with Beth Van Schaack about this. She's the U.S. ambassador-at-large for Global Criminal Justice, top State Department official on this. And she says the Justice Department and State Department are working with European allies to support the Ukrainian prosecutor general who is investigating on the ground. The State Department is also helping fund outside experts, so experienced war crimes lawyers and investigators who are also assisting Ukrainian authorities. And Van Schaack says all of this is important.
BETH VAN SCHAACK: It's extremely important for the sanctity and integrity of history to document these crimes, to make sure that we have preserved and authenticated the evidence that is being generated in the various crime scenes around Ukraine.
LUCAS: And it's also important, she says, that victims know that the world sees what they experienced and that the world is working to help deliver justice.
FADEL: You said the U.S. is funding non-governmental groups that are helping investigate these possible war crimes. What are they doing?
LUCAS: Well, before the war began, the U.S. was funding a group of international experts who were helping Ukraine investigate possible war crimes following Russia's takeover of Crimea and Donbas back in 2014. This group is made up of prosecutors, investigators, forensic experts, all people with extensive experience working on these types of cases. One of the people leading this effort is Clint Williamson. He's a former U.S. ambassador for war crimes issues. He says the group is ramping up its operations now, following Russia's full-scale invasion and the sort of violence that we've seen in places like Bucha outside Kyiv. As part of this, there are also so-called mobile justice teams - so international experts on the ground in Ukraine assisting authorities in their investigations. At least one such group is currently in Ukraine. Now, Williamson says Ukraine has very solid, very capable investigators, but they've mostly dealt with lower-level perpetrators in the past, and the scope and scale of what they're facing now, he says, is very different.
CLINT WILLIAMSON: You know, you're potentially looking at command responsibility cases that can go up to senior political and military leaders. So this becomes just a much more complex investigative and prosecutorial approach.
LUCAS: And that's where the outside experts' experience and expertise can come in assisting the Ukrainians.
FADEL: What types of evidence are likely to come into play here?
LUCAS: Well, all sorts of things - investigators will be interviewing eyewitnesses. They'll be looking at ballistics evidence to show what types of munitions were used. They can identify what Russian military units were present at a given time in a given place and who was in command. The U.S. and its allies can also dig in to their own intelligence capabilities, including what's known as signals intelligence, so intercepts of communications. Here's Van Schaack again.
VAN SCHAACK: Gathering all of this together will be very important direct evidence of either orders having been received or individuals admitting to having participated in the commission of international crime.
FADEL: So right now, all about documentation, but this is all with an eye toward potential war crime trials in the future. What could the venue be for trials like these?
LUCAS: Well, there are a couple of options. One would be the International Criminal Court, which has opened an investigation. The U.S. isn't party to the courts so that complicates things a bit on the U.S. side. But there are also Ukrainian courts, which, of course, have jurisdiction here. There's also the possibility of courts in some European countries, such as Germany, whose laws allow national authorities to prosecute international crimes. But this is still very much an active war, and as you said, the important thing now is to document what's going on.
FADEL: NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas. Thank you, Ryan.
LUCAS: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/ukraines-probe-into-russian-war-crimes-will-get-help-from-the-u-s-and-others | 2022-05-12T14:43:51Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
More than 4 1/2 million Ukrainians are now refugees. Most have fled the fighting to neighboring European countries. President Biden has pledged the U.S. will welcome a hundred thousand Ukrainian refugees. So far, though, only about 500 have navigated the long journey and the paperwork and arrived in America. Over the weekend, I met a Ukrainian family that made the trek.
(CROSSTALK)
MARTINEZ: On a sunny Saturday afternoon, their American hosts, Susan Thompson-Gaines and her husband, David, are serving pastries in their backyard in Alexandria, Va. There are cinnamon buns and a cake from a local bakery. Susan was told it was a traditional Ukrainian dessert.
SUSAN THOMPSON-GAINES: It's called a Kyiv cake. And a neighbor brought one saying, I have a Kyiv cake. They will be so happy. It's their cake.
MARTINEZ: But it didn't look like any Kyiv cake that Eka Koliubaieva had ever seen.
EKA KOLIUBAIEVA: It's a cake.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Laughter).
E KOLIUBAIEVA: Ukrainian cake (laughter).
MARTINEZ: Eka is a 42-year-old jewelry designer and mother of two from Kyiv. And while the cake looked a little odd, she said it tasted better than the Kyiv cake she grew up with.
E KOLIUBAIEVA: Here, is chocolate. I love chocolate. It's better because in Kyiv, the cake (non-English language spoken).
ERIKA KOLIUBAIEVA: Is no chocolate. It's just cream and some - I don't know how to say that. But it's not good.
MARTINEZ: That's her daughter Erika. She just turned 16. She also liked the American Kyiv cake. But her favorite American food is hamburgers.
ERIKA: Yeah, burgers.
THOMPSON-GAINES: David made burgers one night and brought them down, and Erika was excited.
ERIKA: And I can't say no to the burgers (laughter).
MARTINEZ: Erika's sister, Amira, sits quietly in a chair. She's 11 years old. She stares down at her phone. Her hair covers her face. She's not sure what to make of our microphones.
Eka, Erika and Amira arrived in the U.S. in March and found their American hosts through social media. Late last Wednesday, a surprise guest knocked on the front door. The whole family speaks English, but for this part of their story, they needed the help of our translator.
E KOLIUBAIEVA: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED INTERPRETER: They couldn't figure out who it was. They didn't expect anyone to come.
E KOLIUBAIEVA: (Laughter) Then (non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED INTERPRETER: Then just comes in and says, I'm Artem. And I stared back. It was totally unexpected.
MARTINEZ: The surprise guest was Eka's husband and the girls' father. Artem Koliubaiev is 34 years old. He's a filmmaker. He was able to use his filmmaker's visa to leave Ukraine temporarily to come to America to celebrate Erika's 16th birthday.
ARTEM KOLIUBAIEV: So I have the same map in Google with my daughter...
ERIKA: So, yeah, he's got the...
A KOLIUBAIEV: ...So it was easy to find.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTINEZ: How difficult was it for you not to just tell them what you were about to...
A KOLIUBAIEV: It was difficult. But I want to make the surprise because if I tell them that I have a flight for them, they will be worried about - they will counting the time. So they leave their life here, and then I just, like, appears.
MARTINEZ: While his family was safe in America, Artem has been working back home with volunteers from the Ukrainian film industry. They've been delivering medical supplies, clothing, diapers and other necessities throughout the country. Artem says the family had not planned to leave Kyiv, but then the fighting broke out.
A KOLIUBAIEV: It was Wednesday, 23 of February. It was late night. And then we go sleep, and we just woke up because our friends was calling us because they was close to where was the first bombs. And then we say, just, oh, no.
E KOLIUBAIEVA: (Through interpreter) At 5 a.m., I got a phone call from a friend and she said the war began. I didn't want to believe that. Our first desire was to stay, not to go. But the next day, there were explosions all around, and our windows were shaking. Our furniture was shaking. And we realized we have to go.
MARTINEZ: You said you were shocked. You were surprised. I was in Kyiv, and everyone that I spoke to was not concerned, it seemed, about Russia. Why weren't you worried? Why weren't you afraid of what was going on with Russia at the border?
E KOLIUBAIEVA: (Through interpreter) It was unthinkable to imagine that in the 21st century, somebody would come and bomb a European city. That was impossible to accept.
MARTINEZ: They all hustled to pack their car and drove hundreds of miles to the Hungarian border. When they arrived, they were behind a long line of cars attempting to get through a checkpoint. When they were two cars away from crossing the border, they realized that Artem would have to stay behind. The Ukrainian government requires men under 60 to stay and fight, and the family knew they would have to split up.
A KOLIUBAIEV: We understand that it's no way to cross the border. And I understand there's no way to stay in Ukraine for the girls. And I said, this is the only way. I know that they are (non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Strong.
A KOLIUBAIEV: They are strong. They could do with themselves.
MARTINEZ: Eka, what about for you, when you said goodbye to him without guarantees that you'd see him again?
E KOLIUBAIEVA: (Through interpreter) There wasn't much time for parting and leave-taking. This was a column (ph) of cars going through the borderline checkpoint. So everything was very quick, and that's how it was. I understand you are trying to sort of pull some emotions out of me. But honestly speaking, at that moment, I was still in that shocked state and did not have any feelings at all. You have to understand that after all these experiences, I sort of pulled myself together. And it will be very difficult for you to extract any emotions out of me.
MARTINEZ: Why? Why would it be difficult?
E KOLIUBAIEVA: (Through interpreter) I said everything I could, and that's how it is.
MARTINEZ: Eka and Erika avoid watching the 24/7 television coverage of the war in Ukraine. Instead, they keep up through social media and what they hear from family and friends back home. Some of the stories are gruesome. Artem told them about reports of Russian soldiers eating neighborhood dogs because the soldiers had run out of food.
You're here in the United States. You're safe. And you hear these stories about what's going on in the place that you live. Do you feel relief that you're here or any guilt that you're away from maybe family and friends that are dealing with this?
E KOLIUBAIEVA: (Through interpreter) I certainly don't feel any guilt for not being there now, but I can't say I feel any relief for being here either. What I do feel is just despair. I just want to add that if they were doing that to dogs, I don't even want to think about what they have been doing to humans. And I understand there is no return to the way it was before the invasion.
MARTINEZ: Do you see yourself going back?
E KOLIUBAIEVA: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED INTERPRETER: I don't know, and I am trying not to think about it for now.
E KOLIUBAIEVA: It's too difficult for me now.
MARTINEZ: Erika, what about for you? Do you see yourself going back?
ERIKA: No, I, like, didn't see myself in Kyiv, like, future at all. And with war, of course, I can't imagine myself there now. And so...
A KOLIUBAIEV: How you say this about your name?
ERIKA: Yeah. You can't spell America without Erika. So, yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
ERIKA: That's, like, a rule.
MARTINEZ: Erika plans on going to college in America. She wants to go to film school like her dad. The family is in the U.S. on a tourist visa, which means they can stay until September. But Artem is leaving the U.S. to begin the journey back to Ukraine, not just because he has to, but out of a sense of duty to his country.
A KOLIUBAIEV: I was born in Kyiv. All - my parents was born in Kyiv. The parents of my parents was born in Kyiv. So I have, like, four or five generations from Kyiv. And I like my city. But now it's not my city. You know, a lot of checkpoints all around the Kyiv. A lot of people with weapon - all the people with weapon.
MARTINEZ: As we sat in the host family's quiet backyard, Artem held his youngest daughter, Amira, in his arms and kissed her forehead. He knew in a few days he would be back in the ruins of Ukraine.
A KOLIUBAIEV: I think that everything will be a memory one day, and we need to live in the moment. I don't know what will be tomorrow. Nobody knows. We trying to stand for Ukraine. We trying to save our country. But nobody knows. As you see, nobody wants to fight with Putin except Ukraine.
MARTINEZ: Is it not even a question for you that you are going to go back?
A KOLIUBAIEV: Is not a question for me because I don't want to be a illegal man who crossed the border and hiding somewhere out of my country. No, it's not for me.
MARTINEZ: Eka, what about for you? Is - would you rather him stay?
E KOLIUBAIEVA: (Through interpreter) I certainly would love for him to stay, but I cannot force him to do what he cannot do.
