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Mark Twain once said, "If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything." Using humor to shine a light on the truth is what the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor is all about. Jon Stewart, this year's recipient of the prize, was honored at The Kennedy Center for his satire and his activism. Stewart has been a fierce advocate for veterans, 9/11 first responders and their families.
This being an event full of comedians, The Mark Twain Prize is more of a roast than a dignified celebration. Jimmy Kimmel quipped, "Jon hosted the most important political satire of our generation and quit right before Trump was elected. That's like going to Woodstock and leaving after Sha Na Na."
As one of the correspondents on The Daily Show, Steve Carrell told of an early assignment, "to visit a venom research facility in Nebraska." Carrell explained that when he arrived, "the research facility was a mobile home full of snakes." Carrell says Stewart loved the interview. "As he watched it he jokingly said over and over it would've been 'great' if I'd actually been bitten by a snake."
In its early days, The Daily Show took some heat for its lack of diversity. For a time, Samantha Bee was its sole female correspondent. As she praised Stewart for plucking her "from obscurity," she also joked, "It is my greatest pleasure to speak to you tonight as the woman behind the man, behind the man, behind the man, behind all the other men."
For 16 years The Daily Show with Jon Stewart relentlessly skewered politicians and the news media. The show won two Peabody Awards and 20 Emmys. Even though it was on Comedy Central, it was also where a lot of people got their news.
Dave Chappelle, who won the Mark Twain Prize in 2019, said Stewart's voice was vital after 9/11 and the U.S. invasion of Iraq, "The news was off the chain and Jon was the only voice that helped people decipher that madness," he said.
Stewart's ability to cut through the spin and sensationalism captivated Bassem Youssef, who watched Stewart on CNN from his home in Egypt. Youssef went on to create a series modeled partly after The Daily Show. Stewart and Youssef became friends and made guest appearances on each other's shows.
Youssef explained that the Egyptian authorities disapproved of his show and there was a warrant for his arrest. "I called Jon and said, 'I'm so scared. I don't know what to do. The new authority is too powerful.' " Youssef says Stewart advised him to, "Make fun of the fact that you cannot say anything. Make fun of the fact that you are afraid. People will feel you, and fear will be your satire." Youssef says they "did exactly that and people felt it and it was the most popular episode ever."
Accepting the Mark Twain Award, Stewart talked about the current state of comedy in American culture.
"Comedy survives every moment. Having Bassem here is an example of the true threat to comedy," said Stewart. The real threat, Stewart believes, is "not the fragility of audiences" or "the pronoun police," but rather, "the fragility of leaders."
Before The Daily Show, Stewart's career had its ups and downs. He started doing stand-up in 1987. He hosted a short-lived show on MTV. He told the Kennedy Center audience that, in comedy, you get back up again, "There isn't any fixed point in comedy where you make it or you don't make it. It's the journey with the greatest friends I could ever possibly have made."
The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor will broadcast on PBS stations on June 21.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-25/jon-stewart-says-the-fragility-of-leaders-is-the-real-threat-to-humor | 2022-05-12T15:16:49Z |
SOUTHFIELD, Mich., May 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- MASSIVE: Medical and Subrogation Specialists are sponsoring scholarships for two attorneys to join the Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG) association and attend the WILG Annual Convention in September.
Each scholarship includes one regular membership and registration to attend the convention (including travel expenses).
"MASSIVE is pleased to support WILG's mission of helping attorneys advocate for the rights of injured workers," says Rita Siedlaczek, MASSIVE Sales and Marketing Director. "This is a great opportunity, and we are thrilled to help these attorneys advance in their careers."
The WILG Scholarship Committee will select the winners and they will be announced by June 1.
More information can be found at wilg.org or by calling WILG at (603) 455-0654.
ABOUT MASSIVE
MASSIVE: Medical and Subrogation Specialists are here to help, whether we are reducing liens to put more money in plaintiffs' pockets or producing Future Medical Allocations, including MSAs, to establish values for settlement negotiation. Developed with attorneys who understand what's involved with day-to-day workplace challenges, we communicate with our clients based upon the principles of competence, confidence, and understanding.
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SOURCE MASSIVE Medical & Subrogation Specialists | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/12/massive-announces-scholarship-partnership-with-wilg-2022/ | 2022-05-12T15:16:53Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Good morning. I'm Leila Fadel. Twist apart an Oreo and the cream filling usually ends up mostly on one side. So MIT researchers decided to apply science to a better pull-apart. They dug into fluid dynamics and delamination. And they wrote a paper concluding, there's no secret. The production process makes it almost impossible to split the filling evenly. They told Smithsonian magazine, you just got to mush it manually. They do have a new field of science, though. They call it Oreology. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-25/mit-researchers-confirm-that-its-hard-to-split-the-filling-evenly-in-an-oreo | 2022-05-12T15:16:55Z |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Donald Trump's lawyers are in court in New York today. They will argue that the former president should not be held in contempt. The state attorney general there says Trump failed to turn over documents in a probe of Trump Organization business practices. NPR's Ilya Marritz reports.
ILYA MARRITZ, BYLINE: It was three years ago that former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen testified before Congress that his old boss routinely misled banks and others about his holdings and his wealth.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MICHAEL COHEN: It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes.
MARRITZ: That caught the interest of a top prosecutor in the state where the Trump Organization is headquartered, New York Attorney General Letitia James. Since then, James has amassed a mountain of documents, gathered testimony from Trump Organization employees and interviewed Trump's son, Eric, who's an executive with the company. In January, she announced a preliminary finding that The Trump Organization, quote, "used fraudulent and misleading asset valuations to obtain economic benefits." But Letitia James hasn't yet decided whether to file charges. She first wants to understand what Trump knew, and she subpoenaed the former president for testimony and documents in his direct possession.
A state judge has upheld that subpoena. But, characteristically, Donald Trump is fighting it. Last month in court, prosecutors said Trump has shared just 10 documents in his possession. They also claim he's stonewalling a third-party discovery firm, which is supposed to expedite document production. Today in court, Attorney General James will ask a judge to impose a penalty on Donald Trump of $10,000 for every day he doesn't cooperate.
Trump's lawyers say he's already fully complied and that there are no more responsive documents to share and that it's well known Trump doesn't use email or computers. But it's also well known that Donald Trump doesn't like paying people. And if the judge approves the contempt motion, the financial penalties could pile up quickly. Throughout this investigation, Donald Trump has maintained he did nothing wrong and says this was all politically motivated.
Ilya Marritz, NPR News, New York. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-25/new-yorks-attorney-general-wants-trump-held-in-contempt-for-not-producing-documents | 2022-05-12T15:16:57Z |
Congressional Medal of Honor Society award for excellence in journalism to be presented at Medal of Honor Celebration in Knoxville in September
KNOXVILLE, Tenn., May 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Medal of Honor Celebration Committee is pleased to announce that NBC News Correspondent Courtney Kube will accept the "Tex" McCrary Award for Excellence in Journalism in person at the upcoming Medal of Honor Celebration in Knoxville in September. Kube covers the Pentagon and the Department of Defense and regularly breaks exclusive reporting on military operations and foreign policy, appearing across all NBC News and MSNBC programs. She will join fellow Medal of Honor award recipients, Ambassador Nikki Haley, Dr. Timothy Miller and Dennis Quaid, at the Patriot Gala on Sept. 10.
"I am absolutely humbled that a group as distinguished as the Congressional Medal of Honor Society is recognizing my work and coverage of the U.S. military," said Kube. "And I am thrilled to be able to accept the award later this year in the Volunteer State!"
The "Tex" McCrary Award is reserved for people who, through their life's work, have distinguished themselves by service to or unbiased coverage of the United States Military through journalism in peace and war. Previous recipients include Jake Tapper, Tom Brokaw, Paul Harvey and Peggy Noonan.
Kube joined NBC News in 2000, working in the Washington, D.C. bureau as a researcher, production assistant and associate producer. She holds degrees in political science and psychology from the University of Michigan.
Before becoming the Pentagon Correspondent, Kube was NBC News' Pentagon producer for more than a decade, covering wars in the Middle East, including in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, and reporting from U.S. military bases around the world. She has been embedded with troops from across all military branches and has traveled alongside secretaries of defense, secretaries of state, vice presidents and other senior U.S. military officials.
The Medal of Honor Celebration is an annual gathering for recipients of the United States' highest military award for valor. September will mark the second time the event has been held in Knoxville. Knoxville last welcomed recipients in 2014. Actor and director Gary Sinise, who played the character of "Lt. Dan" in the 1994 film "Forrest Gump," will once again serve as master of ceremonies for the Patriot Award Gala in Knoxville. For more information about the Celebration visit mohknoxville2022.org.
About The Congressional Medal of Honor Society
The Congressional Medal of Honor Society was chartered by Congress in 1958 to create a brotherhood among the living Medal of Honor recipients; to protect and uphold the dignity and honor of the Medal; to promote patriotism and love of country; and to inspire our youth to become worthy and dedicated citizens of our nation. Its membership consists exclusively of those individuals who have received the Medal of Honor. Today, there are 65 living recipients of the Medal of Honor. The Society is unique in that its membership hopes that there will be no need to welcome new inductees. For more information, visit cmhos.org.
Laura Mansfield, APR
Tombras
lmansfield@tombras.com
865.599.9968
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SOURCE Medal of Honor Celebration Committee | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/12/nbc-news-correspondent-courtney-kube-receives-tex-mccrary-award/ | 2022-05-12T15:17:00Z |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have wrapped up a not-so-secret visit to Ukraine, where they met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
It's the first official U.S. visit since the war began. The U.S. officials pledged more cash and more weapons. Speaking in Poland this morning, Secretary Blinken voiced confidence in Ukraine's military.
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ANTONY BLINKEN: Russia is failing. Ukraine is succeeding. Russia has sought, as its principal aim, to totally subjugate Ukraine, to take away its sovereignty, to take away its independence. That has failed.
FADEL: He announced that U.S. diplomats could return to Kyiv in coming weeks.
MARTIN: OK, so what more was promised? NPR's Brian Mann joins us this morning from Odesa in the south of Ukraine. Good morning, Brian.
BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: What more can you tell us about what came out of this visit?
MANN: Well, I think the first big message here was that the U.S. plans to stick by Ukraine. Along with all the money and firepower promised, this was really a symbolic gesture, this visit - two high-level U.S. officials in Ukraine's capital just weeks after the Russian army tried to capture Kyiv. Austin and Blinken did promise to boost military aid to Eastern Europe by another $700 million, including money to help countries in the region support Ukraine with guns and ammunition and the heavy weaponry that Ukrainian officials say they desperately need. Secretary Austin said those big guns from the U.S. are already arriving.
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LLOYD AUSTIN: We are doing everything that we can to get them the types of support, the types of artillery and munitions that will be effective in this stage of the fight.
MANN: And the Biden administration did also announce, after a long delay, they plan to finally nominate an ambassador to Ukraine, an experienced foreign service officer named Bridget Brink. She's now serving as ambassador to Slovakia. And the U.S. is going to also gradually reestablish its permanent diplomatic presence in Ukraine, eventually even reopening the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv.
MARTIN: Although, we should say, that's a slower pace than several European allies, which have already sent their ambassadors back to Kyiv or have plans to do so. So, Brian, as we noted, you're in Odesa. This is the main port city in the south of the country. And it's been pretty quiet there for the duration of the war. There were, though, these missile strikes over the weekend that killed eight people. Can you tell us what happened?
MANN: Yeah, this was really the latest wrenching moment in Russia's assault, Rachel. A missile struck an apartment building here. A young mother and a 3-month-old child were among the dead. Odesa had felt relatively safe, as you mentioned, and this was a shock coming on the Orthodox Easter weekend. Now some people are choosing to leave. I spoke last night with Ira Volkova, who was getting on an evacuation train to leave Odesa with her two young children.
IRA VOLKOVA: (Speaking Ukrainian).
MANN: "We felt these explosions threaten us, and I'm afraid for the kids," she told me. And Volkova's situation gets at what so many Ukrainians are experiencing right now.
VOLKOVA: (Speaking Ukrainian).
MANN: She told me her husband is away fighting in the war. She doesn't know where he is. Her father was wounded fighting the Russians and is now in a hospital. And her brother is one of the defenders of the devastated city of Mariupol. "We haven't heard anything about him for a month," Ira told me. "We hope for the best."
MARTIN: So this is happening in the south, where Odesa is. Russians are obviously pushing very hard in the east as well. Is there any evidence at this point, Brian, that they are tipping the balance?
MANN: The Russian military says they're hitting hundreds of Ukrainian military targets, and this is shaping up to be a slow, bloody grind, but no big breakthroughs. The Ukrainian military actually claims to have retaken some territory and villages here in the south, where I am, around Kherson. NPR could not confirm that. Also, it does appear some of those Ukrainian soldiers dug in at the steel plant, Mariupol, are still alive. I will say, though, Rachel, the Ukrainians I talked to on the street here are really hopeful. They think their army has bought them time so that those bigger weapons can arrive and be deployed.
MARTIN: NPR's Brian Mann reporting from Odesa, Ukraine. Thank you, Brian.
MANN: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MARTIN: OK, President Emmanuel Macron in France and his supporters celebrated his victory in the presidential election there under the Eiffel Tower last night.
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UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Speaking French).
(CHEERING)
FADEL: Macron won a second term, but his lead was much smaller than his victory five years ago. With the excitement, for many, came a feeling of relief. Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally has never come so close to victory.
MARTIN: So what does all this mean for France and Europe, for that matter? Joining us now from Paris, NPR's Eleanor Beardsley. Hey, Eleanor.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: So a lot of the people who voted for Macron, I understand, did so just because they thought he was less bad, a lot less bad, than Marine Le Pen, right?
BEARDSLEY: Yeah...
MARTIN: So is that going to change how Macron governs?
BEARDSLEY: Yeah, absolutely. So many people, especially voters on the left and working-class voters, feel betrayed by him. They say his platform is ultra-capitalist, and he's no centrist, and many people think he's very arrogant. But they could not accept, as you said, letting the far right get into power, so they held their nose and voted for five more years of Macron. Macron acknowledged them last night in his speech. Let's listen.
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PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: He said, "I know that many of you did not vote for me or my ideas but just to block the far right." So analysts say he's going to have to govern differently, with less hubris, more consultation. I spoke with political science professor Vincent Martigny, and he said Macron's legitimacy is not quite the same as in 2017. Let's listen to him.
VINCENT MARTIGNY: His mandate is a lot weaker. So he'll have to make compromises. And the problem with Mr. Macron, he's not a very good compromiser. He's somebody who says, I listen, and at the end, I decide.
MARTIN: So meanwhile, I mean, for Marine Le Pen, she lost the election, but, I mean, just coming this close is a kind of victory in itself, isn't it?
BEARDSLEY: Oh, completely, Rachel. You know, she's campaigned as much more mainstream this time around. She didn't focus on immigration or have any kind of racist talk. A further-right candidate in the first round did that. She connected with voters on the economy, cost-of-living issues, and she gained a lot more voters. And her concession speech early on last night sounded more like a victory speech. Let's listen to her.