MARTINEZ: Erika, what about you? Would like your dad to stay?
ERIKA: Yeah, sure. But it's something he must do, so...
MARTINEZ: You're OK with it?
ERIKA: Yeah.
MARTINEZ: Considering that Russia is still Ukraine's neighbor, right next door - that life could ever, ever go back to what it used to be.
A KOLIUBAIEV: It's - no, it never come back what it used to be. But as you mentioned, they are our neighbors and they will be our neighbors years in future.
ERIKA: Yeah, we can't do anything.
A KOLIUBAIEV: You know, when I go sleep now in Ukraine, I'm hearing alarms. And it's OK for now because you know that each day could be the last day, each day is the war day. But the worst thing, when the peace will come out, the fear is not come out. You don't hear the alarm, but you hear this alarm in your heart or in your soul, you know? There's - the peace in the papers, not peace in the minds.
MARTINEZ: So is that worth staying in Ukraine once this is all over? Is it...
A KOLIUBAIEV: It's worth to fight. If we broke this regime, yeah, it will be pleasure for everybody, I hope.
MARTINEZ: That's Artem Koliubaiev and his wife, Eka, and their daughters, Erika and Amira. Artem says the next time he sees his family, it will be because something has changed for the better.
[POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: A previous version of this story reported incorrect dates for when A Martínez was in Kyiv.]
(SOUNDBITE OF PALOMO WENDEL'S "NO SHADOW WALK") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/we-meet-one-of-the-first-ukrainian-families-to-arrive-in-the-u-s | 2022-05-12T14:43:57Z |
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
One year ago today, when President Biden was still fairly new in office, he addressed the nation from the White House. He spoke about the U.S. war in Afghanistan - a war that had begun on October 7, 2001.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: It's time to end America's longest war. It's time for American troops to come home.
INSKEEP: They did, but the Taliban reclaimed control of Afghanistan, and the Biden administration had to organize a chaotic evacuation of U.S. citizens and more than 76,000 Afghans. How are they doing now? A Martinez spoke with Cecilia Munoz. She served in the Obama White House as the head of the Domestic Policy Council and is now a senior adviser at New America and co-chair of welcome.us. A began by asking her about the status of the Afghan newcomers.
CECILIA MUNOZ: The vast majority are in communities, living in new homes, and, you know, navigating school systems and learning English if that's a thing that they need to do, and new jobs. About just over 10,000 of them are still in temporary housing, so that's a challenge that we are still all grappling with. But they are here, they are largely in communities, and there are organizations and good people all over the country helping them make a new start.
A MARTINEZ, BYLINE: And it's one thing just to leave your country and move somewhere else. But considering the circumstances in which they had to leave - I mean, what was there, and in a rush, too. I mean, that's like a double whammy there.
MUNOZ: Absolutely. Really coming with, in many cases, literally nothing but the clothes on their backs or very little in the way of possessions. They - you know, they didn't - were not able to plan a move. So, you know, the volunteers, the organizations, the - you know, the people who are standing up to support them are doing things like moving mattresses and...
MARTINEZ: Yeah.
MUNOZ: ...You know, collecting kitchen utensils and helping with clothes, as well as learning English and jobs and all of the things.
MARTINEZ: Yeah. And I understand the Afghan refugees have 90 days of support from the federal government once they leave their military bases, and that the 90 days are approaching for many of them. So, Cecilia, what does that mean for them? I mean, what do they do? Where do they go?
MUNOZ: Well, it means that there's some very limited financial assistance, which is supposed to help with, like, a first month's rent or, you know, some of the expenses of moving into a new home. Everybody understands that it's not nearly enough, and that's why, you know, what welcome.us does is sort of expand the existing infrastructure to make sure that we can do right by these new neighbors of ours and make sure that they get off to a good start.
MARTINEZ: And your organization will soon be announcing over $5 million in funding for 141 organizations helping to settle Afghan refugees. How significant is that number, and how will the money be used?
MUNOZ: We already distributed $8.6 million almost a month after welcome.us was formed, and this is the next tranche of funding, which is going to more than 100 community-based groups. And in some ways, the beautiful thing about it is that it was raised from lots and lots of people around the country. You know, the wealthy individuals gave as much as a million dollars, and regular folks gave as little as $5, and together it's millions of dollars that is supporting groups that are largely volunteers who are doing their part. And it's - this is why I think of it as the most hopeful work I know. This is regular Americans standing up to be good neighbors.
MARTINEZ: And what are those needs? So where is that money going to go?
MUNOZ: So it's supporting organizations all over the country - groups like the Milwaukee Muslim Women's Coalition, which is a community-based group in Wisconsin that is helping people with English, helping them with their sort of cultural competency. There's a group called Veterans Bridge Home in North Carolina, where volunteers are, you know, doing everything from grocery delivery and helping with transportation to setting up new homes and providing cultural advice. So this is really sort of a homegrown community effort all over the country, and these resources are supporting these hardworking groups.
MARTINEZ: Now, the Biden administration announced they're going to be accepting 100,000 Ukrainian refugees. How is your organization preparing to aid those Ukrainians?
MUNOZ: Well, this is actually very important. Welcome.us came into being to help, you know, Americans - regular folks - access opportunities to provide a welcome, and Afghans have created the first big opportunity to do that, but the goal was really always to help migrants of all - and newcomers of all kinds. So we are now preparing - with the Ukrainian diaspora and in partnership with the government - to create the same kind of welcome for the Ukrainians who are going to come. And, again, the heartening thing is that Americans from all walks of life are stepping up and saying, we want to help. We're watching what's happening. We know that we can provide a welcome, and that really reflects the best of who we are.
MARTINEZ: You mentioned all those numbers, Cecilia - 75,000 Afghan refugees, 100,000 Ukrainian refugees. That's 175,000 people. That's not counting the refugee cap of 125,000 that the Biden administration has agreed to enter - to let enter from other countries. Is the U.S. government prepared for this? Are organizations just like yours - are you guys prepared for this?
MUNOZ: Well, you know, there are nine refugee resettlement organizations which, for many years, have done the hard work of resettling people. This is about seven times the number of people that they usually help in a year, so that's why welcome.us got created - is to honor the capacity that we have and to expand it to get new organizations engaged in the work of helping resettle newcomers. And so that's - the point that you make about the numbers is exactly why we have to step up and create avenues for regular folks to get involved in this work.
MARTINEZ: And on that, Cecilia, how much of this has to do with time being a factor - in terms of the federal government, depending on who's in charge and depending on the election cycle, being as welcoming to refugees as maybe a different administration?
MUNOZ: Well, look, part of the reason that it's so clear that we need to expand capacity is because the government's capacity and the capacity of nonprofit groups really got decimated in the Trump years. I mean, there's just - that's not a political statement. It's just the truth. And so the need to rebuild has been very clear. And if we're going to rebuild, it seems to me we should be building in a way that's much stronger than we've ever been.
MARTINEZ: That's Cecilia Munoz, senior adviser at New America and co-chair of welcome.us. Cecilia, thanks.
MUNOZ: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/welcome-us-helps-refugees-such-as-afghans-and-ukrainians-settle-in-the-u-s | 2022-05-12T14:44:03Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Disruptions in the live music industry throughout the pandemic have been hard on both performers and on the owners of the venues where they play. Many believed their business insurance would help them weather the storm. But Darian Woods and Sally Herships from our economics podcast The Indicator took a closer look, and they found that those policies weren't designed for COVID-19.
SALLY HERSHIPS, BYLINE: Summer Gerbing owns the Ivy Room. It's an independent music venue in Albany, Calif. So when you and I, Darian, walk into a place like the Ivy Room, we're, like, checking out the music, maybe thinking about getting a drink. But as a business owner, when Summer looks around, she is thinking...
SUMMER GERBING: There's liability every time I'm looking out on the floor. You know what I mean? There's always something that I'm like, liability, liability.
DARIAN WOODS, BYLINE: Summer wanted to be a responsible business owner, and she wants to make sure the Ivy Room was covered.
GERBING: Absolutely. You have to get insurance. It is so crucial. You have to protect your business.
WOODS: If anything happened, the Ivy Room was covered. Then the pandemic hit.
HERSHIPS: Summer had about 25 employees, and she was worried about them. They needed their paychecks. But she thought she had that business interruption insurance. So she put in a claim. And about a week later, her claim was denied.
GERBING: I was disappointed, of course, but I wasn't shocked.
WOODS: Still, Summer wasn't going to give up. California had basically ordered her business to shut down, so Summer felt like her business interruption policy should have covered her. So she contacted a lawyer.
GERBING: We did. We thought that we have to fight for our business.
WOODS: Sarah Cronin is an entertainment lawyer in LA, and part of her job is handling what's called insurance recovery work.
SARAH CRONIN: ...Which are disputes with insurance companies where we represent the policyholder.
HERSHIPS: Like the lawsuit that Summer contacted her own lawyer about. It became a class-action suit, asking for millions in damages.
WOODS: Insurance policies with all that small print can be complicated. Insurance works by spreading risk, but when you have a catastrophic event, everyone is affected, so you can't spread the risk.
HERSHIPS: And that's why pandemic coverage in particular is so rare. It's just too much to cover. One representative of the insurance industry wrote me in an email. To the extent any pandemic insurance was available before COVID-19, it was limited, expensive and rarely purchased.
CRONIN: Now, with event cancellation insurance, every insurance company throws on a communicable disease exclusion so that there would not be coverage.
HERSHIPS: No pandemic coverage. Let's say you're a live events venue. Now if there is a spike in the pandemic, you cannot get any insurance coverage. Sarah says there have been some small procedural victories for businesses suing their insurers, but the vast majority of decisions have been in the insurance company's favor. And that's what happened to Summer. Her lawsuit took a year, and she lost.
WOODS: Summer found a way to make it work. She joined a group of thousands of other small venues that formed a national association, and they lobbied Congress and got up to $15 billion in grants. And that's just one of the ways that Summer says she's managed to stay afloat. She says that grant she got will give her a cushion to keep going for a year or two. The Ivy Room is back up and running. The staff is wearing masks, which Summer hopes will make everyone feel safe. And she's still signed up for insurance, although it doesn't include pandemic insurance.
Darian Woods.
HERSHIPS: Sally Herships, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/what-happens-when-insurance-companies-decline-to-cover-losses-due-to-a-pandemic | 2022-05-12T14:44:09Z |
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Russia's war in Ukraine has been devastating, but the Russian offensive has faced coordination and logistical challenges since the beginning of this invasion. Also, the Russian military hasn't had a single commander leading their forces until now. General Aleksandr Dvornikov is known for leading Russia's brutal campaign in Syria's civil war in 2015, and he's now the Russian military's leading commander in Ukraine. To help us get a better sense of what the new general's appointment means for the war in Ukraine, I'm joined now by Elizabeth Tsurkov. She's a fellow at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Foreign Policy (ph). Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
ELIZABETH TSURKOV: It's my pleasure.
CHANG: And we should warn our listeners that this conversation we're about to have will contain graphic descriptions of war. Elizabeth, can you just tell us more about who Aleksandr Dvornikov is, like, what kind of experience he has as a military leader?
TSURKOV: So Russia does not release information about the personality or special characteristics of the person, but we can judge him by his actions, I think. And Dvornikov oversaw the start of the Russian intervention in the war in Syria. And looking at his record during that time, he oversaw a campaign that combined a great deal of disinformation and lies, presenting the fighting that is happening in Syria as one that is targeting terrorism and ISIS, even though it did not target ISIS.
CHANG: Let me ask you about that because he earned a reputation for being particularly ruthless when it came to civilians. Can you give us some detail about what strategies or weapons he employed in Syria, particularly in Aleppo?
TSURKOV: The Russians ended up destroying Aleppo, eastern Aleppo, to retake it from the rebels. And this entailed use of unguided bombs that hit indiscriminately, as well as cluster munitions, as well as thermobaric weapons. Thermite is used to melt metal. So you can only imagine what happens to the human body when it is hit with thermite. And we are also seeing in Ukraine strikes on hospitals, on bakeries. These are all tactics that were used extensively under Dvornikov in Syria.
CHANG: But let me ask you, you know, the Ukrainian defense has been quite resilient so far. Ukraine's also getting many more weapons from both the U.S. and NATO. So does Dvornikov face greater obstacles in Ukraine than he did in Syria?
TSURKOV: The conflict in Syria is matched by its brutality to some extent with the Ukrainian one, unfortunately. But in other aspects, it is quite different. In Ukraine, the Russians are forced to fight a proper military that is well-supplied, well-organized, as opposed to disparate rebel groups that are not united, are poorly supplied. But when faced with a proper military, we're basically seeing really kind of embarrassing defeats that now, you know, apparently Dvornikov is supposed to prevent from recurring.
CHANG: Well, looking forward, based on Dvornikov's history as a military commander, what do you expect from his tenure leading all Russian forces in Ukraine at this point?
TSURKOV: I mean, the conflict is likely to get bloodier, not because, you know, Dvornikov has been put in charge per se but because the Russians are unable to achieve the victory that they expected to achieve very quickly. And so now, unable to achieve those military goals, they are basically returning to their massive use of indiscriminate fire when Dvornikov took over command of Russian forces in Syria, basically destroying the city and leading to mass displacement. And hopefully in the case of Ukraine, when this war ends, people will be able to return to their homes and countries will provide resources to allow people to return and not perpetuate basically a situation of kind of permanent displacement and exile that Syrians continue to suffer through.
CHANG: Elizabeth Tsurkov is a fellow at the New Lines Institute for strategy and foreign policy. Thank you very much.
TSURKOV: Thank you so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/what-the-ruthless-new-commander-of-russias-military-signals-for-war-in-ukraine | 2022-05-12T14:44:15Z |
Updated April 14, 2022 at 12:52 PM ET
LVIV, Ukraine — On a brilliant spring afternoon, Kateryna Klevtsova pulls a bright-pink suitcase through a park in Lviv. She is trailed by her two daughters, 11-year-old Maria and 7-year-old Nadia.
"They are ballerinas," Klevtsova says, her voice weary. "And I am a teacher at the Kharkiv ballet school."
Here's how fast the war in Ukraine has shattered lives: At Christmas, Klevtsova's children danced in a lavish production of The Nutcracker in their hometown of Kharkiv. With Easter approaching, Kharkiv is now under siege by Russian forces who have been shelling the suburbs with artillery and rockets.
"It's a very beautiful city," Klevtsova says, "but now it's broken, day after day more. It's very painful for me, you know."
More than 10 million Ukrainians — roughly one in four people — have been displaced by this war, most of them women and children. For now, the city of Lviv in western Ukraine is safe. It's packed with families like the Klevtsovas who've been scattered by violence, separated from their loved ones and their old lives.
To show what her family has lost, Klevtsova takes out her phone and pulls up photographs and videos of children learning the steps of the ballet.
After watching herself in one phone video, 11-year-old Maria grins and goes in her puffy white coat and tennis shoes to give a little performance right there in the park. She stretches forward gracefully, one leg rising behind.
But when asked about these last few days, the girl slumps and looks away.
"Yes," Maria says, "I worry. This is for me a nightmare."
Her father has stayed behind in Kharkiv as part of the territorial defense force.
"I worry," she says, "yes, so much."
Like many displaced persons passing through Lviv, the Klevtsovas still seem in shock by this war that started roughly 50 days ago.
The girls' mother says she used to live in Moscow, loved it there and still has many friends in Russia. Now she feels betrayed.
"All my dreams about my children, because they are small ballerinas, they are broken," she says.
Klevtsova finally decided it was time to flee when she saw images of dead bodies scattered in the suburbs around Kyiv. The family has been in Lviv almost a week and now plans to leave for France, where they will stay a while with relatives. They've just bought the pink suitcase for that trip.
But money is already tight and Klevtsova is not sure how long she'll be welcomed by her family.
"I don't know. I don't have work now. I don't know what I will do after," she says.
Despite her fears, and her doubts for the future, Klevtsova believes people in Kharkiv, including her husband, will keep fighting and she will one day be able to return home.
"Yes, of course I believe," she says. "I believe and I want to go home. And I believe we will win."
And then the Klevtsovas set off again, a mother and her two little ballerinas, pulling their pink suitcase through the park.
Iryna Matviyishyn contributed to this story in Lviv.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-14/young-ballerinas-from-kharkiv-are-now-among-millions-displaced-by-ukraines-war | 2022-05-12T14:44:21Z |
Nearly two years after George Floyd's murder under the knee of a police officer, his brother Terrence Floyd is still fighting for justice and police reform.
"[Police reform] is changing, but it's not changing at a rapid pace," says Terrence. "But it's changing. Nothing in the physical form will change until you change your mindset."
And in the fight to get justice for his brother's murder, Terrence has turned to the unlikeliest corners to do just that: NFTs — or non-fungible tokens. An NFT is a piece of code that renders itself as art and that has a unique "bar code," or token, on the blockchain, a decentralized record-keeping system with a shared public record. Owning an NFT is a bit like owning the original of a collectible such as a baseball card.
Terrence Floyd, founder of the nonprofit We Are Floyd — an organization creating initiatives to help communities deal with mental health issues, poverty and social injustice — is working with Confront Art to release 9,000 NFTs on mintNFT.com in a kickoff event on April 28.
The proceeds from the project will go to three charities: the Breonna Taylor Foundation, the John and Lillian Miles Lewis Foundation and We Are Floyd.
In addition, the charity campaign will partner with the families of the late Rep. John Lewis, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, along with participation from Grammy Award-winning singer and former TV host Dionne Warwick.
I am excited to announce the charity NFT project #SEEINJUSTICE with @ConfrontArt to support and raise funds for @wearefloyd_, the Breonna Taylor Foundation, and John Lewis Foundation. This will be available on @mintnftofficial on 4/15. Okay…goodnight 🥰
— Dionne Warwick (@dionnewarwick) April 4, 2022
"I certainly support this project," says Warwick. "There are many people I know that this will benefit. And it will be something that's an approachable way for people to get involved."
Its goal is to inspire others to co-create artwork
As the campaign gears up for its launch, organizers say they're aiming to celebrate and support diverse emerging NFT artists and their work while also helping the charities.
"We are constantly looking for innovative ways to support artists and charities," said Confront Art co-founders Andrew Cohen and Lindsay Eshelman in a news release. "We are excited to bring together entertainment legends and emerging artists alike for a major movement for social justice and charity in the metaverse."
"I hope that this message will reach enough people to have them participate in this — and that is vitally important," Warwick says of the NFT charity campaign. "We must raise these funds."
According to the organizers, the NFT campaign is an extension of Confront Art's "SEEINJUSTICE" series, which debuted sculptures of Lewis, Taylor and Floyd by artist Chris Carnabuci.
The sculptures were installed in New York City's Union Square last year in the wake of the country's racial unrest in the summer of 2020.
"My brother's death was a catalyst for change," Terrence Floyd said in a news release. "[However], we cannot let that change and that momentum slow."
A racial divide in the country
With the U.S. approaching the two-year anniversary of Floyd's murder, his brother said in the news release that there's still tension and division among Americans when it comes to racial injustice:
There is still a huge divide in this country. ... If we can start on a community level, creating educational opportunities and safe spaces for the youth to gather and learn, then we can create change and hope where there once was a void."
In February, a federal jury found three former Minneapolis police officers, Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao, guilty of violating Floyd's civil rights.
The three each faced federal civil rights charges over their conduct on May 25, 2020, when they joined Derek Chauvin in holding 46-year-old Floyd to the ground for about nine minutes as they kept bystanders away.
All three were charged with willfully and without due process depriving Floyd of his right to liberty. The statutory maximum sentence for violating Floyd's civil rights resulting in his death is life in prison.
A sentencing date has not yet been scheduled.
Since Floyd's murder, a series of high-profile judicial decisions have been made in other police brutality cases involving Black people.
In mid-February, Kim Potter, the former police officer convicted of manslaughter in the death of Daunte Wright, was sentenced to two years in state custody, with 16 months to be served in prison and the rest on supervised release.
And in March, former Louisville, Ky., police officer Brett Hankinson, who was involved in the deadly raid on 26-year-old Breonna Taylor's apartment, was found not guilty. Hankinson was the only officer involved in the raid to face charges.
As the country continues to tackle the issue of racial equity, Warwick emphasizes that individuals need to be on the same page in order to fight injustice.
"Conversations, I think, are truly the key," says Warwick. "Getting [people] to be able to understand, first of all, each other, is important."
NFTs are a gift that will last over time
Hype surrounding cryptocurrency and NFTs is on the rise. From drawings to photos and even music, much of the hype is simply about the concept of using tech to sell art digitally.
"Remember those days [when] people would line up for the newest Nike Air Jordan sneakers at the physical store? This is the new digital equivalent," Katie Haun, a general partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, told NPR last year.
"It's everything that brings together culture, and it's also a bet on the future of e-commerce," Haun added.
But when it comes to NFTs, some are on the fence regarding the safety, viability and ethics of cryptocurrency.
"For people who participate in the NFT space as purchasers (and even issuers), there needs to be a fairly healthy dose of diligence," says Tim Nielsen, an attorney and the founder of Cloutchain, a fan engagement and social platform.
Nielsen says though there's some skepticism surrounding NFTs and cryptocurrency when it comes to philanthropy, the benefits outweigh the risks.
"One interesting thing about blockchain technology is that the transactions are all publicly traceable," he says. "These are risks that have some counterbalances and positives."
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-15/9-000-digital-art-nfts-are-being-released-to-raise-funds-in-george-floyds-memory | 2022-05-12T14:44:27Z |
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JIM LAMPLEY: ABC Sports presents...
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
Hardcore football fans of the 1980s were treated to a new league that tried to give the NFL a run for its money.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LAMPLEY: ...The season premiere of the United States Football League.
MARTINEZ: The USFL collapsed spectacularly after only three seasons. But tomorrow, the league returns. A reconstituted USFL is playing its first game since 1985. Jeff Pearlman literally wrote the book on the league. It's called "Football For A Buck." It recounts the birth and demise of the USFL, a demise, he writes, thanks in large part to a certain future U.S. president. Pearlman also points to the USFL's habit of paying huge salaries to a handful of marquee players, like Herschel Walker and Steve Young, but only a pittance for the rest of the league.