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MARINE LE PEN: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: So she says, "with more than 43% of the vote, the results are a stunning victory. We're more determined than ever." She actually got around 41%, but she's right; it's a victory for her because the far right has never had such a huge score. She's now got her eye on the June legislative elections, which are very important. They're even known as the third round of the presidential election. She's going to try to deprive Macron of his majority, which he will need if he's going to implement his agenda.
MARTIN: So place this in context for us, then, in a big-picture way, Eleanor. What does this election say about France right now?
BEARDSLEY: So while it's complicated for Macron domestically, his win is a clear victory for Europe. And you could almost hear the collective sigh of relief across the continent at not having to deal with a President Le Pen, who could have been an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and would have chipped away at the union. It would have been a huge blow to the bloc at such a crucial time. And congratulations poured in from across Europe, and Macron also got a congratulatory tweet from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in French, who called him a real friend of Ukraine.
MARTIN: NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reporting from Paris on the results of the French presidential election. Thank you so much, Eleanor.
BEARDSLEY: Great to be with you guys.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MARTIN: Amazon labor unions are looking for another win in New York.
FADEL: Today, Amazon workers at a sorting facility in Staten Island will vote on whether or not to unionize. Roughly 1,500 warehouse workers are eligible to vote in the election, which goes on all week.
MARTIN: NPR's Andrea Hsu is with us. And, Andrea, I mean, I'm probably not alone in remembering that this sort of just happened, didn't it? Wasn't there just a big union win at an Amazon facility in Staten Island?
ANDREA HSU, BYLINE: Yeah, this is the second Amazon warehouse to vote on a union there. The first one was a much larger warehouse with more than 8,000 workers. It made history just several weeks ago when it became the first facility in the U.S. to unionize at Amazon. Now, that same scrappy union, the Amazon Labor Union that's run by former and current workers, they're trying to unionize the warehouse across the street. The workers there sort packages depending on where they're going, get them loaded onto trucks, and it's a physically demanding job that's very fast paced. Workers lift packages as heavy as 50 pounds. And what some of the workers say is that they want more breaks. They want better health and safety policies, along with more money, of course.
MARTIN: So as recently as a month ago, I mean, a whole lot of people doubted whether any union could organize at Amazon. Now that it's happened once, is there momentum in the pro-labor direction?
HSU: Well, certainly the Amazon Labor Union would say so. They're vowing that this is only beginning. Yesterday, they had this big rally outside the warehouse. Bernie Sanders was one of a number of notable guests, and here's what he said.
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BERNIE SANDERS: You have taken on one of the most powerful corporations in America. They spent millions of dollars trying to defeat you, and you beat them.
(CHEERING)
HSU: And Chris Smalls, the president of the union, says he's been contacted by workers at a hundred Amazon facilities across the U.S. who are interested in joining them. But Amazon is continuing to fight. They have spent millions of dollars on anti-union consultants, as the senator said, and they filed objections to the results of the first election, the one they lost. They say the National Labor Relations Board favored the union and helped them secure victory. And Amazon has also objected to some of the union's actions, charging that organizers harassed and threatened employees who weren't supporting the union and gave marijuana to workers in return for their support. In fact, the union organizers say they did give out weed, but not as a bribe. So a hearing is going to be held to consider these objections.
MARTIN: OK, so that's what's happening in Staten Island in New York. What about elsewhere, though?
HSU: Well, the other big warehouse that's voted is in Bessemer, Ala. - about 6,000 workers in that warehouse. There's no final result there because there are still hundreds of contested ballots, and now both sides, Amazon and the union, have filed objections. So that is dragging on. And then, Rachel, there was this brief hubbub last week when an election was announced at a small Amazon facility in New Jersey with 200 workers. Local 713 of the International Brotherhood of Trade Unions was the union behind this. It has no ties with the Amazon Labor Union. In the past decade, a couple of its leaders were indicted on corruption charges. I couldn't find a contact number for this union, so I reached out to a lawyer listed on some paperwork, and he informed me that the union had withdrawn its petition for an election. So a bit of a mystery there. And for now, the focus remains on Staten Island.
MARTIN: OK. We'll keep following it. NPR's Andrea Hsu. Thank you so much.
HSU: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-25/news-brief-u-s-officials-visit-kyiv-french-election-2nd-amazon-union-vote | 2022-05-12T15:17:03Z |
META-2000 4G/5G is the first portable power station combining power with network in the history of the industry.
SHENZHEN, China, May 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- NIKOTA, a portable power station company offering solutions on renewable energy, launches NIKOTA META-2000 portable power station with 4G/5G network on Indiegogo with an exciting discount up to 55%.
META-2000 is a high capacity 2016Wh and 2000W output power station, boasting 13 output ports, including wireless charging, AC, USB2.0, QC3.0, TYPE-C and a car port. It can meet the needs of outdoor activities without network and electricity and emergency power use in average households.
4G/5G Network and Power Station 2 in 1
META-2000 can act as a 4G/5G network transmitter to smart home appliances or outdoor electronic devices by two methods. One is to insert a SIM card. Another way is to connect household network cable. With META-2000 4G/5G, users can still get access to electricity and network even when off-grid and without power. META-2000 has 1200M wireless router modules, in line with IEEE802.11AC/N/G/B/A wireless network protocol. Wireless transmission rate is up to1200Mbps. The external antenna has good connection and wider coverage. The coverage of wireless signals in an open area is greater than 50 meters theoretically. It can connect 70 devices simultaneously.
Fastest Recharging and Easy Carry
META-2000 has the fastest recharged speed in the world. The power station can be charged to 80% in just one hour, and fully charged in just 1.5 hours.
With a high 2016Wh capacity, META-2000 standard only weighs 15 kg, META-2000 4G/5G weighs 16kg. It supports both 50Hz and 60Hz regions with an output power of 2000W. Compared with products with same 2016Wh capacity on the market, its weight is reduced by about 30%.
Multiple Functions for Comfortable and Convenient Supporting
META-2000 provides consumers with a comfortable and convenient experience both outdoors and indoors. META-2000 has a variety lighting that can achieve different effects: lighting, atmosphere, mosquito repellent, emergency light. It has Bidirectional-convert technology, which makes charging and discharging more efficient and power saving.
Desirable Price on Indiegogo
META-2000 will be released on Indiegogo. Promotion adhere to the principle that the sooner you buy, the better price you get. Consumers can enjoy a super early bird discount up to 55% off on META-2000 standard, and promotion of META-2000 4G is up to 35% off. Consumers could choose products types based on their network conditions in different countries and regions.
Get more Information:https://www.indiegogo.com/project/preview/1d2d41a6
About NIKOTA
NIKOTA is a green power company headquartered in the Greater Bay Area, China. NIKOTA has been committed to providing clean, stable, safe and efficient portable power solutions for home, outdoor, emergency and other areas. It also regularly provides innovative products to users around the world striving to meet the needs of the ever-changing world.
To get more information please visit https://www.nikotapower.com/
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SOURCE NIKOTA | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/12/nikota-launches-an-innovative-power-station-meta-2000-indiegogo/ | 2022-05-12T15:17:07Z |
Athens is often regarded as one of the best college towns in the country — but past the University of Georgia's tailgate parties and fraternity and sorority houses, 30% of the Athens-Clarke county population lives in poverty. That percentage is even higher among residents in District 2, just east of campus, explains Mariah Parker, better known to some as the hip-hop artist Linqua Franqa.
With a new album out, titled Bellringer, Parker is hoping to make change in their community — both by extending their reach as an artist and coming into their own as a public office holder.
A self-described "outcast weirdo band kid," Parker grew up outside of Louisville, Ky., listening to rap but not always hearing themselves reflected in the music. They participated in poetry slams at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, N.C., but wished the scene was more open and inclusive.
Parker says when they moved to Athens in 2013, the creative community was robust, but not unified. "Every single person I met was a bassist or a vocalist or a keyboardist, or had a show this Thursday – 'Can you come?'" they recall. "But I noticed its lack of color. All of the rappers were relegated to the corners of the city, both musically and geographically."
So Parker started organizing hip-hop showcases downtown, centering Black artists. When one of the headliners was unable to make it to a show, Parker stepped up to the mic themselves. Performing as "Lingua Franca" (the spelling was later changed to Linqua Franqa), Parker rapped about public policies and personal struggles, connecting their experiences to social inequality and the need for change.
"The music was a touchstone for conversations around why things are the way they are," Parker explains. "Let's have a talk. Does it have to be that way? What can we do?"
Ethnomusicologist Kyra Gaunt says that while Parker's music addresses current issues, it also sustains traces of African ideologies about individuality within collectivity, which also inform hip-hop's origins. Gaunt explains that "music was of the people, and it spoke about the plight of everyday life."
Parker began to see the showcases bring people together, coalescing around the progressive messaging in the music, and decided to take things a step further. They started hosting crash courses in civic engagement in music clubs across the city, coming to shows with a backpack full of information on upcoming legislation, pre-stamped postcards and advice about how to effectively engage with elected officials. Parker explains, "it started to slowly morph into a more explicitly political form of organizing."
That organizing picked up in the wake of the 2016 election, with a wave of young people in Georgia and across the country increasingly identifying as progressives. When local hip-hop artist and activist Tommy Valentine launched his campaign for Athens-Clarke's District 9 County Commissioner in 2017, Parker was his manager.
Athens Mayor Kelly Girtz, who was running for office in the same election cycle, recalls being deeply impressed by Parker's unique skill set. "While Mariah certainly has a performer's element, there's also a distinct authenticity," he says.
So, when the commissioner representing Parker's East Athens district announced that he was stepping down to pursue his own mayoral bid, Girtz encouraged Parker to run for the vacated seat. A 26-year-old political novice, they were busy with a burgeoning music career and academic work as a doctoral student at the University of Georgia. Parker had been joking about life-work balance when they told a local music reporter that their life was in shambles.
But then Parker considered that their district had been represented by the same commissioner for 25 years. He had run unopposed for most of his tenure, and it was presumed his successor would, too. Parker says hecklers came to their early 2018 campaign launch, reciting the quote they gave to the music reporter, stripped out of context. "So I was straight up with them. There are hundreds if not thousands of people in our district that are behind on their car payments, that are going to eat ramen today, that could find themselves unhoused next week if they get into another fight with their husband."
Running on a platform of racial and economic justice, Parker won. They made national headlines when they were sworn into office, standing beside their mother, both of their hands placed on the Autobiography of Malcolm X, who Parker sees as an example of fearlessness and flexibility.
Now serving in their second term as District 2's county commissioner, Parker says they're prioritizing new models of economic development — like investing in job-training programs and supporting local minority- owned businesses — to support communities where, despite high levels of employment, wages aren't high enough to lift people out of poverty. Affordable housing is another concern, they say, as the District's proximity to the University of Georgia has put the squeeze on low-income renters.
Parker says one of their proudest accomplishments is the 2021 passage of the Linnentown Resolution. When the University of Georgia set out to expand its campus in the early 1960s, the homes of about 50 Black families were razed to build new dorms. Former residents remembered the demolition and the displacement they suffered, but there was no formal acknowledgement until 2019, when a University of Georgia Libraries staff member uncovered a trove of documents pertaining to "Urban Renewal Project GA. R-50."
That discovery was the starting point for The Linnentown Project, a public awareness campaign based on archival research and documentation. Although the University of Georgia disputed some of the findings, Mayor Girtz and the Athens-Clarke County Commission issued a public apology and issued calls for reinvestment in the community, led by the community.
As they lead change as an elected official, Parker also spends a lot of time working with kids in local schools and no-cost summer camps, using freestyle rap and language play to support literacy and civic engagement efforts. Their new album, Bellringer, doubles as a Ph.D. dissertation in Language and Literacy at the University of Georgia.
Parker says the title has two meanings. "Both in the sense of knocking somebody out, and calling people to action." For Parker, those calls center on issues such as police brutality, social media addiction, mental health, anti-capitalism and labor organizing.
One song, "Abolition," features a guest spot from political activist and scholar Angela Davis, who met Parker in 2020 at a conference and stayed in touch.
Davis says she considers art, in all its forms, central to the success of social justice movements. "Art helps us to feel what we do not yet understand," she explains. "My mentor Herbert Marcuse once pointed out that art itself doesn't change the world, but art changes the people and can give them impulses to go out and transform the world. I think that Mariah Parker totally understands this. I love that they perform under the name 'Linqua Franqa,' because it's about creating a new language."
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-25/rapper-activist-linqua-franqa-is-on-a-mission-to-change-both-music-and-politics | 2022-05-12T15:17:09Z |
OpenEnvoy offers finance teams a preventative solution allowing them to save significant amounts of time and money by identifying invoice duplication before payments are issued.
OAKLAND, Calif., May 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- OpenEnvoy, the Bay Area fintech company that created the first real-time variable cost AP automation, finds that nearly 10% of all invoices are duplicates.
A recent study conducted by OpenEnvoy concluded that 8.5% of the invoices companies receive are duplicates. The study analyzed billing accuracy over 12 months across a sample of $500M in customer invoices.
The OpenEnvoy system identified $42,124,360 in duplicate billings, with the worst offenders being contract manufacturers and logistics providers, specifically shipping lines.
The preventative nature of OpenEnvoy's automation technology empowers its customers to uncover and eliminate wasted spend by auditing invoices at the line item level with speed and accuracy. With the capability to flag duplicates in real-time, OpenEnvoy customers can share a detailed view of discrepancies with their vendors to avoid costly disputes.
"We were shocked by the substantial amount of duplicate invoices but unsurprisingly found that logistics providers were the worst offenders due to the number of subcontractors involved. Ultimately, the responsibility for preventing overpayment lies with customers as service providers lack an incentive to change. Most companies are incapable of reconciling invoices at scale and lack the right technology to prevent wasted spend.", says Matthew Tillman, CEO and Co-founder of OpenEnvoy.
The study emphasizes the importance of investing in preventative finance solutions, finance teams must be able to verify invoices in real-time so they can work collaboratively with vendors to address billing issues. OpenEnvoy eliminates the financial risk of overpayment and allows for more efficient payments, creating a win-win environment for customers and their vendors to create a strong global supply chain.
"At OpenEnvoy, we ensure that finance teams are never overcharged. By doing so, we provide customers with real-time visibility into their vendor network, which allows them to make strategic business decisions about the vendors they choose to work with."
Learn how OpenEnvoy can transform your AP team from reactive to proactive by scheduling a demo with an OpenEnvoy expert today.
About OpenEnvoy
OpenEnvoy enables finance teams of all sizes with visibility, automation, and cash flow solutions. To learn more about how OpenEnvoy can help you prevent wasted spend, visit https://www.openenvoy.com. Read more at Future FinOps or follow @OpenEnvoy on Twitter and LinkedIn.
For Press inquiries, please contact Courtney James at press@openenvoy.com.
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SOURCE OpenEnvoy | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/12/openenvoy-study-finds-that-businesses-risk-losing-millions-duplicate-invoices/ | 2022-05-12T15:17:14Z |
The path to keeping the Democrats' majority in the House of Representatives in November's midterms runs right through the Valley of the Sun in Arizona. Democratic Rep. Greg Stanton, a former mayor of Phoenix, won his district handily in 2020, but a redrawn map landed him on the GOP list of targeted lawmakers in 2022.
The Republican field to take him on is diverse and determined to make the race about President Biden and the Democratic majority's record in Washington, while Stanton zeroes in on local issues.