JEFF PEARLMAN: They would pluck as many guys as they could from the local amateur leagues. They would find guys who hadn't played in the NFL for five or six years - you know, teams like the San Antonio Gunslingers. The owner was a guy named Clint Manges, and he had a ranch. And he signed his ranch hand to be the punter because he thought, this guy has a really good leg. He's going to be a really good punter. It didn't work out. But there was a lot of thriftiness in the old USFL. It adds to - it makes some of the best stories in football history, but it doesn't necessarily make for great football.
MARTINEZ: Now, one of the things that a lot of NFL fans are used to - it's almost an event as big as the Super Bowl - is the NFL draft. It's at the end of April, when the NFL chooses college players. And those college players don't get a choice. They don't get a choice of which team drafted them. They wind up usually just signing, and then they go on with their careers. And finally, when they become free agents, they get to pick the team they want to be with.
How was the USFL different, particularly with someone, say, like Herschel Walker, who had a lot of leverage, the Heisman Trophy winner, when he eventually got to the New Jersey Generals? How were their rules different from the NFL in that respect?
PEARLMAN: Well, the rules were that they didn't really have any rules in this regard. Like, they really wanted Herschel Walker. Herschel Walker called. He wanted to come out of Georgia early. At the time, the NFL would not take underclassmen. They had a strict rule against it. And Walker - you know, he came from Wrightsville, Ga., a small town, very poor family. And he wanted to come out. Then he called the USFL - his agent did - and they said, where do you want him to go? And they wanted him to go to the New York market. So that was the New Jersey Generals.
I mean, those drafts were fixed. Like, a lot of those picks - they knew where they were going way before the draft. They knew the order of the draft. They just manipulated the market to make sure. What they really desperately wanted, honestly, is legitimacy. And they knew they had to put themselves in the best situation to sign as many marquee guys as possible.
MARTINEZ: Now, the first USFL season in 1983 had some high points. But, Jeff, things started to change once they welcomed a brash young owner to their New Jersey Generals franchise. So tell us about who that was.
PEARLMAN: Donald Trump - he always wanted to be an NFL owner. Like, he desperately, desperately wanted to be in the NFL owners club. And he tried buying the Baltimore Colts at one point - failed miserably. So very early on, he has a meeting with Pete Rozelle, who was then the commissioner of the NFL. They met at a suite in the Pierre Hotel in New York City. And Donald Trump says basically, you know, I own this team in the USFL. I don't care about this league. If you guys get me an NFL franchise, I would help you kill this league. And Pete Rozelle, to his credit, says to him, as long as I'm involved in the NFL, as long as my heirs are involved in the NFL, you, Donald Trump, will never have a team in this league.
MARTINEZ: And Donald Trump had some pretty kind of wild ideas about what he wanted to do with the league to change the league. He had some kind of plans that he thought would maybe go up against the NFL and take it down.
PEARLMAN: Basically, his plan was, I'm going to use the USFL. We're going to force a merger with the NFL. The USFL was a spring league. And he kept pushing for fall. He kept saying, it's fall. It's fall. He would manipulate figures. He would do studies and then lie about the studies, showing that fall was the way the USFL could go. It made no sense whatsoever. Why would you challenge the NFL directly? But he was very manipulative and very powerful in that owners room. And they wound up moving to fall, trying to move to fall.
And he wound up leading the USFL's death dive, which was, we're going to sue the NFL. We're going top file this antitrust suit. And what happened is the NFL - it was a crazy, complicated lawsuit that the USFL alone actually won. But they were given $3 as a reward because what the jury decided was that, yes, the NFL was guilty of some antitrust violations. But the USFL and Donald Trump were their own - was the USFL's own worst enemy.
MARTINEZ: You know, that last season for the USFL, that last third season - and I'm a teenager at the time. So I'm not, like, that tuned into to the business. I knew it wasn't doing well through my uncles and my dad. But I didn't know how bad until they went from playing at the LA Memorial Coliseum...
PEARLMAN: Oh, yeah.
MARTINEZ: ...To LA Pierce Community (laughter) College in the San Fernando Valley for their last home game. And that's when I even thought, OK, this league's in trouble.
PEARLMAN: It's a funny moment because it was the LA Express playing the Arizona Outlaws. And the quarterback for the Express was Steve Young. And the quarterback for the Outlaws was Doug Williams, former Tampa Bay Buccaneers star. And they're playing at this tiny little field, and nobody's there. And it's really pathetic.
And at the end of the game, Young and Doug Williams, you know, meet. They shake hands. And Williams says, what the hell are we doing here? And Steve Young is like, I don't know, man. I don't know. But the funny thing is, a year later, Steve Young was playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who were awful at that point. And he said he would have preferred to stick with the Express, that even they were better than the lowly Buccaneers.
MARTINEZ: I was there, Jeff. No one was there. I was there. I actually watched that game (laughter).
PEARLMAN: That's amazing.
MARTINEZ: Yeah. Well, you know...
PEARLMAN: You were the one.
MARTINEZ: It was a cheap ticket. It was a cheap ticket.
PEARLMAN: That's awesome.
MARTINEZ: What can I say? Now, OK, a shiny new version of the USFL is going to be starting up again really soon - this weekend, actually. So what lessons do you think they have to learn to try to survive?
PEARLMAN: All right. So I just want to say that when people say the USFL is back...
MARTINEZ: (Laughter).
PEARLMAN: ...I struggle with that because it's sort of like - let's say KISS breaks up this year, and they never perform again. And then 10 years from now, four guys put on KISS make up, and they're like, KISS - we're back. Like, KISS isn't back. It's four guys in makeup.
This is not the USFL. This is a league kind of, I think, trying to make money quick off of spring football, a TV deal on Fox league, where they're using USFL uniforms, USFL logos. I don't actually totally get why. They've shown no interest in the old league. I talked to one of the guys with the league. I was like - he hadn't read my book. And I'm not saying anyone should read my book. It was weird that a guy was starting a new USFL and didn't read the book about the USFL.
MARTINEZ: (Laughter).
PEARLMAN: I just found the whole thing - and again, I'm not - he could have bought it for a nickel. I don't care. I just thought it was weird. I love the USFL. You sound like you love the USFL. There aren't that many of us. So it's kind of weird that like, they're starting a league with USFL uniforms, and that's it. And almost none of it makes any sense to me. So I don't know what to expect. It just seems really disjointed.
MARTINEZ: Jeff Pearlman is the author of the 2018 book "Football For A Buck: The Crazy Rise And Crazier Demise Of The USFL."
Jeff, thanks a lot.
PEARLMAN: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROCK AND ROLL ALL NITE")
KISS: (Singing) I wanna rock and roll all night and party every day. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-15/a-football-league-that-collapsed-spectacularly-in-the-1980s-is-coming-back | 2022-05-12T14:44:33Z |
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Travel experts are predicting a busy, busy weekend on the roads and in the skies. That's because Easter, Ramadan, Passover and - don't forget - spring break are all on the calendar. And for many people, this is the first time they'll be traveling since the pandemic started two years ago. But with cases starting to tick up slightly, travelers may be wondering how worried they should be about new COVID variants. Here to fill us in on that is Dr. Monica Gandhi. She's a professor and associate chief in the division of HIV, infectious diseases and global medicine at the University of California San Francisco. Welcome back to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, Dr. Gandhi.
MONICA GANDHI: Thank you.
CHANG: All right. So let's start with the most recent variant that's concerning a lot of people right now. That's BA.2. How does BA.2 compare with omicron, which was a big problem over the winter holidays? Like, do you see BA.2 having anywhere near the same impact on the spring holidays?
GANDHI: So it doesn't seem to be because the way to think about BA.2 - it is actually omicron. It's just a subvariant of omicron. What we saw over the holidays, winter holidays, was BA.1, and this is like a sister subvariant that's more transmissible than BA.1.
CHANG: OK.
GANDHI: But despite over 80% of our cases in the United States being BA.2, we have definitely seen some upticks in cases in the Northeast and other places. But our hospitalizations are remaining lower than they have during the entire pandemic since spring of 2020.
CHANG: OK, so that's good news. But we have been hearing from people who are writing to us and are wondering, like, how cautious they need to be while traveling. Let's say you're gathering with extended family. Maybe some of them are older members of your family. Should people be wearing masks indoors still? What do you think?
GANDHI: Well, we really are, again, in a very different phase of the pandemic. So hopefully, your older family members are vaccinated and boosted. The only people that cannot be vaccinated at this point are those under 5, and the Moderna vaccine, I hope, will be approved soon for them. But children are less likely to transmit. It's spring weather. Keep open your windows. But I would absolutely gather without masks this particular Passover and Easter because we're in such a different place.
CHANG: OK. Well, how about, like, much larger indoor gatherings? - because, like we said, this is a big weekend for religious gatherings. How comfortable should people be going to crowded places of worship? Like, yes, keep windows open. But are you still recommending that we can be indoors even if crowded?
GANDHI: I really do think it's such a different phase - again, really low hospitalizations. If you are particularly vulnerable or immunocompromised even after your three doses or four doses, you can definitely wear a strong fit and filtering mask indoors. Hopefully, you've gotten those four doses if you're immunocompromised, however - but such a different place in the pandemic than last year. We - people are gathering. People have been gathering in indoor spaces. And, again, our hospitalizations are staying low, which we're very grateful for.
CHANG: Well, this seems like a really reassuring conversation, Monica.
GANDHI: We are in a different phase. We have these tools. The vaccines work so well. Boosters work so well. Get your fourth dose if you're immunocompromised. There are treatments for those who are extremely vulnerable still to severe disease. We have the tools. We're in a different place. I hope people enjoy their weekend.
CHANG: Happy holidays, everyone out there. That is Dr. Monica Gandhi from the University of California San Francisco. Thank you so much.
GANDHI: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-15/ba-2-holiday-travel-and-you | 2022-05-12T14:44:39Z |
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
For more than 50 days now, Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, has endured heavy shelling. Above ground, the city has come to a standstill. But underground, survival has created a sense of community, as NPR's Eyder Peralta reports.
EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: Marina Vorontsova hurries us inside her apartment building. It's not safe to stay outside for too long because, all day and all night, shells fall in this part of the city. Vorontsova looks exhausted. Last night was bad.
MARINA VORONTSOVA: (Through interpreter) It is shaking. It's, like, trembling. Yesterday, it was trembling - our building was trembling really bad 'cause there is a 16-story building across, and it was a direct hit there. Yesterday, it was terrifying there, yeah. Yesterday, it was actually terrifying.
PERALTA: Hundreds of people used to live in this building. Now only about 40 remain. Marina says when the windows shake and the floor trembles, she moves to the hallway with her elderly mom.
Your mom can't move? You can't take your mom out of here?
VORONTSOVA: (Through interpreter) No, no, I can move her. It's not a problem, and she actually wants to move. But there's other people that we need to stay there for. We're staying mostly for them.
PERALTA: There are old people who can't move, who need someone to feed them. They need help, so she can't leave. She has to ride this out. That's terrifying, I tell her.
VORONTSOVA: (Through interpreter) It is, but you're used to everything. Human creatures are used to everything.
PERALTA: We drive out into the rain. The smell of gunpowder hangs in the air. The apartment building right next door has a huge hole, its edges blackened by smoke. The whole city is in ruins. There are no cars, few people. It's mostly birds.
(SOUNDBITE OF BOMB EXPLODING)
PERALTA: Birds and explosions. We drive to a nearby subway station, and it's packed with people - kids hanging on to their mothers, grandmothers watching over pots of food. Natasha Horlova has been living down here with her husband and three kids since the war started. She says when her 5-year-old heard the explosions for the first time, she asked if they were all going to die.
NATASHA HORLOVA: (Through interpreter) The first day, she was terrified. But here, it's okay.
PERALTA: Down here, the concrete buffers the sound of the bombing. Down here, she can be a little girl. Horlova walks over to her husband and their dog.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: There's Bora.
PERALTA: Her husband is disabled. He can't walk, so he's lying down in the train car that is now their home. It's nearly impossible to evacuate as a family, says Horlova, so they're staying together, hoping this war ends soon, hoping they can emerge from the subway.
(Non-English language spoken). I'm Eyder.
The governor of Kharkiv meets us in front of a bombed-out government building.
OLEH SYNYEHUBOV: (Through interpreter) At this stage, we have around 700 civilian casualties - 40 of them are children. But still, we don't have accurate numbers because in those areas, it's a constant shelling.
PERALTA: Oleh Synyehubov says about 2,000 buildings have been destroyed. What's more, there are Russian troops to the north of the city, and a huge convoy is moving just to its east.
SYNYEHUBOV: (Through interpreter) We still don't leave this idea that Putin may have thoughts of taking this city. And even right now, I have no absolute assurance that some rocket, some missile or even shelling won't hit here.
(SOUNDBITE OF BOMBS EXPLODING)
PERALTA: Indeed, just as we finish talking, a sudden salvo of rockets flares in the distance. People here try to make sense of this. They say Russians don't shell when it rains, that there's a lunch break at noon. It's not true. But what is true is that, at night, the city goes almost completely dark and silent, except for the explosions.
(SOUNDBITE OF BOMBS EXPLODING)
PERALTA: After dark, life happens underground. When the sun goes down, we join neighbors in a basement. There's borscht, cognac and toasts. There's laughter.
(LAUGHTER)
PERALTA: No one here knew each other before the war. Now they don't break bread until everyone is in the basement for the night. This shelter initially housed more than 100 people. Now they're down to a little more than a dozen, relying on each other to survive. This basement shows that humanity always finds a way, even when it's clear that no one should have to live this way.
Eyder Peralta, NPR News, Kharkiv, Ukraine.
(SOUNDBITE OF VILLAIN ACCELERATE'S "REVISIT") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-15/beneath-kharkiv-in-ukraine-survival-has-created-a-sense-of-community | 2022-05-12T14:44:46Z |
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Nearly half of all people released from U.S. prisons are back behind bars within five years. But research shows that training programs can help break that cycle and prepare people for successful lives outside of prison. As St. Louis Public Radio's Shahla Farzan reports, in a men's prison in Missouri, instructors are trying to turn prisoners into computer programmers.
SHAHLA FARZAN, BYLINE: On a March afternoon, 15 men stand at the front of a cavernous beige room, each wearing a blue satin graduation cap. The mood is jovial as they whip off their caps and toss them in the air.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Let's hear it for the graduating class of LC 101.
(APPLAUSE)
FARZAN: These men completed a six-month class in computer programming with LaunchCode, a St. Louis-based nonprofit. Thousands of students have taken the course over the years, but this graduating class is very different. All these students are incarcerated at Missouri Eastern Correctional Center, a men's prison about 30 miles west of St. Louis. Student Avis Haymon has been locked up since 2008. The 42-year-old had never used a computer before taking the class.
AVIS HAYMON: It was always hard blocks and things that I didn't understand. And I had no idea of what to do or how to start it or go back and fix things. Oh, it was a mess.
FARZAN: Some days, Haymon thought about quitting. But every small step - learning how to type, how to navigate new programming languages - gave him the momentum to keep going. Some students have used their coding skills to design apps that address challenges they faced in prison, like how to stay up to date with their kids' schoolwork. For Haymon, who's up for parole in two years, learning how to code has helped him feel more prepared for what may come next.
HAYMON: I don't want to be left behind in society.
FARZAN: Decades of research shows educational programs play a key role in getting people ready for life after prison and can help keep them from returning. An inmate who takes an educational course has about a 40% lower chance of returning to prison. Lois Davis is a senior policy researcher with the RAND Corporation who specializes in prison education. She says people released from prison often struggle to find work, and technology training helps them compete for jobs that are both in demand and pay better wages.
LOIS DAVIS: When we think about where are the jobs in the future and, ultimately, jobs that allow individuals to earn a living wage, clearly, the tech industry is an important one.
FARZAN: At least eight other states offer computer programming courses in prisons, including California, Tennessee and Michigan. Still, some employers hesitate to hire people with criminal records. And in the fiercely competitive tech industry, it can be difficult for people leaving prison to compete with younger applicants who have been effectively training for these jobs since grade school. But Davis says even if former inmates don't pursue coding jobs, in today's world, embracing technology is essential.
DAVIS: You have to have computer skills whether or not you're applying for a job, whether or not you're applying for benefits.
FARZAN: There's already a small but growing wave of formerly incarcerated people moving into the tech industry. Chris Santillan was released from a Missouri prison in February after nearly 28 years behind bars. He took a programming course in prison and now works at a startup designing learning management systems.
CHRIS SANTILLAN: With everything in my life being brand-new, the one thing that has remained consistent is that I have this job.
FARZAN: Santillan says he's slowly rebuilding his life, a process that can be overwhelming. But he says it's like designing a computer program; you start small and build on it little by little.
SANTILLAN: If I can take it down into simple chunks, that's not as scary because I've already formed these tiny little milestones.
FARZAN: Santillan says all of those pieces are beginning to add up, and soon he hopes to have a whole and productive life. For NPR News, I'm Shahla Farzan in St. Louis.
(SOUNDBITE OF SWOLLEN MEMBERS SONG, "DARK CLOUDS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-15/computer-programming-training-could-set-former-inmates-up-for-success-after-prison | 2022-05-12T14:44:52Z |
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Here's a story for people who dream of a family business.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
About six years ago, a teenager in Detroit brought samples of his grandmother's salsa recipe to school for a class project.
FINN GOMEZ: It blew everyone's expectations out of the water.
INSKEEP: And that gave Finn Gomez an idea.
GOMEZ: I asked my grandma, is it okay if we do this? Let's share this with the world 'cause this is great salsa.
INSKEEP: Grandma's blessing was secured, so Mr. Gomez went looking for a commercial kitchen.
GOMEZ: They wanted hundreds of dollars a month, and it was like, I don't think we can do that. You know, we wanted to play it safe.
FADEL: So his mom turned to social media, asking for a commercial kitchen they could rent once a week. Local pizza shop owner Jim Danosky read the post.
JIM DANOSKY: I just replied and said, you can use mine. I mean, it didn't bother me at all. I don't open till later on in the afternoon.
FADEL: He let the Gomez family use his kitchen rent-free for six years.
DANOSKY: Anytime you start a small business - I've been in business 30 years. It's not easy. So anytime I can give somebody local help like that, I'm all for it. It's just the thing to do.
INSKEEP: This favor let the Gomez family - the whole family - start a business.
GOMEZ: Without Jim, I don't know where we'd be today. That's how impactful he's been to us. He even had to go through a second health inspection just to allow us to come in, which is kind of a hassle. Taking the time out of his day to do that is beyond amazing.
INSKEEP: The Detroit Salsa Company now serves more than 20 stores around Metro Detroit, thanks to the generous owner of the pizza shop.
DANOSKY: They are an awesome family, so I gained good, good friends that'll probably last a lifetime.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-15/detroit-salsa-company-gets-off-the-ground-with-the-help-of-a-local-pizzeria | 2022-05-12T14:44:58Z |
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
You maybe know that saying, it ain't worth spit. Well, this story is worth spit because it's about spit. It's about people who share saliva, something you do if you eat off the same spoon or kiss. It's usually a sign that two people are emotionally close. Babies are fountains of drool, so a study examined their views of sharing saliva. Here's NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce.
NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE, BYLINE: Did you ever see that "Seinfeld" episode where Elaine likes a guy and wants to ask him out on a date?
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SEINFELD")
JULIA LOUIS-DREYFUS: (As Elaine Benes) But then he wiped his hand on the top of the bottle when I offered him water.
(LAUGHTER)
JASON ALEXANDER: (As George Costanza) Well, that doesn't mean anything.
LOUIS-DREYFUS: (As Elaine Benes) Are you kidding? That's very significant. If he was interested in me, he'd want my germs. He'd just crave my germs.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: It's only funny because it's true.
ASHLEY THOMAS: And the question is sort of, well, how do you know that?
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Ashley Thomas is a researcher at MIT.
THOMAS: Is it something that you know because of years and years of experience with these types of interactions? Or is it something that even infants and toddlers, who have very little experience with these types of interactions, also know?
GREENFIELDBOYCE: To find out, she and some colleagues tested babies and toddlers. The kiddos watched videos of puppet shows. In one, a woman rolls a ball back and forth with a blue, fuzzy puppet. Then another woman feeds the puppet.
THOMAS: By taking a bite of an orange slice and letting the puppet take a bite of the orange slice and then taking another bite of that same orange slice.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: At the end of the video, the puppet is between these two women and starts to cry.
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY CRYING)
GREENFIELDBOYCE: And it turns out infants and toddlers looked first and looked longer at the woman who'd shared food and saliva. It's like they expected her to do something. That was intriguing, but maybe what mattered was sharing food, not saliva. So the researchers did a study with no food. This time, two different puppets interacted with one woman. The woman shared saliva with only one of the puppets.
THOMAS: The saliva-sharing interaction involved the woman putting her finger in her mouth, putting her finger in the puppet's mouth and then putting her finger back in her mouth.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: With the other puppet, she just touched its forehead and touched her own forehead. Later on, when the woman appeared to be unhappy...
THOMAS: We find that they expect the puppet who had had that mouth-to-mouth interaction to be the one to respond to the woman's distress.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: The researchers report these findings in the journal Science along with the results of another experiment in older children. Five-to-7-year-olds were told about a kid who was sharing stuff - food, toys. And they were asked who the kid was more likely to share with, a friend or a family member. For stuff that could easily be divvied up, there was no difference.
THOMAS: But when it comes to saliva-sharing items, like sharing an ice cream cone or using the same spoon, then kids think that the kid is more likely to share with family.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Of course, older kids are often explicitly told not to swap saliva with others, especially during this pandemic. But how do babies get clued into all this? Alan Fiske is an anthropologist at UCLA. He believes babies are born primed to understand certain basic kinds of human relationships. In one of them, people are socially and functionally equivalent, and saliva-sharing signals that.
ALAN FISKE: It is a way of connecting bodies or making bodies the same in some respect. And that's the crucial thing.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: He says there's other ways to make bodies feel the same, like close cuddling or sex or even ritually becoming blood brothers, so there's nothing magic about spit.
Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF WILD NOTHING SONG, "PARADISE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-15/encore-babies-and-toddlers-know-that-swapping-saliva-is-a-sure-sign-of-love | 2022-05-12T14:45:04Z |
Stephanie Grisham has moved to a remote, Trump-loving Kansas town, where she's crafting an argument against the former president that respects her neighbor's devotion to him.