The 4th Congressional District's political breakdown could mirror that of the state's overall — roughly a third Democrats, a third Republicans and a third independents.
Border and immigration issues are prominent
Tanya Wheeless is one of the six GOP candidates vying for the nomination to challenge Stanton in November. The Republican primary is more than three months away but Wheeless stands out in the field, having secured the endorsements of top House GOP leaders like Elise Stefanik and the backing of the Congressional Leadership Fund, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's super PAC, to help her compete.
After touring 21st Century Healthcare, a vitamin and supplement manufacturing company based in Tempe, Wheeless sat down with the company's leadership.
"What are the issues that you want me to go to Washington and fight for?" she asked.
Steve Snyder, the CEO, didn't hesitate.
"My first and foremost, it's immigration. Why are we playing games with these folks? If people want to come here and they want to work, we need workers," he said, before adding with a sigh: "And get the politics out of it."
Snyder said his company has not only had difficulty filling open positions, but also keeping workers that are in Arizona on green cards and are forced to leave because of government logjams with paperwork.
Wheeless told NPR she would support a targeted, not comprehensive, immigration bill in Congress.
"[Republicans are] really passionate about getting more boots on the ground for Border Patrol, [Democrats] really want something done on Dreamers, let's talk and see what we can do," she said.
But when it comes to immigration, the debate right now is less about bringing in workers and more about border security.
Stanton deliberately put distance between himself and the Biden administration when it comes to the border, especially its plan to lift Title 42 next month — a policy put in place under former President Donald Trump that barred migrants from entering the country during the pandemic.
"I've been critical of this administration for not doing more on getting a modernized immigration system that advances our economy, including immigration reform," Stanton told NPR in his Phoenix office. "And I've been critical on the lack of preparedness for what's going to happen at the border if Title 42 goes away."
He sidestepped a question about whether the president or other high ranking administration officials need to visit the border, repeating his critique: "I need to see that this administration has a strong plan to prepare for what may happen, and I haven't seen it yet."
A new Arizona map is less favorable to Democrats
Stanton won his reelection bid two years ago in what had been the 9th Congressional District by more than 20 points. The new map, which carves out Scottsdale and parts of Phoenix and adds redder areas of Mesa to the new 4th District, is less favorable to Democrats.
But Stanton insists his strategy for the 2022 campaign won't change from his earlier bids for local office and for Congress.
"I'm going to talk a lot about my record because I am a mayor at heart," he said. "I have a track record of success and a track record of successfully reaching across the aisle to get things done for the people that I represent. That's always been how I've operated. That's always how I'm going to operate."
That record includes bipartisan efforts in Congress, including the $1 trillion infrastructure bill that passed the Senate last August. Stanton touts his seat on the panel that crafted the bill.
The Arizona Democrat spent much of the two week spring recess pointing to his track record at steering federal money – earmarks in this year's spending bill – to his district. After the GOP banned them for years, arguing the practice was corrupt and added to overspending, Democrats brought them back. Members of both parties, especially those in competitive seats, are highlighting the federal infusion into local projects.
Today I announced $300,000 in community project funding to @MayorGiles and @CITYOFMESA.
— Rep. Greg Stanton (@RepGregStanton) April 19, 2022
This funding will help downtown small businesses pay for storefront improvements and give a fresh face to Mesa’s thriving economy. pic.twitter.com/yVXrgLV3mG
"I work very closely with the cities that I'm lucky enough to represent in Congress, to go after their priorities, and the best way to do that is through the community project funding process," Stanton said. "There were some really good ones: water projects for the city of Chandler, helping small business in the city of Mesa."
But some of Stanton's constituents say, while those projects are fine, Democrats in Washington overpromised on what they could get done.
"It reminds me of a high school, like when there was someone running for class president," said Christina Sykes, an independent voter from Mesa. "They're like, 'We're going to give you pizza every day for lunch and Kool Aid in the water fountains.' So I'm like, well, you know, show up! You guys not showing up."
Democratic voters are also feeling disappointment
"They don't have anything to show. You have the House, the Senate, the White House, what did you accomplish?" asked Democrat Kelly Knepper. "I'm still waiting for student loan debt to be canceled."
Her partner Brian Knepper said Democrats made inroads in certain areas like pandemic aid and the confirmation of the first Black female Supreme Court justice, but aren't advertising their successes effectively.
"I think the things they didn't do are outshining the things they did do," he said. "In 10 years, we're going to recognize the benefits of a lot of this legislation and the impact it's had on this country, but no one is talking that up now and so no credit is being given for the accomplishments."
Knepper didn't mince words when it came to expectations for November:
"It feels like almost a foregone conclusion that they are going to lose the House and the Senate as soon as it is possible."
When asked about demoralized Democrats and concerns over potential low turnout in the midterm election, Stanton repeatedly said his strategy is keeping the conversation local and reminding constituents about his ties here.
"I've successfully won all of [my] elections by doing exactly what I'm going to do in this election: let people know who I am and what I have done," he said. "The voters know who has gone to work for them in advancing their interests and they also trust me."
COVID shutdowns loom large
Mike Tomlinson, from Chandler, is a conservative voter. He points to inflation and border security as issues people in the area are feeling now, but says he's focused on education, and that the memory of kids being kept out of classrooms during the pandemic still stings.
"Kids lost out on, gosh, 18 months, two years of schooling," he said. "I had a son that graduated in 2020, and, you know, there wasn't really a graduation."
Diane Ortiz-Parsons, a Republican from Mesa, is engaged in local campaigns and a retired teacher. She said the impact of the pandemic is still a major issue.
"I'm concerned about the amount of depression that I see. I hear of people's kids that are needing to go to therapy," she said. "Our churches are overwhelmed with people that need extra help right now."
Republican challengers like Wheeless say the way the pandemic was handled is part of the reason people will vote to switch party control of Congress.
"What I'm hearing from people is they're very unhappy with some key kitchen table issues," Wheeless said. "'My kids were locked out of school, the price of gas has gone up, it costs me more when I go to the grocery store. That ain't good and I want change.'"
Stanton said he plans to spend time back home talking about how Congress provided COVID-relief, like loans to businesses who were able to keep their doors open.
"We're going to talk about the work that we did during the worst pandemic in a hundred years to support families so that they could pay their bills and pay the rent."
Turning out the vote
Hispanic voters in the district are expected to be targeted by both parties.
Wheeless, whose grandparents immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico, says she's a candidate who can help Republicans extend the inroads they made with Hispanic voters in the last election.
"We've got a message that particularly resonates with the Hispanic community, which is about faith, freedom, entrepreneurship," she said.
Stanton maintained he's been able to attract support from voters across the political spectrum.
Ortiz-Parsons, who said Democrats have "taken Hispanic voters for granted," added that she thinks Biden's low approval ratings will help swing independent voters to her party.
"Our greatest friend right now is President Biden. I expect real close to a complete sweep, because he's showing how poorly Democrats can run the country," she said. "All those independents, I'm expecting them to come our way."
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-25/redistricting-and-democrats-stalled-agenda-put-this-blue-arizona-house-seat-in-play | 2022-05-12T15:17:15Z |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Large urban school districts are cutting costs and closing schools because of declining enrollment. But whose schools are closed raises questions about racial equity. Parents in Oakland, Calif., say their district is targeting schools that serve Black children with disabilities. KQED's Julia McEvoy has the story.
JULIA MCEVOY, BYLINE: Nine-year-old Dalaine Whaley was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and seizures at four weeks. Hospital staff told her mom she wouldn't walk or talk.
JOLANDA MURPHY: That basically she would be wheelchair-bound. But I told them that I serve a God who is going to do bigger and better things for her.
MCEVOY: By 16 months, Dalaine was crawling. At age 4, she walked into preschool.
MURPHY: And her teacher cried. She knew how much I wanted Dalaine to walk. What's the matter? I'm not talking about you in a bad way - a good way.
MCEVOY: Murphy has always fought for Dalaine, and she found a small public school a few miles from home that educates her with the conviction that she can learn.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Good morning, Lainey (ph).
MCEVOY: Carl B. Munck Elementary is one of two small majority-Black primary schools high in the exclusive Oakland Hills. This is an area of affluent families where discriminatory housing policies denied Black families from buying homes and attending schools for decades. When Murphy learned the district was closing her school, she was stunned.
MURPHY: I felt disrespected.
MCEVOY: Munck Elementary serves more than three times as many students with disabilities as other small, predominantly white schools in the Oakland Hills. Those other schools are not being closed by the district.
JENNIFER BLAKE: I mean, in a dream world scenario, we would have adequate base funding and adequate special education funding at both the federal and state level.
MCEVOY: Jennifer Blake heads special education for the district. She agrees Munck is a model, but she says the district operates too many under-enrolled small schools, which is costly.
BLAKE: I know there was no intention to be able to target students with disabilities exclusively.
DENISE BURROUGHS: It feels like you want to erase these kids.
MCEVOY: For nearly 20 years, Principal Denise Burroughs has heard from white families who won't send their children here.
BURROUGHS: Unfortunately, over the years, I've actually had people say things like, well, I like this school, but I just feel like my child would be in a minority here because there were so many children of African descent and color here.
MCEVOY: Parents of children with disabilities have sent letters to state and county officials accusing the district of negligent treatment of Black children with disabilities. The ACLU has asked California's attorney general to investigate whether the district took racial equity into account in its closure plans.
LINNEA NELSON: The school district, by its own admission, has a history of chronically underfunding historically Black schools.
MCEVOY: ACLU staff attorney Linnea Nelson says that underfunding has led to under enrollment at these schools.
NELSON: The very conditions that it's now citing to justify disrupting tightknit school communities and displacing literally hundreds of Black students.
MCEVOY: It's rare to find a school where neurotypical children accept kids with disabilities like Dalaine. Her mom, Jolanda Murphy, says it creates a profound experience for everyone.
MURPHY: I'm just not going to send my kids to some school just because that's the neighborhood. I'm going to make sure it's right. And I feel that a lot of the special needs parents make sure that it's right.
MCEVOY: Murphy says she wants to know how the district could do something so wrong. For NPR News, I'm Julia McEvoy in Oakland. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-25/school-closures-in-oakland-calif-may-impact-black-children-with-disabilities | 2022-05-12T15:17:17Z |
The Prom Night suite captures songs from the big dance for the classes of 1995 through 2022
OAKLAND, Calif., May 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Pandora unveiled Prom Night, its largest suite of stations to date, all in celebration of the 2022 prom season. From TLC's "Waterfalls" to Harry Styles' "As It Was," Pandora's twenty-eight new stations capture songs from the big dance for the classes of 1995 through 2022.
A time capsule of the hottest hits gracing high school dance floors across the nation, Pandora's Prom Night brings the top tracks of 1995-2022 to all tiers of its streaming service, including its free tier. Each year's station is carefully curated on various yearly charts including Pandora's year-end lists and multiple external lists covering all genres.
The suite of stations journey through twenty-eight years of graduating classes, kicking off with the class of 1995 and Montell Jordan saying "This Is How We Do It" on Prom Night: 1995. *NSYNC and Destiny's Child rule the turn of the century on Prom Night: 2000, and Katy Perry and Usher are crowned prom queen and prom king on Prom Night: 2010. The class of 2021 gets their "drivers license" from Olivia Rodrigo on Prom Night: 2021, before this year's graduating seniors ride "First Class" with Jack Harlow on Prom Night: 2022.
"No matter how long ago you went to your prom, all it takes to bring you right back to that special moment is a song," said Kevin Stapleford, VP of content and programming at Pandora. "Each of these stations was carefully researched by our curators who unearthed the biggest songs of prom season for every year since 1995 to create the ultimate throwback prom celebration for each class. Our suite of prom stations -- the largest number of new stations we've launched in a single day -- will make you feel like you're right back at the big dance."
Pandora's Prom Night suite celebrates the nostalgic memories of high school from the first day of first year until the last exam rings pomp and circumstance bells. A walk down memory lane for graduating classes of today and the past, all twenty-eight stations commemorate seniors' one last dance.
Check out all of the Pandora Prom Night stations HERE (desktop)
Check out all of the Pandora Prom Night stations HERE (mobile)
Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) is the leading audio entertainment company in the U.S., and the premier programmer and platform for subscription and digital advertising-supported audio products. Pandora, a subsidiary of SiriusXM, is the largest ad-supported audio entertainment streaming service in the U.S. SiriusXM and Pandora together reach more than 100 million people each month with their audio products. SiriusXM, through Sirius XM Canada Holdings, Inc., also offers satellite radio and audio entertainment in Canada. In addition to its audio entertainment businesses, SiriusXM offers connected vehicle services to automakers. For more about SiriusXM, please go to: www.siriusxm.com.
This communication contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements include, but are not limited to, statements about future financial and operating results, our plans, objectives, expectations and intentions with respect to future operations, products and services; and other statements identified by words such as "will likely result," "are expected to," "will continue," "is anticipated," "estimated," "believe," "intend," "plan," "projection," "outlook" or words of similar meaning. Such forward-looking statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of our management and are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are difficult to predict and generally beyond our control. Actual results and the timing of events may differ materially from the results anticipated in these forward-looking statements.
The following factors, among others, could cause actual results and the timing of events to differ materially from the anticipated results or other expectations expressed in the forward-looking statements: the current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is adversely impacting our business; our substantial competition that is likely to increase over time; our efforts to attract and retain subscribers and listeners, or convert listeners into subscribers, which may not be successful, and may adversely affect our business; our Pandora ad-supported business has suffered a loss of monthly active users, which may adversely affect our Pandora business; privacy and data security laws and regulations may hinder our ability to market our services, sell advertising and impose legal liabilities; we engage in extensive marketing efforts and the continued effectiveness of those efforts are an important part of our business; consumer protection laws and our failure to comply with them could damage our business; a substantial number of our Sirius XM subscribers periodically cancel their subscriptions and we cannot predict how successful we will be at retaining customers; our ability to profitably attract and retain subscribers to our Sirius XM service as our marketing efforts reach more price-sensitive consumers is uncertain; our failure to convince advertisers of the benefits of our Pandora ad-supported service could harm our business; if we are unable to maintain revenue growth from our advertising products, particularly in mobile advertising, our results of operations will be adversely affected; if we fail to accurately predict and play music, comedy or other content that our Pandora listeners enjoy, we may fail to retain existing and attract new listeners; if we fail to protect the security of personal information about our customers, we could be subject to costly government enforcement actions and private litigation and our reputation could suffer; interruption or failure of our information technology and communications systems could impair the delivery of our service and harm our business; 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if we are unable to attract and retain qualified personnel, our business could be harmed; we may not realize the benefits of acquisitions or other strategic investments and initiatives, including the acquisition of Pandora; our use of pre-1972 sound recordings on our Pandora service could result in additional costs; we may from time to time modify our business plan, and these changes could adversely affect us and our financial condition; we have a significant amount of indebtedness, and our debt contains certain covenants that restrict our operations; our facilities could be damaged by natural catastrophes or terrorist activities; the unfavorable outcome of pending or future litigation could have an adverse impact on our operations and financial condition; failure to protect our intellectual property or actions by third parties to enforce their intellectual property rights could substantially harm our business and operating results; some of our services and technologies may use "open source" software, which may restrict how we use or distribute our services or require that we release the source code subject to those licenses; 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Source: SiriusXM
Media contact:
Heidi Anne-Noel
Hanne-noel@pandora.com
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SOURCE Sirius XM Holdings Inc. | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/12/pandora-celebrates-prom-season-with-twenty-eight-brand-new-stations/ | 2022-05-12T15:17:20Z |
ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
At the U.S. Supreme Court today, yet another culture war case and yet another case in which the court's conservative supermajority appears to be moving toward greater accommodation for religious expression in public schools. The case centered on a football coach who claims he has the right to pray on the 50-yard line after each game, joined by those of his players who want to participate. NPR's legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: School authorities in the town of Bremerton, Wash., told coach Joseph Kennedy to stop his midfield praying because it violated school policy. That policy said to neither encourage nor discourage religion. The school district and the lower court said his public praying would be perceived as a school endorsement of religion, and Kennedy was put on paid leave when he refused to stop.