Read the full story at KCUR.org
Copyright 2022 KCUR 89.3
Stephanie Grisham has moved to a remote, Trump-loving Kansas town, where she's crafting an argument against the former president that respects her neighbor's devotion to him.
Read the full story at KCUR.org
Copyright 2022 KCUR 89.3 | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-15/ex-trump-white-house-press-secretary-is-now-working-against-the-former-president | 2022-05-12T14:45:10Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
With Supreme Court rulings on high-profile, controversial cases expected soon and with a new associate justice headed for the high court, questions about recusals are front and center. The court's newest justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, has already said she'd recuse herself from a Harvard affirmative action case coming before the court because she sits on Harvard's board of overseers. And there's a brewing controversy around Justice Clarence Thomas because of his wife's texts about the election. But the Supreme Court has different rules than lower courts. And only the justices have the final say in whether they will step aside from a case. I asked Louis Virelli, a law professor at Stetson University, about past recusals and what it takes to change a Supreme Court rule.
LOUIS VIRELLI: There is no way to hold a justice directly accountable for a failure to recuse or for a recusal decision that shouldn't have been made that was inappropriate, and there has never been. There is a law that says a justice shall recuse under certain circumstances. It's the same law that applies to lower court judges in the federal system. The justices generally pay homage to that law, but do not apply it strictly to themselves. And there's a reason for that. When you recuse a Supreme Court justice, that justice cannot be replaced. Lower court judges are replaceable. So you change the number and makeup of the court when you recuse a justice from a decision.
FADEL: OK. So then let's specifically talk about the decision by this newest justice to recuse herself from a case on affirmative action at Harvard, where she sits on the board. That will definitely change the makeup of who decides and it will change, possibly, the outcome of that decision. So how impactful will it be that she's recused herself in this case?
VIRELLI: It could be very impactful. Now, I think the general consensus is it's unlikely to change the outcome in this particular case given the questions presented in this court. But her decision represents the kind of balancing that Supreme Court justices always have to do. And that is a justice has to decide whether it's more important to have a fully constituted court for a given case, or it's more important for them to make an ethical decision about their involvement and remove themselves.
FADEL: There are some that would say it should change, you know? There are critics that say there should be a more hard and fast rule so that people pull themselves out or stay in not on a discretionary basis. Is that a view you agree with, disagree with?
VIRELLI: I generally disagree with the notion that a code of ethics would help. There's been 18 bills introduced in Congress since 2011, by my count, applying a code of ethics to the justices. And my response is that there is a binding law on the books that tells justices when to recuse. And they have all consistently treated it as advisory. Several justices of all ideological stripes have testified before Congress and said that a binding code won't work for the justices because the decision is so context-specific. So adding a code of ethics on top of a binding law that currently isn't achieving our goals strikes me as highlighting a problem without providing a solution. It would just create another set of standards that the justices will apply contextually and leave us where we currently are.
FADEL: And you talked about how it's always been like this. This isn't a surprise. This is how the court works. And there are reasons for that. But we're also operating in a very highly politicized moment in the country, where people are questioning institutions and whether they serve the public. And so in this moment, is it different when you have, for example, the loudest voices calling for Justice Thomas to recuse himself on the left. Those, even before the confirmation, happened for Ketanji Brown Jackson. There were calls for her to recuse herself in the case that she ultimately has already decided to recuse herself from. Will people's faith in the court be chipped away at?
VIRELLI: Potentially, yes. And of course, Justice Barrett faced the same questions about recusal involving an election case because she was confirmed right around the election. And the biggest concern is the one you raise. Public perception of the court's legitimacy is unquestionably the thing that is in most peril as we become more ideologically divided and as questions like those confronting Justice Thomas sort of become public. I think there are lots of reasons for Justice Thomas to recuse around cases that could involve his wife's communications or his wife as a witness or his wife's conduct. And I think those, as an ethical matter and as a constitutional matter, are easy questions.
FADEL: And just to give people context - his wife, Ginni Thomas, her texts were revealed. She had strong opinions. She was there on January 6 before the actual attack.
VIRELLI: That's right. If a case would arrive before the court that involved Ginni Thomas' conduct and certainly, of course, if she were a witness, then I would think, not as a matter of statutory law necessarily, but as a matter of constitutional law, as a matter of due process, Justice Thomas would be required to recuse himself. And of course, that leads to the question, what if he doesn't?
FADEL: Right.
VIRELLI: And the reality is, we don't have a way to enforce that beyond impeachment. And how profound of a violation would we have to discover in order to inspire a movement for impeachment, let alone the political realities that would likely weigh against impeachment, right? We are not in a political environment where impeachment and removal are likely. That is the only constitutional remedy against a justice. They could do this to themselves. So the court could adopt its own code. That's easy. But that's highly, highly unlikely based on my research of past comments and conduct by the justices. The justices do not want to be seen as removing one another from cases.
FADEL: So in this case right now, what is the danger around whether to go with one public opinion or the other in a very polarizing case when it comes to making your decision as to recuse or not to recuse?
VIRELLI: Right. So when I talk about public opinion, it's really public perception, public confidence in the court. So the current state of political divisiveness in America may very well counsel for a dramatic change in the way the court operates. That has to happen through constitutional amendment or through the justices themselves. Congress doesn't currently have the power to do that because of the way the separation of powers is structured in our Constitution and the way it works. Requiring recusal simply hasn't worked not because the justices aren't recusing, because they're not recusing based on the statute. It's possible to create different structures through constitutional amendment where there are checks on the court. But that's the only obvious way to create constraints on the court that are enforceable that don't currently exist.
FADEL: That's Louis Virelli, a professor at Stetson University College of Law.
(SOUNDBITE OF AUKAI'S "AKAL KI") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-15/examining-whats-involved-with-a-supeme-court-justices-recusal | 2022-05-12T14:45:16Z |
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
This weekend brings an unusual alignment - three major world religions are all celebrating important holidays. For Christians, this Sunday is Easter. For Jews, the eight days of Passover begin tonight. And for Muslims, we are in the middle of the holy month of Ramadan. Each of these holidays has its own symbolism and themes, and it's not a stretch to tie any of those themes to world events, from the pandemic to the war in Ukraine.
So we've invited three faith leaders to tell us about the messages they are bringing to their congregations during this holy time. Reverend Marshall Hatch is the senior pastor at the New Mount Pilgrim Church on the west side of Chicago. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
MARSHALL HATCH: Thank you. Glad to be here.
SHAPIRO: Rabbi Ruth Zlotnick is the senior rabbi at Temple Beth Am in Seattle. Good to have you here.
RUTH ZLOTNICK: Hello. Great to be here.
SHAPIRO: And Imam Mohammed Herbert is imam at the Islamic Society of Tulsa, Okla. Welcome to you.
MOHAMMED HERBERT: A pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.
SHAPIRO: Well, the world right now offers an abundance of topics that are suitable for a sermon.
(LAUGHTER)
SHAPIRO: What is foremost on y'all's minds right now?
HERBERT: I think for us, really, one of the biggest things that's running on everyone's minds is, what's next? I mean, what is really coming in the world, right? And so we find ourselves turning back to our faith traditions to find those answers of how to, you know, translate all of the noise that we're hearing, you know, day in and day out and how to turn that noise into action, right? Because if we're just people of feeling, then we're not really doing anything. It doesn't really help ourselves or anyone around us if all we're doing is just feeling. But the hope is that this feeling can then motivate action and change, that when we feel sad about our brothers and sisters in Ukraine, for example, that it doesn't just stop with that feeling of sadness. You know, that feeling then should motivate an action.
SHAPIRO: Rabbi Zlotnick, you're nodding right now.
ZLOTNICK: Yeah. I'm nodding because I completely agree. And I think, you know, these times feel catastrophic to us, and they are catastrophic. But for all of our faith traditions - and certainly I can speak best about the Jewish faith tradition - our ancestors also lived in catastrophic times. And one of the reasons why I'm grateful to be a person of faith is because I know that there were others, my ancestors, who walked this path before me and who created ways to withstand the suffering around them, which helps me, in my day-to-day life, withstand the suffering around me. But I couldn't agree with the imam more that it's about both helping us on an individual level to have the resilience to take step by step, but also not just to nourish our souls but to transform that into action.
SHAPIRO: Reverend Hatch, I know this sense of catastrophe has been very personal for your congregation. You lost family members. You lost friends. The COVID pandemic really hit your community hard.
HATCH: Yeah. You know, the pandemic has been very real in our community. And obviously, over the past couple of years, we've talked about - it has exposed some of the disparity in access to health care and resources in a community like ours. We have felt it pretty heavily. And I think that what we've discovered, obviously, is that, you know, faith is really made for times like these. These are very uncertain times. And as the imam shared and the rabbi shared, if we ever needed faith, it's in a time like this - to provide some stability in times of uncertainty.
SHAPIRO: As I was thinking about these three holidays - Easter, Passover and Ramadan - I realized they all have themes of renewal. Can you tell us about how you're applying that specific idea to your observance this year?
HERBERT: I think one of the realities of discipline and one of the realities of kind of, like, holding yourself back from, you know, basic pleasures, is that you kind of take a step back and you realize all of the things that you took for granted, right? And so now it's, you know, 1:45 p.m. here in Oklahoma. And I am exhausted, tired, fatigued. I need a coffee. Like, I need a couple coffees, right? But I think to myself that, in this moment, I mean, could you imagine being a young man or a young woman, you know, walking across train tracks in Ukraine, trying to find a home - like, literally not having a home, right? I mean, I'm home now. I'm a little hungry, but that's about it.
SHAPIRO: Reverend Hatch, Rabbi Zlotnick, how do you think about that theme of renewal in this particular moment?
HATCH: Yeah. Sort of leading up into this season, interestingly enough, you know, the numbers in COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations have been going down, you know, since the first of the year. And so this has been a season we've used a theme - regathering.
SHAPIRO: What a great word.
HATCH: Yeah. Yeah. We've used that text, Rabbi, in the 107 Psalm about coming from the east and the north and the south and the west and regathering, and let the redeemed of the Lord say so or testify that, somehow, we feel like we've been survivors through a horrendous pandemic.
ZLOTNICK: I will just add to that, that while there is the theme of renewal for sure in the holiday of Passover, for me this year, Passover is all about the idea of coming out of a dark and narrow place and entering a place of freedom and light. And so for me, it's not so much about renewal, but it's about hope of overcoming the obstacles that lead to human suffering. And of course this year, it's those who've suffered through COVID and the Ukraine war that's raging on.
SHAPIRO: To conclude, I'd love it if you could give us a passage from your religion's sacred texts that is feeling especially meaningful to you right now in this moment. Rabbi Zlotnick, do you want to begin?
ZLOTNICK: I will say I'm blessed to be serving a community in Seattle, Wash. And there is a psalm - Psalm 121 - in Hebrew is, (speaking Hebrew). I lift up my eyes to the mountains. From where will my help come? It will come from the Holy One, the Eternal.
SHAPIRO: Imam Herbert, what's a passage that has been particularly meaningful to you these days?
HERBERT: We have a statement from the Prophet Muhammad - peace and blessings be upon him - where he describes the Ummah, the nation of Muslims. And he says, you see the believers as regards to their being merciful among themselves, as showing love among themselves and being kind among themselves, resembling one body, so that if any part of the body is not well, then the whole body shares the sleeplessness and insomnia and fever with it - right? - that we are here together as one people.