In the Supreme Court today, lawyer Paul Clement, representing the coach, told the justices that Kennedy's 50-yard prayers were private speech, protected by the First Amendment guarantee of free speech and the free exercise of religion. The prayer, he contended, was much like a player crossing himself after making a touchdown.
Justice Sotomayor focused on where to draw the line for school employees, posing this hypothetical.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SONIA SOTOMAYOR: Why can't the school fire a coach who decides to put a Nazi swastika on their arm and go to the middle of the field and pray? If someone comes up and says, that's part of my religion, could the school say no to them?
TOTENBERG: Justice Kagan said that whatever label you put on coach Kennedy's prayers is irrelevant.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ELENA KAGAN: Endorsement, coercion - I mean, you're requiring a lot of a school board to try to figure out exactly which box in the establishment clause to put this in.
TOTENBERG: Kagan and Sotomayor are from the court's liberal wing and have no desire to overturn the court's precedents, marking a clear separation between church and state. The court's conservatives have a very different view. They want to focus instead on accommodating religion in public schools and other public institutions. But even in this case, conservative Justice Kavanaugh, an avid sports fan and parent coach, understood how coach Kennedy's behavior might be perceived by some parents.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BRETT KAVANAUGH: Every player is trying to get on the good side of the coach, and every parent is worried about the coach exercising favoritism in terms of the starting lineup, playing time, recommendations for colleges, et cetera.
TOTENBERG: And yet Kavanaugh and fellow conservative Neil Gorsuch repeatedly suggested that in their view, it is now time for the court to bury some of its older precedents for good. Most prominent is a 1971 case that, in legal shorthand, is seen as a ban on state endorsement of religion. Lawyer Clement, representing the coach, stressed that while the court has largely abandoned the endorsement test, school districts all over the country still rely on it.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PAUL CLEMENT: It's a stubborn fruit, and I don't think just pushing a pencil through it has done the trick. I mean, you really have to slice it in half.
TOTENBERG: Lawyer Richard Katskee, representing the school board, replied that Kennedy's actions had not been benign. The coach, he said, conducted a media blitz, permitted state legislators to join him on the field in prayer and put students in jeopardy.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RICHARD KATSKEE: Some of these kids were just 14 years old. Mr. Kennedy's actions pressured them to pray and also divided the coaching staff, sparked vitriol against school officials and led to the field being stormed and students getting knocked down.
TOTENBERG: If the evidence bears that out, asked Justice Gorsuch...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
NEIL GORSUCH: What, then, should we do if we thought coercion were the appropriate test but hadn't been applied by the school district or by the court below?
TOTENBERG: Lawyer Katskee said the court should remand the case back to the lower courts for fact-finding on the question of coercion. Coach Kennedy's lawyer replied to that suggestion with alarm.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CLEMENT: There's no evidence of coercion in this record. But worse, still - I mean, my client has already waited six years to get his job back.
TOTENBERG: A decision in the case is expected by summer.
Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF GARY BURTON'S "CAMINOS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-25/supreme-court-seems-sympathetic-to-coach-who-claims-right-to-pray-on-the-50-yard-line | 2022-05-12T15:17:23Z |
RTX Ventures partners with hypersonic aircraft startup to accelerate innovation in the aerospace and defense sectors
WALTHAM, Mass., May 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Raytheon Technologies (NYSE: RTX) today announced a strategic investment in Hermeus Corporation, a company developing hypersonic aircraft for defense and commercial applications, through its newly established corporate venture capital group, RTX Ventures.
Joining Hermeus' previously announced $100 million Series B financing round, RTX Ventures' investment in the company will directly support the buildout of its first aircraft, Quarterhorse, and accelerate development of its next aircraft, Darkhorse.
RTX Ventures makes strategic investments in early-stage companies, accelerating the development of transformational aerospace and defense technologies. Beyond just making investments, RTX Ventures leverages the strengths of the broader Raytheon Technologies organization to support successful growth in its portfolio companies.
"Hypersonic technologies are of critical importance to national security, which is why we made our first investment in a company with such a bold plan and vision in this space," said Daniel Ateya, managing director of RTX Ventures. "Hermeus' technical approach and business plan balances near-term defense applications with long-term commercial aspirations and will help our customers reimagine the possibilities of hypersonic technologies."
"Hypersonic aircraft will radically accelerate air travel and enable the United States to address critical national security challenges," said AJ Piplica, CEO at Hermeus. "Speed is our lifeblood at Hermeus, and I've been impressed with the ability of the team at RTX Ventures to embody that virtue. We look forward to expanding collaboration and continued acceleration of our vision for a faster future."
RTX Ventures focuses on supporting companies developing technologies that are strategically aligned to the Raytheon Technologies portfolio, with an emphasis on four broad priority areas: secure and connected ecosystems, autonomy and artificial intelligence technologies, power and propulsion systems, and precision sensing and effects.
About Raytheon Technologies
Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an aerospace and defense company that provides advanced systems and services for commercial, military and government customers worldwide. With four industry-leading businesses ― Collins Aerospace Systems, Pratt & Whitney, Raytheon Intelligence & Space and Raytheon Missiles & Defense ― the company delivers solutions that push the boundaries in avionics, cybersecurity, directed energy, electric propulsion, hypersonics, and quantum physics. The company, formed in 2020 through the combination of Raytheon Company and the United Technologies Corporation aerospace businesses, is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Media contact:
Shannon N. Booker
C: 202-209-1824
Shannon.booker@raytheon.com
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SOURCE Raytheon Technologies | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/12/raytheon-technologies-venture-capital-group-invests-hermeus/ | 2022-05-12T15:17:27Z |
Peter Reinhart is standing in an uptown food hall in Charlotte, N.C., beaming. The master baker and spiritual force in the world of cheese pies is in his element. He's about to munch on one of his favorite local slices – a piece of "grandma-style" pie from Geno D's Pizza.
"The best pizza that's ever been made in the history of the world is happening right now," Reinhart says, with clear satisfaction. He takes a minute to appreciate the snap of the crust and its interior creaminess before continuing.
"Part of a quest for a fulfilling life is experiencing the difference between good and great," Reinhart says. "All pizza is good. Look at how many frozen pizzas are eaten every day throughout the world. There's something about even an average crust, average toppings that works."
Reinhart's new book is called Pizza Quest: My Never-Ending Search for the Perfect Pizza. It's partly a cookbook, but Pizza Quest might be more accurately called a guide, not just for eating but as a way of life.
Until recently, Reinhart says, the vast majority of U.S. pizza places were good, not great. Truly great pizza was hard to find. But that's changed, he argues.
Take Razza, in Jersey City, N.J. Pizzaria Bianco in Phoenix. Audrey Jane's Pizza Garage in Boulder, Colo. Metro Pizza in Las Vegas. Avalanche Pizza in Athens, Ohio. Mia Marco's Pizza in Schertz, Texas. That's A Some Pizza on Bainbridge Island, near Seattle. "The whole pizza scene is elevated to a whole other level," he says.
Here at Geno D's in Charlotte, proprietors Geno DiPaolo and his daughter, Gina, credit Reinhart with helping them to elevate their pies with dough hydration techniques and tricks to managing their conveyor oven. "When Peter said to me, 'You nailed this,' that brought me over the edge," Geno says with pride. "Like, wow. Peter liked it."
Reinhart is a venerated figure in the world of pizza. He's authored more than a dozen books, three of which have won James Beard awards, and he maintains an active pizza-obsessed blog. As a younger man, he lived in a semi-monastic Christian community that grew out of the counterculture of the 1960s. "For us, religion was a way to experience divinity," he says. "Ultimately for me, it was about finding a path towards a personal experience of the reality of God."
Now, Reinhart believes that spirituality can be found in striving for greatness and bringing people joy, even through pizza. "For me, the word religion at its root comes from the Latin word religio," which he reads as meaning to be connected to something greater than oneself. In the pizza community, he's been half-jokingly compared to Gandalf, the wizard who launched the quest in The Lord of the Rings. As a faculty member at Johnson and Wales University, Reinhart is revered, says his colleague Quientina Stewart.
"From breads to pizza for sure- and then his ability to just get out there and connect," she marvels.
The connection, for Reinhart, is part of what he sees as a lifelong search for greatness. Pizza, he says, is a familiar metaphor for something good you may take for granted. But at its greatest, pizza approaches the sublime. That, he says, is worth the quest.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-25/the-gandalf-of-pizza-speaks-to-the-spiritual-side-of-comfort-food | 2022-05-12T15:17:29Z |
RICOH 3D for Healthcare provides widespread access to customized 3D anatomic modeling to help improve patient engagement
EXTON, Pa., May 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Ricoh USA, Inc. today announced it has won the 2022 MedTech Breakthrough Award for "Best New Technology Solution for Orthopedics" for RICOH 3D for Healthcare, an integrated end-to-end workflow solution that designs and produces 3D-printed anatomic models for patient-specific representations of tissue and bone. The anatomic replicas enable clinicians to see inside anatomy for greater visibility into patient needs and enhance patient engagement.
Access to 3D-printed models is currently limited to very few healthcare organizations due to the high cost and expertise required to manage the process. RICOH 3D for Healthcare solves this challenge, because it is a turnkey, cost-effective solution and managed service that allows healthcare providers at any size facility to learn from and inform the overall patient experience.
"Our goal is to make 3D anatomic models accessible to the roughly 90% of surgeons, medical students, and other providers working at healthcare facilities in the U.S. who don't currently have access to patient-specific 3D-printed models," said Gary Turner, Managing Director, Additive Manufacturing, North America, Ricoh USA, Inc. "We're proud to be recognized with a second consecutive MedTech Breakthrough Award—especially in this category, as orthopedics is one of the highest-demand areas for 3D-printed anatomic models today. It's a testament to how Ricoh is delivering truly 'breakthrough' technology and driving innovation that impacts human lives in the growing digital health and medical technology market."
RICOH 3D for Healthcare integrates with IBM iConnect® Access from IBM Watson Health, an enterprise imaging solution many healthcare providers already use, making it easy for clinicians to incorporate into their existing workflow. Once a healthcare professional uses the interactive segmentation tool within IBM iConnect Access and submits a request for a 3D-printed anatomic model, Ricoh facilitates the entire development process on the centralized HIPAA-enabled platform to produce and deliver accurate 3D-printed models.
The MedTech Breakthrough Awards celebrate the world's most outstanding digital health and medical technology products, services, and companies around the world. This year's award winners were selected from more than 4,000 nominations from across the globe.
The anatomic models are currently available for educational use only. For more information about RICOH 3D for Healthcare, view the brochure on the RICOH 3D for Healthcare webpage or follow the company's social media channels on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter or YouTube.
| About Ricoh |
Ricoh is empowering digital workplaces using innovative technologies and services that enable individuals to work smarter from anywhere.
With cultivated knowledge and organizational capabilities nurtured over its 85-years history, Ricoh is a leading provider of digital services and information management, and print and imaging solutions designed to support digital transformation and optimize business performance.
Headquartered in Tokyo, Ricoh Group has major operations throughout the world and its products and services now reach customers in approximately 200 countries and regions. In the financial year ended March 2021, Ricoh Group had worldwide sales of 1,682 billion yen (approx. 15.1 billion USD).
For further information, please visit www.ricoh.com
© 2022 Ricoh USA, Inc. All rights reserved. All referenced product names
are the trademarks of their respective companies.
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SOURCE Ricoh USA, Inc. | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/12/ricoh-wins-2022-medtech-breakthrough-award-best-new-technology-solution-orthopedics/ | 2022-05-12T15:17:34Z |
TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. The new film "The Northman" is a Viking revenge saga starring Alexander Skarsgard, Nicole Kidman and Anya Taylor-Joy. It's the latest movie from the director Robert Eggers, who previously made the period dramas "The Witch" and "The Lighthouse." Our film critic, Justin Chang, has this review.
JUSTIN CHANG, BYLINE: Back in 1958, "The Vikings," a lavish Hollywood production starring Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, sold itself in its trailer this way - nothing ever matched its violence, its vengeance, its vastness. Sixty-four years and countless Viking movies and TV series later, the mesmerizing new film "The Northman" takes up the challenge, and it has violence, vengeance and vastness to burn. Mostly set in 10th century Iceland, it tells the brutal story of Amleth, a young Viking prince who sets out to avenge his father's death at the hands of his uncle. If that sounds familiar, it's because this legend was the direct inspiration for Shakespeare's "Hamlet," and so you know Amleth's journey is destined to end in bloodshed and tragedy. But the director, Robert Eggers, who wrote the script with the Icelandic poet and novelist Sjon, has a few surprises up his sleeve.
The story begins on an island somewhere in the North Atlantic, where the king, played by a scraggly bearded Ethan Hawke, has returned home from conquests overseas. Not long after, the king is slain by his brother, Fjolnir, played by the terrific Danish actor Claes Bang. Before the fatal blow is delivered, the brothers exchange words, and their amusingly ornate dialogue gives you some sense of the heightened poetic register "The Northman" is aiming for.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE NORTHMAN")
CLAES BANG: (As Fjolnir the Brotherless) Ye behold your brother's gaze in amazement. I knew well you would. Pity you never paid a bastard's eyes heed before. Now, behold how swiftly your brother swings his sword.
ETHAN HAWKE: (As King Aurvandil War-Raven) Strike, brother. Strike. But know that bearing a stolen ring makes no half-breed a king. Soaked in my blood, 'twill soon be sliding off your arm like a serpent. Your kingdom will not last.
CHANG: Amleth, who's just a boy at the time, witnesses the murder and barely escapes with his life, vowing to return later and kill his uncle. Decades pass, and Amleth is now played by the Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgard, who tears into the role with a raw, feral hunger for which his part in the vampire series "True Blood" now feels like a warmup act. Years after fleeing home, Amleth has become a coldblooded killer, a berserker in Old Norse terms, raiding and plundering villages in Slavic territory. When he learns that his uncle Fjolnir has been dethroned and fled to Iceland, he decides it's payback time. And so he heads to Iceland and passes himself off as a slave working on Fjolnir's farm. But there are complications.
In keeping with "Hamlet," Fjolnir is now married to Gudrun, his brother's wife and Amleth's mother. Though she seems submissive at first, Gudrun turns out to be one of the movie's more fascinating creations - played by Nicole Kidman in her best performance in years. Meanwhile, Amleth finds a love interest and an ally in Olga, a fellow slave played by Anya Taylor-Joy, who starred in Edgar's first feature, "The Witch." If you've seen that movie or its follow-up, "The Lighthouse," the director's flair for period filmmaking will come as no surprise. Here he brings an ancient civilization to life with obsessive historical research and a staggering attention to detail. The filmmaking is as muscular as Skarsgard's frequently blood-caked torso. The combat scenes are intensely visceral, but they also play like ancient rituals, full of intricate choreography and filmed in long, unbroken takes by the cinematographer Jarin Blaschke.
But the movie, for all its concern for accuracy, is also wildly imaginative. Eggers fully embraces the mysticism of Old Norse legends and makes no effort to distinguish between fantasy and reality. There are witches and Valkyries and undead warriors, plus an oracle with a wacky headdress played by none other than Iceland's biggest superstar, Bjork. And if that isn't proof enough of Eggers' wry sense of humor, he's assembled a supporting cast of actors who aren't afraid to go enjoyably over the top and whose accents only sometimes land within spitting distance of Scandinavia.
That's not a knock. Eggers' movies, for all their craft and art film cred, have always had an irreverent streak. He's a great builder of worlds, but he also likes to dismantle those worlds from within. I loved his attack on Puritan repression in "The Witch" and his critique of blustery male ego in "The Lighthouse." In "The Northman," he both fulfills and questions the conventions of the revenge drama. Amleth may look like a righteous avenger on par with the warriors of "Conan The Barbarian," "Braveheart" and "Gladiator," but he also turns out to be a more misguided, more deluded hero than he appears. He's just one link in an endless chain of violence, though it's satisfying all the same to watch him lay claim to his destiny.
GROSS: Justin Chang is film critic for the LA Times. He reviewed "The Northman."
Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, our guest will be CNN anchor Zain Asher. Her new memoir is about her mother, a Nigerian immigrant who survived poverty, famine and civil war before coming to England to raise four children in a crime-ridden London neighborhood. She was tough at times, but the children did well - Asher's brother is actor Chiwetel Ejiofor. I hope you'll join us.
Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Therese Madden, Ann Marie Baldonado, Thea Chaloner, Seth Kelley and Joel Wolfram. I'm Terry Gross.
(SOUNDBITE OF ROBIN CAROLAN AND SEBASTIAN GAINSBOROUGH'S "THE LAND OF THE RUS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-25/the-northman-is-a-brutal-revenge-story-marked-by-violence-vengeance-and-vastness | 2022-05-12T15:17:37Z |
MINNEAPOLIS, May 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- SynerFuse™, Inc., a Minneapolis-based medical device company, is pleased to announce the addition of Steven M. Falowski, M.D., F.A.A.N.S., as a strategic advisor. Falowski brings clinical, advisory, and board experience to the SynerFuse team.
"We continue to attract great talent because our quest to provide a non-opioid solution to post-surgery lower back pain holds such extraordinary promise, and people want to be a part of it," said Zenanko. "Steven Falowski joins an august team of experts who are bringing diverse knowledge and talents to SynerFuse that will help us provide relief to people afflicted with chronic pain."
Dr. Falowski is director of functional neurosurgery at Argires-Marotti Neurosurgical Associates of Lancaster in Pennsylvania. He earned his M.D. degree at UMDNJ Medical School and did his neurosurgical residency training at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia with a focus on spinal cord stimulation and pain management, complex spinal procedures, and treatment for movement disorders such as deep brain stimulation. He did a graduate functional neurosurgical fellowship at Rush University in Chicago. He is on the International Neuromodulation Society Board of Directors. He is also a senior advisor, ex-officio board of directors for the North American Neuromodulation Society; president-elect of the AANS/CNS Executive Pain Committee; executive officer of the American Society of Pain and Neuroscience; and senior advisor, board of directors, Pacific Spine and Pain Society.
"As a neurosurgeon who also specializes in the management of chronic pain, I have a unique perspective on understanding the link between chronic back pain and spine surgery," said Falowski. "SynerFuse is developing a great strategy to bridge this gap and treat this in-need patient population."
The entire SynerFuse team can be seen at https://www.synerfuse.com/team.
About Chronic Lower Back Pain (cLBP)
cLBP is defined as lower back pain that continues for 12 weeks or longer, even after an initial injury or underlying cause of acute lower back pain has been treated. With 500,000 procedures performed annually, spinal fusion remains a common treatment for spinal instability, albeit with a high incidence of residual neuropathic pain. The continuum of increasingly ineffective opioid treatments, additional interventions, and adjacent level spinal fusions leaves up to 40% of patients with Failed Back Surgery Syndrome (FBSS), a condition resulting in significant, lingering neuropathic pain, costing the U.S. healthcare system $20B per year and significantly affecting the quality of life of patients.
About SynerFuse
SynerFuse is a Delaware corporation based in Minnesota—the heart of Medical Alley and the cradle of neuromodulation and medical device innovation. SynerFuse believes that individuals with cLBP/FBSS and their providers deserve a better option than spinal fusion alone. Even when spinal fusion is successful, it can often result in residual chronic neuropathic pain and use of addictive opioids. The company is working to create a new future of non-narcotic pain management for chronic low back pain with a patented therapy that integrates spinal fusion hardware and an active neuromodulation system. For more information on the company, please visit www.synerfuse.com.
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SOURCE SynerFuse | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/12/synerfuse-announces-new-strategic-advisor-steven-falowski-md/ | 2022-05-12T15:17:41Z |
The U.S. Supreme Court jumps back into the culture wars Monday in a case that involves a football coach's asserted right to kneel and pray on the 50-yard line at the conclusion of a public school football game.
Joseph Kennedy, a coach for the Bremerton, Wash., High School varsity and JV football teams began praying with his players before and after games in 2008. At the end of a game, he would take a knee and say a prayer with his players at midfield.
By the 2015 season, Kennedy was often joined at the 50-yard line as well by players from the opposing team. Indeed, it was an approving comment by an opposing coach that finally alerted school district officials to the practice.
The school orders Kennedy to stop
That prompted the athletic director, and later the superintendent, to order the coaching staff to stop praying with students. Kennedy stopped his locker room prayers completely, and for a least one game left the home field, returning later when the crowds had gone, to pray by himself on the 50-yard line.
But the Marine veteran didn't like doing it that way.
"I fought and defended the Constitution, and the thought of leaving the field of battle where the guys just played and having to go and hide my faith because it was uncomfortable to somebody — that's just not America," he said in an interview with NPR.
So Kennedy returned to his praying practice right after the game, mainly at away games, and with little fanfare. By the time of the big homecoming game, Kennedy had retained lawyers from the First Liberty Institute. In a letter to school officials, they said that the coach had a constitutional right to pray on the 50-yard line at the end of the game, and that students should be free to voluntarily join in.
In the leadup to the game, Kennedy embraced his newfound celebrity, making repeated media appearances. In a subsequent deposition, he described this media activity as "spreading the word about what was going on in Bremerton."
Tension builds ahead of homecoming
But as events unfolded, "it was a zoo," said John Polm, Bremerton High's principal, describing the homecoming game during his deposition. Attendance doubled, five TV stations showed up, and a group of Satanists unsuccessfully attempted to take the field to perform their own competing ritual.
Nathan Gillam, who served as head coach, broke down in his deposition when describing the harassment he experienced before and at the game and the chaos that ensued after. "I was done coaching at that point because I feared for my life," he said. Despite his 11 years building the program, he decided "this is not worth it; I have two children."
After the final whistle blew, a largely pro-prayer crowd mobbed the field, overcoming the extra security presence and knocking over some band members and cheerleaders. Surrounded by TV cameras and some players, Kennedy knelt to pray on the field while a state representative placed his hand on Kennedy's shoulder in support.
After the game, the back and forth between Kennedy's lawyers and the school district continued. The school district took the position that while it wished to accommodate Kennedy's private religious expression, it could not allow his midfield post-game prayers because such a public display at a school event would be perceived as the school's endorsement of religion.
Two weeks later, the superintendent placed Kennedy on paid administrative leave, citing his failure to abide by the district's policy against encouraging or discouraging student religious expression. Kennedy did not apply for a new contract the following year.
Religious discrimination?
No good cause — or bad cause — goes unlitigated, of course. Kennedy sued the school district, contending that it violated his First Amendment right to free speech and the free exercise of religion. He lost in the lower courts, but appealed to the Supreme Court, where the justices hear arguments Monday.
"What's at stake here is really the ability of teachers and coaches to engage in religious exercise while on duty," says former Solicitor General Paul Clement, who is representing Coach Kennedy in the Supreme Court. It is "established beyond doubt at this point that students are allowed to engage in a degree of religious exercise on school grounds," he notes, adding that this case "will clarify the law [as to] whether teachers and coaches have comparable rights to students."
But the school district and its supporters contest this narrative.
"He was not being persecuted for his faith," asserts Paul Peterson, a parent who's son played for Coach Kennedy on the junior varsity team in 2010. "If it had been a quiet moment in prayer, nobody would have ever said a word about it."
Richard Katskee, representing the school board, argues that what Coach Kennedy did wasn't really private prayer at all.
"He was at the center of the field at an event the school district hires coaches to run; he insisted that he be surrounded by students, and he was delivering a prayer that they could hear. To call that personal and private just doesn't make any sense."
Former Pittsburgh Steelers football kicker Frank Lambert, now a Purdue University history professor, highlights the "dilemma" faced by players when a coach leads prayers, even if participation is optional: "If I do not participate, I risk demonstrating that perhaps I'm not a team player," and the player risks losing playing time to a competitor for his position who joined in the coach's prayer, he says. Lambert filed a friend of the court brief in the case, along with a dozen other former athletes, supporting the school district.
But 11 current or former professional football players have filed briefs on the other side, including three Hall of Famers. As one of the briefs puts it, "perversely, by reducing coaches to government employees with no autonomy, the [lower] court's reasoning would needlessly undermine coaches' ability to be effective as mentors and role models."
Those in Bremerton who have spoken out against coach Kennedy's public praying are in the minority, but they contend that is the point. "Where is free expression of the non-Christian student, the Jewish student, the Muslim student, the Sikh student, the student of no religion at all?" asks Student Rabbi Emily Katcher of the Beth Hatikvah congregation in Bremerton. "Of course they have the freedom, but they are in a position of weakness."
Rev. Douglas Avilesbernal, executive minister of the Evergreen Association of American Baptist Churches, worries that a victory for Kennedy will go too far, blurring the lines between religious and civic life, emboldening "a specific type of Christianity," to everyone else's detriment.
But the coach's lawyer, Clement, compares Kennedy's midfield prayers to a teacher wearing a yarmulke or crossing herself in the cafeteria before eating lunch. While some students might see forms of religious expression and feel pressure to join along, "that is something that you need to allow as long as there isn't any coercion," he says.
Kennedy and his supporters say this case is about the school district attempting to stamp out religious expression by its employees. They point to a letter written by the Bremerton's superintendent, instructing Kennedy that he may not "engage in demonstrative religious activity" that is "readily observable" to students and the public. "That seems to us to send a message of hostility to religion," says lawyer Clement, "like this is something almost shameful that you have to go do in a private booth."
The school district sees things very differently. "The problem here was this was never personal or private or solitary or any of those other adjectives that Mr. Kennedy's lawyers describe," says lawyer Katskee. "He chose to put himself in the center of the field at the end of the game to make a spectacle."
Opening the door to prayer in public schools?
Coach Kennedy's case comes to the Supreme Court in the midst of a sea change in the law relating to the relationship between government and religion. In 1962, the Supreme Court outlawed officially sponsored prayer in public school, emphasizing the First Amendment's ban on any state establishment of religion. But more recently, the court has moved away from concerns about establishing or endorsing religion, emphasizing instead the First Amendment's guarantee to the free exercise of religion.
In 1971, for instance, the Supreme Court ruled 8-to-1 that states may not pay for teachers' salaries or instructional material at private religious schools without violating the Establishment Clause. By contrast, in 2018, the court sought to equalize funding for religious and non-religious private schools. Without overturning the 1971 case, the court, by a 5-to-4 vote, held that a state must provide scholarships to students at private religious schools if it does so for private non-religious schools. And this term the court heard a follow-up case that may further expand state funding for K through 12 religious education.
So, is Coach Kennedy's case a camel's nose in the tent that could lead eventually to overturning the 60-year-old decision banning official prayer in public schools? Katskee, the school board's lawyer, thinks it could be. But Clement disagrees.
"Those cases may come down the pike," he acknowledges, but this case, he adds, is just about whether employees at a public school can express their religion on school grounds.
A decision in this case is expected by the end of June.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-25/the-supreme-court-ponders-the-right-to-pray-on-the-50-yard-line | 2022-05-12T15:17:43Z |
Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy, Rich Fisher, to Assume Day-to-Day Leadership as President & COO
MAPLE GROVE, Minn., May 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Upsher-Smith Laboratories, LLC (Upsher-Smith) today announced that Taku Nakaoka has been appointed Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Upsher-Smith, effective May 13. Additionally, Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy, Rich Fisher, has been appointed President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) responsible for the day-to-day leadership of Upsher-Smith. Mr. Nakaoka succeeds Rusty Field, who previously served as President and CEO and recently departed the Company to pursue another opportunity.
As Chairman and CEO, Mr. Nakaoka is responsible for the strategic direction, operating performance and growth of Upsher-Smith. Mr. Nakaoka also serves as Corporate Officer and Group Chief Officer of Corporate Strategy of Sawai Group Holdings Co., Ltd., Upsher-Smith's parent company, and Corporate Officer and General Manager of Corporate Strategy at Sawai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. Prior to Sawai, he held several executive-level positions at Sumitomo Corporation.
"I am honored to assume this role as Chairman and CEO and look forward to working alongside the executive team to drive the strategic direction of the company, expand global partnerships and enhance programs critical to future growth," said Taku Nakaoka, Chairman and CEO of Upsher-Smith. "Rusty's strong and determined leadership over the past eight years was integral to building a strong foundation for Upsher-Smith and Rich Fisher's previous role as Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy makes him well-positioned to successfully lead the company as President and COO."
About Upsher-Smith
Upsher-Smith Laboratories, LLC is a trusted U.S. pharmaceutical company that strives to improve the health and lives of patients through an unwavering commitment to high-quality products and sustainable growth. The company brings brands and generics to a wide array of customers, always backed by its attentive level of service, strong industry relationships, and dedication to uninterrupted supply. For more information, visit www.upsher-smith.com.
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SOURCE Upsher-Smith Laboratories, LLC | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/12/taku-nakaoka-named-ceo-upsher-smith-laboratories/ | 2022-05-12T15:17:48Z |
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
A New York judge has found former President Donald Trump in contempt of court for not complying with a subpoena for documents. The judge has ordered Trump to pay $10,000 a day every day until he turns over the records to New York's attorney general.
NPR's Ilya Marritz was in the courtroom today. Hey there, Ilya.
ILYA MARRITZ, BYLINE: Hi, Mary Louise.
KELLY: All right. So walk us through what happened. How did a judge come to find the former president in contempt?
MARRITZ: Well, the judge in the case is Arthur Engoron. And this morning he heard oral arguments both from Trump's lawyers and from lawyers for the state attorney general, Letitia James. James' team was arguing that Trump had failed to hand over documents demanded in a subpoena all the way back in December. And the judge was persuaded not only had they not handed over documents, Trump's legal team failed to show that they had even conducted a rigorous search.