SHAPIRO: Reverend Hatch, do you want to have the last word?
HATCH: It's the Matthew 28 text that we reflect on. The fifth verse is, don't be afraid; fear not. And I've found that, you know, we return to that theme time after time as we've looked in the face of this pandemic that has caused just a tremendous amount of anxiety. And so the first thing to overcome is to overcome fear. Don't be afraid; fear not.
SHAPIRO: Reverend Marshall Hatch of the new Mount Pilgrim Church in Chicago, Rabbi Ruth Zlotnick of Temple Beth Am in Seattle, and Imam Mohammed Herbert of the Islamic Society of Tulsa, Okla. Happy holidays to all three of you, and thank you for speaking with us.
ZLOTNICK: Thank you.
HATCH: Thank you.
HERBERT: Pleasure and honor. Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-15/faith-leaders-reflect-on-their-messages-during-the-weekends-religious-ceremonies | 2022-05-12T14:45:22Z |
Federal agencies are beginning to hand out billions of dollars in infrastructure spending, the largest investment ever made in the country's water system. Much of it will go to improving pipes, drains and stormwater systems. But some scientists and urban planners are pushing to fund projects that are better adapted to the changing climate.
Instead of just gray infrastructure, supporters say the answer is green.
Green infrastructure, whether it's large rain gardens or plants along a street median, has the same purpose as big storm sewers: to manage large amounts of water that can build up during heavy rains. Plants and soil absorb and slow runoff from rainstorms, while a stormwater drain captures water that runs down a street gutter and diverts it underground into pipes.
On a hotter planet, storms are getting more intense, and rainfall is often heavier. Flooding is on the rise in many cities. Stormwater systems are being increasingly overwhelmed by extreme rainfall. In the Northeast, the heaviest storms produce 55% more rain today compared to 1958. Last year, dozens of people drowned there when the remnants of Hurricane Ida flooded basements, streets and cars.
Still, most cities face major backlogs in maintaining the aging gray infrastructure they already have, amounting to billions of dollars nationwide. In the rush to secure federal funding to fill that void, some worry that green infrastructure will be left by the wayside.
"What good is a pristine road that's flooded?" says Marccus Hendricks, assistant professor of urban studies and planning at the University of Maryland. "Elevating the priority of green infrastructure and stormwater systems is critical."
How rain gardens help stormwater systems in storms
Downtown Oakland, like a lot of major cities, is mostly a hardscape of concrete. Still, on one block, the sidewalk is lined with a long strip of native California plants.
"I feel so great looking at this," says Joshua Bradt, a project manager for the San Francisco Estuary Partnership. "I love that the plants are alive. They seem to be thriving."
Bradt helped bring this rain garden to life, part of a $4 million dollar project to add green infrastructure to a major thoroughfare in the east San Francisco Bay Area.
When rain storms hit, the water is funneled into the rain garden from the street and sidewalk. As it soaks into the soil, it prevents that water from rushing to the stormwater drain on the corner.
In big storms, that alleviates the pressure on the stormwater system, since those drains and pipes can only handle so much water at once based on their size. When storm drains are overwhelmed, water pools in the street and can inundate buildings.
Bradt says even small rain gardens can make a difference in slowing the runoff that causes flooding. They also have the added benefit of filtering runoff to improve water quality.
Cities struggle to get green infrastructure built
Green infrastructure can also help when it's not raining. Summer heat waves are often more dangerous in cities, because concrete absorbs and radiates heat in what's known as the "urban heat island" effect. Plants and parks can provide much needed cooling.
"If they were on every corner, it would make a tremendous difference," Bradt says. "The reality is that a lot of city departments are already overwhelmed, and this is a hard ask."
While both gray and green infrastructure require upfront funding for construction, green infrastructure also requires ongoing maintenance to keep the plants healthy and clean up litter. Even if cities can secure funds to build the projects, maintenance generally isn't included. They face adding that to their annual budget, which can turn out to be a hurdle for doing green infrastructure.
In addition, the most cost-effective time to build green infrastructure projects is when cities are already doing road or construction work. But because the projects are often managed by different departments, coordination doesn't happen.
"It's becoming more standardized and definitely more accepted," Bradt says. "However, I will say there just is not yet a mass movement towards this, because of how institutionalized and siloed infrastructure management and investment is."
Bigger storms are already overwhelming cities
Whether cities spend on gray or green infrastructure, a hotter climate is adding huge costs to their budgets.
"Our challenge with climate change is that we're seeing these big events," says Lauren McPhillips, a water engineering professor at Penn State University. "We're seeing massive amounts of water that we need to be able to control."
Across the U.S., millions of miles of pipes and stormwater infrastructure stretch below city streets. Most are decades-old, designed for the storms of last century.
Even today, cities lack updated rainfall data that reflects how storms are getting more intense. That means they're still building new projects without climate change in mind.
Federal officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say the agency hopes to begin the process of creating new rainfall forecasts next year. Still, that information isn't likely to be ready in time for cities to use it for the new wave of federally funded infrastructure projects.
Planning for heavier downpours means building larger stormwater systems, but replacing miles of pipes and upsizing existing infrastructure is far more expensive than cities can afford. Experts say green infrastructure can reduce the need to replace as much gray infrastructure. If rain gardens absorb some of the runoff, stormwater pipes don't need to be as large.
That makes green infrastructure potentially more cost-effective. A New York City study looked at using a combination of gray and green infrastructure in one neighborhood in Queens and found that using gray infrastructure alone would be twice as expensive.
Still, a handful of rain gardens won't be enough to prevent flooding, experts warn.
"The challenge is that we need this at scale," McPhillips says. "And especially in these older cities that have built out a lot of hard surface and have gotten rid of the ability for soils to naturally soak in rain, we have a lot to get back to correct for those issues."
Flooding is especially problematic in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, which generally have fewer parks and where the infrastructure is often more neglected
"The fact that the majority of communities of color lack sufficient green space compared to their white majority counterparts – that is still a problem," says Fushcia-Ann Hoover, who works on green infrastructure at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. "And so I think that green infrastructure does provide a possible solution."
As infrastructure spending begins, green projects could be just a "stepchild"
Over the next five years, the Environmental Protection Agency will give states more than $11 billion for water infrastructure projects through the Clean Water State Revolving Fund. In March, the EPA released guidance encouraging those funds be used in disadvantaged communities and that states take climate change into account.
"Most cities think about the green and the gray separately, but really the power is integrating these two things," says Radhika Fox, assistant administrator for the EPA's Office of Water.
Still, under guidance from Congress, only 10 percent of the funding must be spent on green infrastructure or water efficiency projects. The last time the government provided a big infusion of infrastructure funds in 2009 the requirement was for 20 percent of projects to be green.
The EPA also emphasized that states have discretion and flexibility to spend the funds as they see fit. The Biden Administration has already gotten pushback from Republicans about encouraging states to consider climate change in spending infrastructure dollars. In February, top Republicans sent a letter encouraging states to ignore similar guidance from the Department of Transportation.
"It does put states in the driver's seat in terms of identifying and working with communities within their borders to find infrastructure projects," Fox says.
The need to repair and upgrade gray infrastructure may take priority over green projects in many communities. In 2020, municipal utilities faced a funding shortfall of $8.5 billion, according to a study from the Water Environment Federation.
"Stormwater systems, green infrastructure and other systems that are tied to the climate crisis have been a stepchild to the types of systems we pay attention to," Hendricks says.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-15/green-infrastructure-helps-cities-with-climate-change-so-why-isnt-there-more-of-it | 2022-05-12T14:45:28Z |
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
For today's StoryCorps, we look back on April 15, 1947, 75 years ago today, when Jackie Robinson became the first Black player in Major League Baseball. Before he took to Ebbets Field as a Brooklyn Dodger, Robinson was in spring training at Daytona Beach, Fla. That's where Harold Lucas Jr. grew up. He remembered Robinson with his daughter, D'Lorah.
D'LORAH BUTTS-LUCAS: Why was baseball so important to you as a kid?
HAROLD LUCAS JR: Well, baseball was one of the few things that you didn't have to have a whole lot of equipment for. You just had to have a glove, a ball and a bat. We used to go out and watch Jackie practice at the local playground where we used to all play at, which was about a quarter of a mile from where I lived. He used to hit fly balls out, and we would catch them. And he told us that he was just the beginning of what was going to be the future. He said, if I can do it now, there's no telling what you'll be able to do when your time comes.
BUTTS-LUCAS: What did you expect to see when you saw Jackie Robinson play that first game?
LUCAS: Everybody wanted to see Jackie play. In the Black community, we all were very excited. And when we found out that we could go, people took off of work to go down and see him. But, you know, with segregation, white people wre wondering why we were down there. So we didn't know what to expect because we were concerned about the atmosphere. And I didn't know that then, but I knew that something important was happening. Baseball is America's pastime. So if he was going to make it, then he had his job cut out for him. Jackie was a fiery competitor. He hated to lose, but he also had a lot of common sense because he knew that they're going to call you this word. They're going to throw popcorn on it. And of course, there was some heckling going on. But Jackie was so enthralling that they couldn't help but watch him. You know, even though you might not like somebody, if they can play baseball that well, then you'll cheer for them.
BUTTS-LUCAS: When Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, did you feel more hopeful for Black Americans?
LUCAS: Well, it gave me a stepping stone. I felt that Jackie was intelligent enough to realize that he was going to open the doors for many Black people in the areas other than the hotel or motel work. And as I look back at it now, I'm thankful for the advice that he gave us to try to prepare ourselves to be somebody. You see, you have to build on what people that come before you do. So if you can remember them first and the trials and tribulations of the things that they had to go through, then that should make you want to do the best that you can do.
FADEL: That was 89-year-old Harold Lucas Jr. with his daughter, D'Lorah Butts-Lucas. This StoryCorps interview will be archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-15/how-jackie-robinson-inspired-one-man-to-be-somebody | 2022-05-12T14:45:34Z |
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The city of Shanghai is approaching the end of its third week of a near-total lockdown to fight the pandemic. And as the number of new COVID cases keeps rising, so does the frustration of many in this city of more than 25 million people. NPR's John Ruwitch has more.
JOHN RUWITCH, BYLINE: On Friday, Shanghai reported 23,000 new cases, which was down a little from the day before. But there's no end in sight to the lockdown policy, and the city is expecting more cases. It's converted schools, exhibition halls and even some residential buildings into emergency quarantine centers.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Shouting in non-English language).
RUWITCH: In a township called Zhangjiang, residents took to the streets this week to protest the requisition of apartments by the government.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Shouting in non-English language).
RUWITCH: Men in white hazmat suits with the word police written on the back can be seen dragging away two protesters. One woman screams, the police are hitting people. Others are seen kneeling in supplication before them. The town put out a statement promising two months' rent as compensation, but video of the scuffle spread far and wide on Chinese social media. So have other recordings, like this one.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken).
RUWITCH: In it, a couple can be heard pleading with police who have come to take them to a central quarantine center, but they say there's been a mistake and that they, in fact, tested negative. Recordings like this are hard to verify, and many have been scrubbed from the internet, but they reflect real fears and frustrations and are a problem for the government.