The judge said he hoped a $10,000 a day penalty will, quote, "coerce compliance." And he closed by addressing the former president directly. He said, Mr. Trump, I know you take your business seriously. And I take mine seriously, he said.
KELLY: Do we know what these documents are? Are they pivotal here?
MARRITZ: Not precisely. So. A.G. James is doing a civil investigation of Trump business practices. Did he, in fact, inflate and deflate his assets and income and statements made to banks and other financial parties? Before she decides whether to file a suit, she needs to establish Trump's role himself - what he knew, what people were telling him. And that's why she specifically has subpoenaed documents in his personal possession. That's what this fight is over - not company documents but his documents. But we just don't know exactly what that might be.
KELLY: Yeah. All right. So what is Trump's lawyer saying?
MARRITZ: Her name is Alina Habba. And she says they did do a search, and it was thorough. And she said, look; my client famously does not email. He doesn't even have a personal computer. So it may seem strange, but it really isn't that he just doesn't have documents to share beyond 10 items that had already been handed over pursuant to an earlier subpoena.
KELLY: And I'm trying to think how unusual this is. I'm thinking of the many times Donald Trump has sued someone or been sued by someone. I can't think of a time when he was held in contempt before. Is that right?
MARRITZ: Yeah, me neither - certainly nothing recent. And it is remarkable. I spoke with Rebecca Roiphe, who's a professor at New York Law School who used to be a prosecutor here in New York. She said it's really rare that a document request gets escalated into a contempt filing. Usually both sides see an incentive to come to an agreement. But, of course, Donald Trump is no ordinary litigant.
REBECCA ROIPHE: His agenda in using the courts is never only legal. I mean, he has legal battles, and obviously he'd like to win those. But it's also just yet another front on which he fights his political and public relations war. So he's doing more than just trying to, you know, get the best outcome that he could possibly get.
KELLY: Yeah - both sides presumably going for the best outcome they can possibly get. What is the next move here?
MARRITZ: So the judge's written order will come out tomorrow, and that'll spell everything out a little more precisely. I did chat with Alina Habba, Trump's lawyer, in the hallway afterwards. She says if that order is crafted as she expects, she will have an opportunity to file an affidavit, basically saying, yes, we did an exhaustive search for documents. We looked here, here and here. We didn't find any that were responsive. And she's hopeful that she can resolve that contempt filing quickly that way. However, she has also said that she will appeal.
KELLY: NPR's Ilya Marritz, thank you.
MARRITZ: You're very welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-25/trump-is-being-held-in-contempt-of-court-for-failing-to-comply-with-subpoena | 2022-05-12T15:17:49Z |
NEW YORK, May 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- InvestorsObserver issues critical PriceWatch Alerts for SQSP, CGEM, ML, SMRT, and VAXX.
To see how InvestorsObserver's proprietary scoring system rates these stocks, view the InvestorsObserver's PriceWatch Alert by selecting the corresponding link.
- SQSP: https://www.investorsobserver.com/lp/pr-stocks-lp-2/?symbol=SQSP&prnumber=051220222
- CGEM: https://www.investorsobserver.com/lp/pr-stocks-lp-2/?symbol=CGEM&prnumber=051220222
- ML: https://www.investorsobserver.com/lp/pr-stocks-lp-2/?symbol=ML&prnumber=051220222
- SMRT: https://www.investorsobserver.com/lp/pr-stocks-lp-2/?symbol=SMRT&prnumber=051220222
- VAXX: https://www.investorsobserver.com/lp/pr-stocks-lp-2/?symbol=VAXX&prnumber=051220222
(Note: You may have to copy this link into your browser then press the [ENTER] key.)
InvestorsObserver's PriceWatch Alerts are based on our proprietary scoring methodology. Each stock is evaluated based on short-term technical, long-term technical and fundamental factors. Each of those scores is then combined into an overall score that determines a stock's overall suitability for investment.
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Updated April 25, 2022 at 7:07 PM ET
Twitter has struck a deal with Elon Musk, handing the world's richest man control of a social network that has far-reaching influence on politics and society.
Musk will pay about $44 billion, or $54.20 a share, to take the social media company private, according to an announcement from Twitter.
The agreement comes less than two weeks after Musk first offered to buy Twitter, sending the company's board and management into crisis mode as they scrambled to figure out whether Musk was serious and whether his offer fairly valued the company.
Musk has vowed to "unlock" Twitter's potential by loosening what he sees as unfair restrictions on free speech.
"Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated," he said in Monday's announcement.
The maverick entrepreneur is a prolific user and outspoken critic of Twitter, where he has more than 83 million followers and regularly posts memes, boosts his companies Tesla and SpaceX, and squabbles with critics.
Musk began accumulating Twitter shares in January. On April 4, he revealed that he'd accumulated a 9% stake, making him the company's biggest individual shareholder. He began calling for changes to the platform, including loosening its rules over what users are allowed to post, banning bots that post spam, and making its algorithm public.
Twitter employees have lots of questions about the deal
If the deal goes through as expected, Musk will have the power to reshape the company and platform as he pleases. But many questions remain unanswered, including how much of his own time Musk, who's already CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, will spend on Twitter as well as who will lead the social media company.
At a company-wide meeting on Monday afternoon, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal told employees much about the future is up to Musk, according to a person who attended. Agrawal will remain CEO until the deal closes, but it's unclear what will happen after that point. Twitter is not currently planning layoffs, the CEO said. The company plans to bring in Musk to answer employees' many questions about what the deal means for them.
Asked whether Musk might reinstate the account of former President Donald Trump, who was banned after the Jan. 6th Capitol riot, Agrawal said that was a question for Musk. "Once the deal closes we don't know which direction the platform will go," the CEO said.
Musk tweeted on Monday, before the deal was unveiled, "I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means."
But some observers say if Musk relaxes content rules, Twitter could be overrun by misinformation and toxic posts.
"A platform that moderated only illegal speech would quickly be overcome by spam and garbage," said Jameel Jaffer with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. "That kind of platform wouldn't work for anyone, whatever their political views."
Other experts, including Paul Barrett at NYU's Stern School for Business and Human Rights, have similar concerns.
"Without vigorous content moderation, the platform Musk seeks to own would be swamped by spam, porn, anti-vaccination misinformation, QAnon conspiracies, and fraudulent campaigns to undermine the midterms and 2024 presidential election," Barrett said.
'Poison pill' afforded Twitter more time to consider offer
After accepting and then rejecting an invitation to join Twitter's board, Musk dropped a new bombshell on April 14th with his unsolicited $54.20-a-share offer to buy the whole company and take it private.
But lack of details about how Musk would finance the deal left many doubting he was serious. Twitter's board quickly adopted a so-called "poison pill," which served essentially as a speed bump, a way to slow down Musk from acquiring more shares in the public market, as company leadership weighed the offer.
"The board got some extra time with the poison pill but ultimately had to get to the negotiation table with Musk to get this deal done as the clock struck midnight on Twitter's history as a public company," said Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities.
Last week, Musk announced he had lined up the money to take Twitter private. In a regulatory filing, he said Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and several other banks promised to lend $25.5 billion, backed in part by some of Musk's Tesla shares, and that he would provide up to $21 billion in cash.
Those details may have shifted the board's view. While Twitter's stock hit highs above $70 a share last year, the company's shares had fallen below $40 in recent months, amid lingering questions over its ability to grow.
"The Twitter board conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon's proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and financing. The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter's stockholders," said Bret Taylor, Twitter's chairman, in a statement.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-25/twitter-reaches-deal-to-sell-to-elon-musk-for-about-44-billion | 2022-05-12T15:17:55Z |
ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
After visiting Kyiv, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the U.S. wants to see the Russian military weakened on the battlefield. Meanwhile, Russian missiles struck railway infrastructure in central and western Ukraine this morning. For more, we turn to NPR's Frank Langfitt, who is in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. Hey, Frank.
FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: Hey, Rob.
SCHMITZ: How significant are Austin's comments from today?
LANGFITT: You know, Rob, he's kind of confirming what's been evident for many, many weeks. The U.S. and NATO allies, of course, have been pouring billions of dollars in weapons into Ukraine to help the Ukrainians and also to damage the Russian military, to limit its future capabilities. Austin was very direct today. He said, we want to see Russia weakened to the degree it cannot do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine. And, for instance, as the battle conditions, of course, have changed here, the U.S. and other NATO allies have begun to send heavier weapons, such as howitzers. Over the weekend, of course, the Russians again warned the U.S. to stop arming the Ukrainians.
SCHMITZ: And what more do we know about the airstrikes today?
LANGFITT: Well, there was a strike on some rail infrastructure in Vinnytsia. It's in central Ukraine, of course. It killed at least five people, injured 18, and another missile struck a rail power substation about 40 miles from here.
SCHMITZ: And, Frank, you were in Lviv at the beginning of the war. How much has it changed?
LANGFITT: You know, Rob, it feels really different than when I was last back here, and it kind of reflects how the war has gone. For one thing, the U.S. diplomats are actually going to be taking day trips to Lviv from Poland, eventually reopening the embassy in Kyiv. But to give you a sense of what it's like right now, this is how I spent yesterday.
I'm in front of the opera house in the heart of Lviv, and it's a beautiful building - columns and these three giant, bronze angels on top. And when I was here in early March, the beginning of the war, there was almost nobody in this square. And all the restaurants on the side, they were empty, closed. It was 48 hours to get across the border into Poland. Today it's Orthodox Easter Sunday. There are thousands of people out. There are some people here on an electric scooter, a guitarist standing with a Ukrainian flag.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Singing) We will, we will rock you.
(APPLAUSE)
LANGFITT: And here there are families just jumping inside horse-drawn carriages for a little ride around the cobblestone streets here.
(SOUNDBITE OF HORSE HOOVES CLOPPING)
LANGFITT: For the most part, you can't really tell that Lviv is in a country at war, except right here around city hall. There are these fountains with statues of Neptune and Adonis, and now they've been covered with...
(SOUNDBITE OF KNOCKING)
LANGFITT: ...Corrugated aluminum. But in the last two months, the city's proved resilient and adaptable. Hlib Vyshlinsky came here from Kyiv right after the start of the invasion. He runs the Centre for Economic Strategy, a think tank. Hlib says, back then, Lviv was completely different.
HLIB VYSHLINSKY: It was a problem to find a place to have a lunch, to drink coffee because everything was closed. Like, everybody was so scared and just sort of frozen, I could say.
LANGFITT: After Russian troops failed to surround the capital - it's about several hundred miles to the east - the mayor here, he moved to revive the economy and create a kind of new normal. Hlib says the mayor's message was clear.
VYSHLINSKY: If you have a job, if you have a demand for a product or service you're supplying, please go back to work. Like, we do not need everybody volunteering forever.
LANGFITT: And it was basic economics with this twist.
VYSHLINSKY: Serve your customers, pay taxes and Ukrainian economy to support the army in the war time.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL GROUP: (Singing in non-English language).
LANGFITT: On Sunday, people here found solace and stability in ritual. The city's massive Church of the Holy Eucharist held Easter services. Easter celebrates the resurrection. The atmosphere was solemn and the war ever-present. The priest crafted special prayers for this moment.
UNIDENTIFIED PRIEST: (Through interpreter) The one who brings death is doomed to defeat.
LANGFITT: Some congregants dressed up, including Daria Kokhan, who works in a lab and wore a white scarf and carefully coiffed blond hair. When I asked her about the war, though, her facade cracked.
DARIA KOKHAN: (Through interpreter) The service was special to me because we want peace more than anything so innocent people do not die, innocent people, innocent kids. And I want this to be over as soon as possible.
LANGFITT: The war especially resonates with Daria. Her grandmother fought in the resistance against the Nazis and was sent to a concentration camp. Irina Gromozda, a filmmaker, stood outside the church with her dachshund. She says people here have adapted to the daily air raid sirens. Going into the shelters is now pretty routine. In fact, to be honest, many ignore the warnings these days and continue to roam the streets, playing the odds. Just a week ago, a missile strike killed seven people here.
IRINA GROSMOLDA: (Non-English language spoken).
LANGFITT: So Rob, Irina says here, "I agree with President Zelenskyy. Ukraine will have to become a second Israel and learn how to deal with the constant risk of attack." Gromozda says anyone who wants to stay here will just have to get used to it.
SCHMITZ: NPR's Frank Langfitt, thanks so much.
LANGFITT: Good to talk, Rob. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-25/u-s-defense-secretary-wants-to-see-russia-weakened-as-ukraines-railways-are-hit | 2022-05-12T15:18:01Z |
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MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
In Florida, voting rights groups are challenging new congressional maps, maps drawn to favor Republicans and eliminate two districts designed to help elect Black lawmakers. The maps were submitted by Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, and approved last week by Florida's legislature. Democrats and other critics say they violate provisions in the state constitution. NPR's Greg Allen is following all this. Hey there, Greg.
GREG ALLEN, BYLINE: Hi, Mary Louise.
KELLY: OK, so voting rights groups have gone to court. Talk us through the how. How do they say these maps violate the constitution?
ALLEN: Well, you know, about 10 years ago, Florida voters adopted amendments to the Constitution that now govern the redistricting process here. One of the provisions that they were - that were adopted say that lawmakers can't draw maps that favor any incumbents or political parties. And under the new map, Republicans are likely to win 20 of the state's now 28 congressional districts. That leaves Democrats with a good chance of winning just eight of those districts. And here's the rub. Florida is a state that's almost evenly divided between Republican and Democratic voters. So you've got that 20-8 disparity. In court, Republicans will have to answer questions about why the maps give their party so many more seats, almost double the number of the Democrats get.
Another part of Florida's constitution says that lawmakers can't adopt maps that diminish the voting strength of minorities. And this map from the governor eliminates two voting districts established under court order to protect the ability of voters to elect Black candidates. And that sparked an outcry from - by voting rights groups and Democrats. Here's state Senator Shevrin Jones.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SHEVRIN JONES: And to Governor DeSantis, I'm not going to even call what you're doing a culture war anymore. I'm going to call it just what it is. It's a racist tactic.
ALLEN: We've heard that from many other lawmakers and activists as well. DeSantis is a possible 2024 Republican presidential candidate, and Democrats say this is part of his effort to raise his profile in the party.
KELLY: Well, and I'm trying to figure out, why is Governor DeSantis submitting this map anyway? Isn't that usually the state legislature's job to draw and adopt new congressional maps?
ALLEN: Right, exactly. Well, Republicans did draw up districts - district maps that, at first, made relatively modest changes from the ones that were adopted several years ago that were approved by the courts. But Governor DeSantis told them he was going to veto them, and he did. He vetoed those maps. He then called lawmakers back for a special session, where they took up his maps and speedily approved them with no changes, really. Republican lawmakers felt like they had little choice but to give in to the governor's strong-arm tactics. Here's Republican state Senator Kelli Stargel, who was on the floor speaking about this last week.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KELLI STARGEL: These are constitutional maps. I think they're very thoughtful. I don't think any of us who vote for them today are racist. We're following the direct will of the governor.
ALLEN: But Republican lawmakers know that this is setting the table for a long, expensive series of lawsuits and put aside $1 million to start the paying for this litigation.
KELLY: And how are they responding just when asked about these charges that these maps, according to Democrats and others, violate federal and state protections for minority voters?
ALLEN: Well, DeSantis claims that times have changed, that discrimination against Black people at the polls is no longer the problem that it once was. He gets some support for his position from federal court rulings in recent years that have weakened the Federal Voting Rights Act. But it's a controversial stance, of course. I asked Cecile Scoon about that. She's a Black civil rights attorney and the head of Florida's League of Women Voters. That's one of the groups that's challenging the new maps. She cited a recent decision by federal Judge Mark Walker. He struck down new voting restrictions and found that they had been part of a pattern here in Florida.
CECILE SCOON: Judge Walker literally found that the Republican Party, for the last 20 years, has intentionally discriminated against African American voters.
ALLEN: The judge ordered that, because of this past pattern, Florida would have to get court approval for any new voting laws for the next 10 years here in Florida. And that order has been appealed.
KELLY: It's been appealed. All right. Well, so I was going to ask, what's next? We just have about 30 seconds. But could a court overturn all this, order new maps?
ALLEN: Well, that's what the voting rights groups are hoping for with this lawsuit. But the clock's ticking. We have a mid-June filing deadline for Congress here in Florida. The lawsuit was filed in state court. It will eventually be heard by the state Supreme Court. It could then be appealed to the federal courts. It could make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. And in another case recently, the Supreme Court said that a mapping challenge in Alabama would be used in this election because drawing new ones would cause, quote, "chaos and confusion."
KELLY: That is NPR's Greg Allen in Miami. Thank you, Greg.
ALLEN: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-25/voting-groups-sue-florida-saying-congressional-map-violates-state-constitution | 2022-05-12T15:18:08Z |
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MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
When the White House announced how it would help Americans move into the next phase of the pandemic, the antiviral pill Paxlovid was a big part of the plan. Now, nearly two months later, prescriptions are lagging. Many Americans don't even realize it's an option. NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith reports.
(SOUNDBITE OF DIAL TONE)
CHAS ROADES: Chas Roades.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Roades is CEO of Gist Healthcare. I called him not because of his health care expertise but because last week he came down with COVID.
ROADES: I had fever and body aches and a cough and congestion. And it was - it sort of hit me like a Mack truck.
KEITH: He tested positive on a home test.
ROADES: And, you know, within 10 minutes was on the phone to my doc, you know, because I know about the Paxlovid. I want to get the drug, right?
KEITH: Paxlovid is a treatment, pills that have to be started within the first five days of COVID infection. And it has proven incredibly effective at keeping people out of the hospital. But when Roades asked about it, he was told it was scarce and he didn't qualify, neither of which are true. So he pushed and ultimately got the prescription. But it wasn't easy.
ROADES: If I was just somebody who, you know, didn't know anything about health care or didn't have access to information or, you know, wasn't a self-advocate, I probably would not have ended up on the drug.
KEITH: Paxlovid is a central part of President Biden's strategy for helping Americans live with COVID. The U.S. government has purchased 20 million doses of Paxlovid from Pfizer and worked with the company to accelerate delivery of the pills.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Now, thanks to the foundation we've laid, America has the tools to protect people, all people.
KEITH: But uptake has been underwhelming, and pills are piling up on the shelves. Dr. Jerome Adams, who was U.S. surgeon general during the Trump administration, is raising alarms because he doesn't think the people who need it most know about Paxlovid and other treatments or how to get them - people of color, people living in rural areas, people who may not be vaccinated.
JEROME ADAMS: The people who know about it are the people who know how to advocate for themselves. And so we're seeing inequities actually expand.
KEITH: It's one thing to say the tools are available, Adams argues. It's another to actually get those tools into people's hands.
ADAMS: One thing we need to do is have a massive patient education campaign.
KEITH: And the whole process just needs to be easier, says Dr. Zeke Emanuel at the University of Pennsylvania.
ZEKE EMANUEL: It's a bit of a rigmarole.
KEITH: He says many doctors don't feel comfortable prescribing it, and it can be hard to find a pharmacy that carries it. The White House is aware of the issues. A senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a planned announcement tells NPR the White House will outline new actions this week, including direct outreach to physicians and patients and a plan to get the pills into more pharmacies. Speaking on Morning Edition today, the new White House COVID coordinator, Dr. Ashish Jha, acknowledged there are problems.
ASHISH JHA: We've got to turn those pills into, you know, prescriptions and into things that patients can get so they can get better.
ANDY SLAVITT: Having an amazing treatment sit on the shelves is not what anybody wants.
KEITH: Andy Slavitt was a senior White House COVID adviser at the start of the Biden administration.
SLAVITT: Our attention span is only so long, and so you have to repeat these messages over and over and over and over again. And they need to come not just from national sources like the White House, but they need to come from a lot of local sources, like your own physician, like your hospital, like your church.
KEITH: That's something the White House put huge effort into a year ago in the drive to get people vaccinated. But thus far, the same massive campaign hasn't been developed around getting the word out about life-saving treatments.
Tamara Keith, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-25/what-the-white-house-needs-to-do-on-paxlovid | 2022-05-12T15:18:14Z |
Global RV Leader Reveals Key Insights About Consumer Expectations for Motorized Electric RVs
ELKHART, Ind., May 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- THOR Industries, Inc. (NYSE: THO) announced the release of the company's North American Motorized Electric RV Study, which explores consumer expectations, key purchase motivators and electric infrastructure development needs. The global RV industry leader is utilizing the data to inform its high-voltage electric platform innovation, which will enable the THOR family of companies to industrialize motorized electric RVs to exceed consumer expectations.
Comprehensively confirming the need for long range solutions such as THOR's high-voltage solution, THOR's study found that 45% of consumers expect to be able to drive 5-6 hours on a single charge. This data aligns with results from THOR's 2021 North American Path to Purchase Study in which 70% of new RV purchasers reported traveling an average of 5 or more hours from their home for RV trips. THOR's newest survey reflects that only 3% of consumers expect to charge after 2 hours or less of driving, which is the range currently offered by low-voltage motorized electric RVs.
The survey included question to assess consumers' interest level, intended usage, charging and service expectations, as well as identify factors challenging their purchase of motorized electric RVs. The featured information was collected from current and potential electric vehicle owners who are interested in purchasing a motorized electric RV, who have had some level of RV experience within the last 10 years.
Several key findings from the survey include:
Usage:
- 47% expect to use a motorized electric RV at least "once a week or more often" or "once every 2 to 3 weeks"
Charging Expectations:
- 97% expect to drive 3 hours or longer before charging
- 70% report that the inclusion of an onboard fuel cell for recharging the vehicle's battery positively impacts their purchase interest level, regardless of a small carbon footprint
Charging Infrastructure:
- 44% expect a fact-charging (1-hour) station at each individual campground spot
- 34% report charging time is expected to be 45-59 minutes
- 34% report charging cost from empty to full is expected to be $41-$60
"As the global leader in the RV industry, it's important that we share some of the critical data and insights used to inform innovation efforts across the THOR family of companies, which allow us to anticipate and exceed consumer expectations," shared THOR President and CEO Bob Martin. "Our motorized electric RV study confirms that the high-voltage motorized platform we've developed meets the expectations of consumers, however charging infrastructure development is necessary to increase adoption. When it comes to electrification, THOR is positioned to redefine the RV experience."
For more motorized electric RV findings and to view the North American Motorized Electric RV Study, please download it here. To learn more about THOR's electric RV innovation, visit www.thorindustries.com/innovation.
About THOR Industries, Inc.
THOR Industries is the sole owner of operating companies which, combined, represent the world's largest manufacturer of recreational vehicles. For more information on the company and its products, please go to www.thorindustries.com.
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SOURCE THOR Industries | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/12/thor-publishes-north-american-motorized-electric-rv-study-results/ | 2022-05-12T15:18:15Z |
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Shanghai has been under COVID lockdown for weeks. And residents in the Chinese capital, Beijing, fear they could be next. Cases are spreading, and the city's most populous district has begun three rounds of testing for all 3.6 million residents. NPR's Emily Feng reports.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Chinese).
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: Hundreds of masked people in line; a loudspeaker blaring, show your ID; stand a meter apart. It's a COVID testing line outside my Beijing apartment. Familiar scenes like this are repeating themselves across Chaoyang District, Beijing's largest, because all residents need to get three tests by the end of this week. That directive has been widely interpreted as the prelude to a citywide lockdown ala Shanghai. There, authorities first mandated mass testing, then shut residents in their apartments for going on four weeks, hence the lockdown fears in Beijing.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking Chinese).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Speaking Chinese).
FENG: Those fears prompted long lines throughout the day outside supermarkets. People are hoarding food in case they're stuck at home and dependent on government deliveries for sustenance. Miss Ying was one of the shoppers hauling bags of food back home. She didn't want to give her full name due to political sensitivities around talking about China's COVID policy.
YING: (Speaking Chinese).
FENG: She says she bought oil and flour because she wants to be able to make her own noodles in quarantine. She also bought just one week's worth of root vegetables. It's important not to panic, she says. But Beijing is preparing for extreme contingencies. To the north of the city is a state isolation ward with 1,000 beds for any positive cases or close contacts, which the government adapted from an old SARS treatment facility. And Beijing is now building more.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FENG: A lone worker plays his squeaky erhu, a stringed instrument, outside Beijing's Chaoyang sports stadium. Posters pasted outside the locked door say it will soon be turned into a second isolation ward.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: (Speaking Chinese).
FENG: The stadium is a backup, says an employee nearby, in case Beijing's existing isolation wards overflow. A Beijing lockdown would be disastrous economically and politically, but with more infectious variants in the mix and a mandate to bring daily case counts to zero, a lockdown is the only option left right now in Beijing's toolkit. Emily Feng, NPR News, Beijing.
(SOUNDBITE OF TYCHO'S "DAYDREAM") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-25/with-lockdown-fears-looming-beijing-is-testing-millions-for-covid | 2022-05-12T15:18:20Z |
THE HIGHLY COVETED ORIGINAL RECORDING FROM THE ICONIC ROXY CONCERT ON MAY 3, 1991 IN LOS ANGELES, WILL BE AVAILABLE FIRST TIME DIGITALLY AND AS DOUBLE LP/CD
FEATURING THE FAN FAVORITE KILLER WHALE TANK VERSION OF "NEW ORLEANS IS SINKING"
RELEASE LIVE AT THE ROXY RECORDING OF "SHE DIDN'T KNOW" AS FIRST TRACK OFF THE ALBUM TODAY
"Live at the Roxy Los Angeles, May 3, 1991"…offers plenty of proof of Downie's willingness to go off on entertaining and improvisational tangents, often in the middle of songs." – Toronto Star
TORONTO, May 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, The Tragically Hip announced they will be releasing Live At The Roxy worldwide as a standalone live album on June 24 through Universal Music Canada. Prior to its ninclusion on the Road Apples 30th Anniversary Deluxe package last year, the 15-song concert had not been publicly available and was a sought-after show for the bootleggers and diehard fans. Now this legendary recording is available digitally for the first time and as a standalone 2 LP vinyl album and single CD. Pre-order and pre-save the album HERE. Today's announcement is celebrated with the release of the live version of "She Didn't Know," offering a glimpse into the vibrant improvisation and intimate commentary of the entire album. The track is available to stream/buy here.
Originally recorded on May 3, 1991, at the iconic Los Angeles venue for a Westwood One radio show, only 40 minutes of the set was broadcasted on air at the time, making the full recording that much more in demand. This renowned concert saw the band at peak performance and is considered one of the best live shows from any rock band of the era. Reminiscing on the night and what made this show particularly special for the band, bassist Gord Sinclair recalls:
"I remember the Roxy show like it was yesterday. We had spent a year on the road before recording Road Apples and got right back in the saddle when we finished. The new tunes worked great live and by the time we got to LA we were firing on all pistons."
Live At The Roxy is the second standalone live record for the band and it's been 25 years since their first, Live Between Us, released in 1997. With all tracks completely remastered in 2021 by Ted Jensen at Sterling Sound in Nashville, the album features the fan favorite "Killer Whale Tank" version of "New Orleans Is Sinking." The nine-minute track is characterized by mid-song story from the late frontman Gord Downie about a job cleaning an aquarium and inadvertently causing friction between the two whales held in the tank, fact or fiction, fans listen in wonderment. The captivating adlibbing throughout the entirety of the record creates the experience for the listener and as Sinclair describes:
"a great show is something you just have to experience to understand. The magic stays with you. Listening back 30 years later and I'm transported to that hot, sweaty, and very special night. The band was tight and unstoppable. Great crowd, great venue. Together we took things to another level."
The Tragically Hip fans brought this release to fruition after countless requests for the deep cut versions of some of the band's most celebrated songs. Live At The Roxy offers a timeless experience of this sensational night as never before released. The striking album artwork is sequential to the Road Apples 30th Anniversary Deluxe art sure to be a favorite of any collection.
Live At The Roxy, Los Angeles May 3rd, 1991 Track listing:
Track listing: CD/Digital
- Little Bones
- She Didn't Know
- Twist My Arm
- Highway Girl
- Cordelia
- Trickle Down
- The Luxury
- Three Pistols
- Fight
- I Believe in You (Or I'll Be Leaving You Tonight)
- New Orleans is Sinking
- On The Verge
- Long Time Running
- Blow At High Dough
- All Canadian Surf Club
Track listing Vinyl
Side 1
Little Bones
Shed Didn't Know
Twist My Arm
Highway Girl
Side 2
Cordelia
Trickle Down
The Luxury
Three Pistols
Fight
Side 3
I'll Believe in You (Or I'll Be Leaving You Tonight)
New Orleans is Sinking
On The Verge
Side 4
Long Time Running
Blow At High Dough
All Canadian Surf Club
About The Tragically Hip
Critically acclaimed for more than three decades, The Tragically Hip has been at the heart of the Canadian musical zeitgeist, evoking a strong emotional connection between their music and their fans that remains unrivaled. A five-piece group of friends including Rob Baker (guitar), Gord Downie (vocals, guitar), Johnny Fay (drums), Paul Langlois (guitar) and Gord Sinclair (bass), who grew up in Kingston, Ontario, The Tragically Hip have achieved both mass popularity with more than 10 million albums in Canada and over 1.5 million sold in the U.S, as well as peer recognition through 15 Juno Awards – picking up the distinguished Humanitarian Award in 2021 which recognizes Canadian artists or industry leaders whose humanitarian contributions have positively enhanced the social fabric of Canada and beyond. Their studio catalogue includes their self-titled debut album The Tragically Hip (1987), Up To Here (1989), Road Apples (1991), Fully Completely (1992), Day For Night (1994), Trouble At The Henhouse (1996), Phantom Power (1998), Music @ Work (2000), In Violet Light (2002), In Between Evolution (2004), World Container (2006), We Are The Same (2009), Now For Plan A (2012), Man Machine Poem (2016) and Saskadelphia (2021). A National Celebration was the final show of The Tragically Hip's Man Machine Poem Tour recorded on August 20th, 2016, at the K-Rock Centre in their hometown of Kingston, Ontario, and is their last performance as a five-piece band. Through their career the band became a cultural touchstone in Canada, who despite their accolades and numerous recognitions, will always be proudest of the humanitarian work they have done over the years through numerous charitable organizations and causes.