VICTOR SHIH: Despite all the censorship, all of China can see signs of governance failure in Shanghai.
RUWITCH: Victor Shih is an expert on Chinese politics at the University of California, San Diego. He says surveys had shown an uptick in confidence in the government after it got the pandemic under control following the initial outbreak.
SHIH: What is happening in Shanghai - and, of course, we don't have access to survey data at this point - I think certainly will have an impact on this previously very high trust and belief in the government's competence.
RUWITCH: This is all happening in what many consider China's best-run and most cosmopolitan city, but it's not alone. The Japanese bank Nomura estimates that 373 million people across dozens of Chinese cities are living under some kind of lockdown. That's more than the populations of the U.S. and Canada combined, and China's government seems unlikely to change tack anytime soon.
John Ruwitch, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-15/in-its-3rd-week-in-lockdown-shanghai-reported-23-000-new-covid-cases-today | 2022-05-12T14:45:41Z |
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. In Paris, an art collector paid $1.2 million for a receipt. It dates back to an exhibition in the 1950s. In those days, French artist Yves Klein charged money to see his so-called invisible art. He later sold that art for gold and gave receipts. Now somebody has paid the 1.2 million for the receipt someone received to not see art. It's not clear if the buyer of the receipt got a receipt. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-15/in-paris-an-art-collector-paid-1-2-million-for-a-receipt | 2022-05-12T14:45:47Z |
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
We are living in a world of inflation. Inflation that has accelerated in the United States over the past year or two is present beyond U.S. borders. Three NPR correspondents are on hand to help us look at this. Scott Horsley is here in Washington. He covers economics. Lauren Frayer is in Mumbai, India. And Carrie Kahn is in Mexico City. Welcome to all of you.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Good to be with you.
LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: Hello.
CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: Hi.
INSKEEP: And just to be clear, we were going to cover this story with just one correspondent, but there was inflation, so we brought three of you, and we're glad you're here.
(LAUGHTER)
INSKEEP: Anyway, Scott, what would make inflation global?
HORSLEY: You know, the pandemic, really, Steve, is at the root of this. It caused huge disruption to economic activity everywhere around the planet. We've had labor shortages, transportation bottlenecks. We continue to feel those effects more than two years after the coronavirus first struck. Right now we have factory lockdowns in Shanghai, for example. Here in the U.S., demand has come roaring back, but supply has not caught up. And then on top of that, you now have the war in Ukraine, which is disrupting markets for food and energy. This is a global problem. We've talked a lot about the annual inflation of the U.S. hitting 8.5% last month. It's almost that high throughout the Eurozone - 7.5%. Fish and chip shops in the U.K. have been shuttered because of the high cost of fish and flour and cooking oil. A lot of countries are now suffering through the highest inflation in decades. In fact, 60% of the advanced economies in the world now have inflation That's above 5%. In more than half the developing world, inflation is over 7%.
INSKEEP: Which is devastating for some people, at least inconvenient for many other people, and it's different from country to country. Lauren Frayer, is there a country in your region where this amounts to a crisis?
FRAYER: There is a country in my region, yes - Sri Lanka, where people are protesting in the streets over this and calling for their president to resign. You know, Americans are worried about inflation; Sri Lanka's is more than double the inflation rate in the U.S. It's nearly 19%. Tourism is a big part of Sri Lanka's economy, and Sri Lanka suffered a tragic terror attack in 2019, then the pandemic. Tourism really took a hit. And the Sri Lankan government responded by printing more money, which exacerbated inflation. And then instead of devaluing the currency, Sri Lanka's central bank spent a lot of its foreign reserves, and that left the government in shortfall - so unable to import fuel. It typically uses U.S. dollars to import fuel.
And so there have been these widespread shortages of diesel, of cooking gas, of oil and coal for power plants. So Sri Lanka is suffering rolling blackouts, sometimes eight, 10, 13 hours a day without electricity. And then last month, Sri Lanka devalued its currency finally, which led to more inflation. Food prices in a matter of days jumped 25%, diesel up 45%. And that's what's prompted people to get out in the streets and protest. And this has really been a cautionary tale for the rest of South Asia and the world.
INSKEEP: You've got these baseline problems around the world, and then you have specific problems of mismanagement in South Asia. Carrie Kahn, when you look at Latin America, which you cover, is there a hot spot?
KAHN: Peru has seen a lot of unrest over record price hikes. Last week, there were violent protests over rising food costs. At least five people died. Some protests still persist, especially among truckers and their unions and the poor, who can't afford any type of animal protein, especially chicken, now. Poor families are reportedly going to markets for leftover bones that they can just boil for some sort of protein.
But while the protests may have been lessened, the political crisis continues, and that's surrounding President Pedro Castillo. He's in big trouble. He's only been in office for nine months, Steve, and he's already fended off two impeachment attempts. Opponents say he's just inexperienced and fumbling the crisis. He's now decided to cut taxes on basic foodstuffs. And then lawmakers came in and tried to slip in tax breaks for some luxury food items like pheasant and steaks, and that just fueled more anger toward the government. And in the end, those were cut off the list of foods that got the tax breaks. But removing that tax is going to leave a big hole in the budget, which will have to be dealt with further down the line. And Castillo is still facing opponents trying to oust him. Many leaders in the region are pledging similar food price subsidies, as well as cuts to fuel tax and other tax cuts and, inevitably, will have to face these budget shortfalls soon.
INSKEEP: What is it like in one of the giants of your region, the country where you live - Mexico?
KAHN: Inflation concerns are great here, and we're seeing it in rising food costs, too. The tortilla, a main staple in Mexican diets, has jumped to more than $1, $1.15 a kilo. But the biggest factor contributing to high inflation here are fuel costs, and that spells trouble for the president. He campaigned - his pledge was, like, that he would never, ever, never raise gas prices. And President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador remains pretty popular here, and he's managed to weather quite a lot and not take a hit politically, even after his dismal COVID response, Mexico's staggering violence here, some recent political scandals. He's survived it all. But inflation and these high fuel costs are hurting him and could hurt him further. He's weathering it now by subsidizing gasoline prices.
And remember; Mexico is a big oil producer and has had a bit of a windfall from rising global oil prices. So the president is diverting those profits to subsidize the gasoline, and it's unclear how long he can keep that up. At one point, along Mexico's northern border with the U.S., lower prices of gas prices were drawing Americans across the border, especially Californians where gas prices are so high, to come and fill up their tanks. So Mexico cut the gas subsidy in those states to try and discourage the cross-border consumers. But then a few days later, it backtracked and put the subsidy back. And while Mexico may be a big oil exporter, it's a huge importer of natural gas, and those prices have just skyrocketed. And that's something the president cannot control, and it's proving to be a political liability for him.
INSKEEP: Carrie, you mentioned crossing the border, but I want to figure out how that works in a practical sense. I mean, you and I have crossed that border between California and Mexico. So you're in California. You drive across. You get your cheap gasoline. And you turn around. And don't you, then, like, idle your car for hours while waiting to cross the border again?
KAHN: I thought the exact same thing, Steve, and how this was going to work. But, you know, I think that there are a lot of people that cross the border for work, and so they would fill up on the Mexican side instead of the U.S. side. A lot of people have high security clearances and can pass that border wait quickly. They've calculated how to do it. It was a phenomenon. And they were filling up in Mexico. So there must be a - they must weigh that factor. I remember in the '70s, my dad used to drive, like, 10 miles to get 2 cents lower gas, you know, when it was 28 cents a gallon in the San Fernando...
INSKEEP: It's the principle of the thing - the principle.
KAHN: (Laughter) I don't really know.
INSKEEP: Lauren, how does inflation affect the 1.4 billion people in India?
FRAYER: Yeah, when we talk about inflation in India, we're talking about whether people can afford to eat or not. The average Indian does not have a car, doesn't pay heating or air conditioning bills, energy bills like that, but where they feel inflation is really in food prices. And, you know, in Mexico, you've got the tortilla. Here, it's the onion. There's an old saying here that onion prices decide elections in India. And onions and everything else is just a lot more expensive. Annual inflation here is close to 7%. Rising food prices are a really big deal in rural areas, where the majority of Indians live, many in poverty. We're seeing people changing to cheaper edible oils, people boiling their vegetables rather than frying them in oil. And, you know, even if - you don't need a car to feel fuel prices going up. It reverberates through the whole supply chain. So shops, for example, mom-and-pop shops in India, are packaging, like, less volume of goods for the same price.
INSKEEP: Well, if onion prices are going up, does that mean trouble for Prime Minister Narendra Modi?
FRAYER: So the Indian government - during February and March, we had elections in five states across India, and the government didn't want to raise fuel prices, so it absorbed the hike, the government itself absorbed the hike in rising global fuel prices - so both at the pump, but then also did not pass that on to consumers, like ticket prices for trains or buses. And the government actually cut fuel tax then. But now those elections are over, and the government is allowing fuel prices to rise, and so people are feeling it more. And that nearly 7% figure that I mentioned is actually misleading because it doesn't include the fuel prices. The fuel prices were kept artificially low by the government, and now it's likely to rise pretty quickly.
The Indian government is also releasing grain stocks into the economy. So India has a food surplus. The government keeps stocks. And it's trying to boost the food supply in an effort to lower prices. And so far, the Indian government has been able to afford this. The Indian government has, like, $600 billion U.S. dollars in foreign reserves. Places like Sri Lanka, the government there could not afford to do that. And it has doubled interest rates. There was a day that the Sri Lankan central bank raised its interest rates by seven points in a single day. Sri Lanka has also stopped paying its foreign debt, and it's in talks with the International Monetary Fund for a bailout.
But I just want to say, you know, in all these developing countries, economists say that some inflation is actually seen as a good thing because it's a sign of growth. And so while the U.S. Federal Reserve's inflation target is 2%, in India it's, like, 4 to 6%. And so India's just slightly above that now.
INSKEEP: Sure. Among other things, if you're a debtor, if you've got debts to pay, you wouldn't mind some inflation because the dollars you pay it back with are cheaper than the ones that you borrowed in the first place. Nevertheless, we've got this trend that's affecting, according to your reporting, everything from fertilizer in South Asia to tortillas in Mexico City. So let's bring back Scott Horsley. Is there much that any of these political leaders can do about inflation?
HORSLEY: You know, Lauren talked about how India is releasing grain from its stockpiles. Obviously, the Biden administration has been doing the same thing with crude oil here in the U.S., releasing oil from government stockpiles in an effort to bring down gas prices. Some state governments in the U.S. have also weighed tax breaks on gasoline. Ultimately, it is a central bank's job to crack down on inflation, and central banks around the world are starting to do so - in most cases, not as dramatically as the central bank in Sri Lanka. But, you know, that doesn't work overnight. At the height of the pandemic, the U.S. government tried to prop up demand by pumping a lot of extra cash into the economy. That may have worked too well, fueling some of this high inflation we're now seeing. A lot of that pandemic-era relief has now come to an end, and that leaves people to deal with these higher prices as best they can.
INSKEEP: NPR's Scott Horsley, Carrie Kahn and Lauren Frayer. Thanks to all of you.
HORSLEY: You're welcome.
FRAYER: You're welcome.
KAHN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-15/many-countries-are-seeing-the-worst-inflation-in-decades | 2022-05-12T14:45:54Z |
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