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RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Good morning. I'm Rachel Martin. TobyKeith just made history. Not the singer, but a Chihuahua named TobyKeith has set a Guinness World Record as the oldest dog alive. He claimed the crown at 21 years and 66 days old. His secret - a daily walk and a slice of turkey. His pet parent, who adopted him as a pup, also credits good genetics and a loving home. She says people can't believe how good TobyKeith looks for his age. Maybe he does have a secret life as a country music singer, and it's kept him young. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/a-chihuahua-has-set-a-guinness-world-record-as-the-oldest-living-dog | 2022-05-12T15:18:26Z |
TORONTO, May 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Tropical Forest Products announced today that its Black Label premium brand of Ipe and other tropical hardwoods will expand throughout California as part of a distribution partnership with Ganahl Lumber. Based in Anaheim, Ganahl will distribute the full line of Black Label products through its 10 California branch locations.
Black Label is sustainably and 100% legally sourced from South America. Trees used to produce Black Label products are carefully selected, considering age, size and productive wellbeing of the forest. The brands' lumber portfolio consists of Ipe, Cumaru, Jatoba, Garapa, Angelim and Tigerwood, with a variety of applications ranging from decking, cladding and ceilings to timber sizes and architectural millwork.
"Black Label truly represents the pinnacle of sustainable hardwood," said Brian Lotz, Technical Director for Tropical Forest Products. "Partnering with brand-focused dealers like Ganahl has been the key to our success."
Deonn DeFord, Product Manager, Ganahl Lumber, said "The level of support we have received for the Black Label brand rates as some of the best in the industry, in my experience." He added with a brand of this magnitude, and the companies that stand behind it, there is plenty to admire, from the amazing level of technical support to the breadth of products.
Black Label lumber products are in stock now at Ganahl Lumber. Other products including branded fasteners will arrive over the next few months.
The brand sets a new level of quality with impeccable strength and impressive performance in every product thanks to Black Label's kiln dried process. To earn the name Black Label, every board and hardware accessory must be Premium Architectural Grade or above.
Black Label dealers can expect eye-catching displays, jacketed samples, and product literature, combined with the brand's and Capital's strong online presence. Learn more about Black Label at https://blacklabelwood.com/.
Learn more about Tropical Forest Products at https://WeAreTropical.com or call 905-672-8000.
About Ganahl Lumber
Ganahl Lumber is a dealer of building materials covering Southern California, with locations such as Buena Park, Costa Mesa, and even Capistrano Beach.
About Tropical Forest Products
Tropical Forest Products, a leading hardwood distributor operating throughout the United States and Canada, strives to meet client's need with quality lumber, on-time delivery and a commitment to client service and the best prices in the market.
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SOURCE Tropical Forest Products | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/12/tropical-forest-products-black-label-teams-up-with-ganahl-lumber-california-distribution/ | 2022-05-12T15:18:30Z |
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
A group of voters and liberal activists in Georgia are using a Civil War-era measure to try to keep Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene off the ballot. That provision, part of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, is designed to block anyone who has, quote, "engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States" - block them from office. It's been a century since the provision has been used, but the activists argue that Congresswoman Greene's comments and actions surrounding the January 6, the Capitol riot, should disqualify her.
Well, joining us for some 14th Amendment nitty-gritty, NPR senior editor and correspondent Ron Elving. Hey, Ron.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Mary Louise.
KELLY: So the 14th Amendment - people may not be as familiar with the full text as they are with some other amendments. It was a huge post-Civil War change to the Constitution. Just remind us what all is in it.
ELVING: There's a great deal in it. It was passed by Congress the year the Civil War ended and ratified by the states. And two years later, 1868, is one of the longest of all the constitutional amendments. But its most important sections conferred full citizenship and attendant rights to the formerly enslaved. That completed the work of the Emancipation Proclamation and, if you will, the war itself.
But it also included other sections meant to punish people who had participated in the war on the side of the Confederacy. Of course, official Washington regarded that as a rebellion or an insurrection. And one of those, Section 3, is what's called the disqualification clause.
KELLY: All right, which is the one that we are here to discuss. What was it meant to do? Who was it meant to exclude?
ELVING: It was meant to get rid of people who wanted to come back to Congress and be part of the federal structure or get back into the military or have executive positions if they had sworn an oath to the Constitution before the Civil War and then cleared out and engaged in the rebellion or offered aid and comfort to those who did. Mostly, they are talking here about people who left office to actually participate on the Southern side, usually as military officers, as many members of Congress did, or officials of the Confederate government. But as the reconstruction period ended, a few years later, Congress passed the Amnesty Act of 1872. The original impetus for all this faded, and since then, it's become something of a relic, as we have not had another insurrection or rebellion on the scale of the Civil War.
KELLY: And we said it has been a century since it's been used. When was the last time?
ELVING: In 1919, it was used to exclude a member of Congress from Milwaukee, Wis. His name was Victor Berger, and he had been elected as a Socialist Party candidate before the war. He was also born in Austria, and he was accused of spying for the enemy during World War I. So because he had previously taken an oath of office, swearing allegiance to the Constitution, the disqualification clause was invoked to exclude him after the war.
Milwaukee kept voting for him, though, and (laughter) after the Supreme Court threw out the espionage charge, the Congress gave in and let him come back and serve. And he served three terms in the 1920s.
KELLY: Well, so how viable is it as a tactic to be used today to keep current members out of Congress or bar potential members?
ELVING: A federal judge in Georgia, as you mentioned, has allowed it as a basis for a lawsuit that would bar Congresswoman Greene from the ballot in that state based on her role in the events of January 6. But it's been a different story for similar lawsuits against members in North Carolina and Arizona. Now, all of these rulings are on appeal, but in the meantime, the committee investigating January 6 has heard testimony and seen emails suggesting that nearly a dozen members of the House may have been involved in one way or another planning resistance to the official proceedings on January 6.
KELLY: Well, and just real quick, it makes me wonder if the activists who want to use it to kick Marjorie Taylor Greene off the ballot might also have their sights on former President Trump?
ELVING: The activists bringing these suits have said they intend to also go after former President Trump, but that may be yet another legal longshot. The language refers to executive officers but does not specifically say the president.
KELLY: NPR's Ron Elving. Thanks for the history lesson.
ELVING: Thank you, Mary Louise. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/a-civil-war-era-measure-could-keep-rep-marjorie-taylor-greene-off-the-ballot | 2022-05-12T15:18:32Z |
CHICAGO, May 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Wilson Sporting Goods Co. today introduces its most premium tennis-inspired sportswear collection to date. The exclusive assortment blends best-selling styles with new technical pieces, made to perform at the highest level on and off the court. This new collection comes almost a year after Wilson made its debut into sportswear, signifying Wilson's commitment to innovation, craftsmanship and sport culture.
"Over the last year we've listened to our consumers and know that they want even more functionality and innovation within sportswear, while not compromising on style to perform their best," said Gordon Devin, General Manager and President of Wilson Sportswear. "We believe this collection does exactly that; celebrating our rich history in the sport of tennis and inspiring the athlete in us all."
Combining fashion and function for athletes at every level, select pieces feature the phrase "Wilson Sport Professionals" – a nod to the athlete in all of us and the standard to which Wilson holds itself and its product. Top products include: Women's Center Court Seamless Polo, Women's West Side Skirt, Women's Gibson Tricot Pant and Jacket, Women's Ace Seamless Bra Top, Women's Pleated Short, Men's Kramer Seamless Polo, Men's All-Day Tennis Short, Men's Eastwood Tricot Warm Up Pant and Jacket, Men's Breakpoint Seamless Tee and Men's Wells Woven Short.
The collection also includes an exclusive issue of Clay + Felt, a magazine that celebrates Wilson's evolution in sportswear and legacy in the sport of tennis. Clay + Felt features stylized imagery of the new sportswear collection, the latest innovative equipment, and op-eds from key partners such as Billie Jean King, tennis icon and longtime Wilson Advisory Staff member. Limited quantities of the magazine will be available as a gift with purchase in Wilson's New York and Chicago retail locations, as well as showcased online at wilson.com.
Wilson continues to celebrate its commitment to tennis with activations planned throughout the summer, as well as during the upcoming US Open, where Wilson has been the official ball and racket stringer for over 40 years. The collection is available in-store and online at wilson.com. Follow along @Wilson and join the conversation #WilsonSportProfessionals.
Chicago, USA-based Wilson Sporting Goods Co., a subsidiary of Amer Sports Corporation, is the world's leading manufacturer of high-performance sports equipment, apparel and accessories. The Company brings more than a century of innovation, history and heritage across many sports including Racquet Sports, Baseball, Softball, Football, Basketball, Volleyball, Soccer, and Golf. New for 2021 is Wilson Sportswear, a performance-based lifestyle athletic apparel collection, that combines Wilson's heritage and innovation with modern and stylish flair for all to live like an athlete. Leveraging player insights to develop products that push equipment and apparel innovation into new territories, Wilson empowers athletes at every level to perform at their best. Visit www.wilson.com for more information.
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ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
On Earth Day last week, a man lit himself on fire outside the U.S. Supreme Court. The Colorado climate activist died of his injuries the next day. Colorado Public Radio's Sam Brasch reports he may have meant to bring attention to climate change, but his intentions remain unclear.
SAM BRASCH, BYLINE: After the incident last Friday evening in Washington, focus turned to Wynn Alan Bruce's Facebook profile. The professional photographer left behind many black-and-white self-portraits. They show him as slender with rounded glasses, his eyes set on the camera. His post focused on two main topics - his Buddhist faith and climate change. There's a haunting edit to one comment about irreversible global warming. It includes a fire emoji and the date of Bruce's death written by him earlier this month.
A case pending before the Supreme Court could eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to restrict climate warming emissions. His father, Douglas Bruce, says he doesn't know if that's why his son took his own life. What he could confirm was his son's passion for the natural world.
DOUGLAS BRUCE: His commitment and concern about environment and climate issues, for example, is really very heartfelt and central to he is.
BRASCH: Members of Boulder, Colo.'s, Buddhist community have given contradictory statements about Bruce's motivation. Kritee Kanko is a climate scientist and Zen priest who says she practiced with Bruce. She tweeted that Bruce planned the act for at least a year to bring attention to the climate crisis. Later, she signed a public statement with other Buddhist leaders saying no one was aware of his plans beforehand. Other friends had no clarity, just heartache.
BRIAN GROSSMAN: What he did, I don't know why he did it or how he did it.
BRASCH: Boulder sculptor Brian Grossman says he met Bruce more than a decade ago while grocery shopping. Grossman has multiple sclerosis and uses an electric tricycle. He says Bruce, who worked at the store, would help him unload it from his car. They became friends and would meet every once in a while for tea, often talking about government indifference to people and the planet. And while he respected Bruce's passion for politics, he also hopes he's remembered as just a really good guy.
GROSSMAN: He always would shake my hand and say, doing a great job, you know?
BRASCH: Grossman says he'd always have the same reply - you are, too.
For NPR News, I'm Sam Brasch in Denver.
(SOUNDBITE OF SHERWOOD ROBERTS' "SUSPICION")
SCHMITZ: If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/a-climate-activist-died-after-lighting-himself-on-fire-his-intentions-remain-unclear | 2022-05-12T15:18:38Z |
ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
China continues to pursue a zero-COVID strategy. As a result, the 26 million citizens of its most populous city are subject to various degrees of lockdown as the country experiences a surge of the coronavirus. Shanghai has been in lockdown for nearly five weeks now.
One among those millions is Ming. She asked that we only use her first name for her own safety. She works as a nanny in Shanghai in a fairly well-to-do area. And when we spoke earlier, I wanted to know how she was faring this many weeks in.
MING: Yearning for freedom - I really wanted to go out. For a lot of people, they are feeling the same. Like, people keep asking, when is this going to be finished? But for the past few weeks, the new cases are around, like, 15- to 20,000 each day. So I don't know. Anyway, it feels like it's going to last for another, maybe a month or two months.
SCHMITZ: And there are so many people, including me, who have been fully vaccinated and boosted and have still gotten COVID because of this new variant, because of omicron and how contagious it is. Because it's so contagious, do you think that the zero-COVID policy is a smart one?
MING: It's hard for me to say. So I kind of, like, agree on both sides. Like, on one side, people say, like, we should go, like, Europe or American. But on the other side, people are saying, like, you cannot take this risk because we have a lot of old people or kids. I'm kind of on the both sides because I have my grandparents, which are old, and I have little kids within my family. I don't want to take the risk of losing my family.
But also, I feel like because of, as you said, how contagious this virus is, it sounds really difficult. Like, right now in Shanghai, it's kind of, like, out of control. And also there are, like, other cities in China which are going through, like - I don't know, they are having this virus spreading, also. So I really don't know.
SCHMITZ: Yeah. I'd love to know from your perspective - I mean, you're in Pudong, and you live in a house, so it's probably quieter where you are - but what's the outdoor life like? Are people out and about? Are people visibly angry about this? What are other people saying about this situation at this point in time?
MING: So in where I'm living, I think it's pretty peaceful because our situation is much better than, I think, most of the people because here in this neighborhood, people are rich, so they don't have to worry about food. I think they have their own ways to figure out about that. And also, we don't - like, for us, we didn't really get, like, really locked at a small space for a long time. You can still walk in the neighborhood.
SCHMITZ: Right.
MING: So I think because of that, in my neighborhood, people are mostly, like, more peaceful. But as far as I know, I think there were - in one of the building where my friend was leaving - my friend is living, they had protested about food for - in the very beginning because they don't have food. And at that point, government didn't start to give food to people. And they had, like, the whole building screaming, like, we need food. But it didn't go on news. It's like - I mean, it didn't go on news. But after that, they got, like, several times of food from the government.
SCHMITZ: Thank you so much for talking to us. We've been speaking with Ming, a nanny who lives in Shanghai. Thank you very much.
MING: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF TYCHO'S "DAYDREAM") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/a-shanghai-resident-shares-her-views-on-the-citys-lockdown | 2022-05-12T15:18:44Z |
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
A musical that opens on Broadway tonight has already won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. It's called "A Strange Loop," and here's how the cast describes it in the show's opening number.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "INTERMISSION SONG")
LARRY OWENS: (As Usher, singing) Big, Black and queer-ass American Broadway.
UNIDENTIFIED ENSEMBLE #1: (Singing) Big, Black and queer-ass American Broadway.
UNIDENTIFIED ENSEMBLE #2: (Singing) Big, Black and queer-ass American Broadway show.
SHAPIRO: This big, Black and queer-ass American Broadway show was written by Michael R. Jackson. When I asked him to explain what this semi-autobiographical musical is about, he described it this way.
MICHAEL R JACKSON: So "A Strange Loop" is about a Black, gay musical theater writer who works as an usher at a Broadway show, who's writing a musical about a Black, gay musical theater writer who works as an usher at a Broadway show, who's writing a musical about a Black, gay musical theater writer who works as an usher at a Broadway show...
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
JACKSON: ...Ad infinitum and is sort of cycling through his own perceptions of himself and his own self-hatred.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TODAY")
OWENS: (As Usher, singing) I want to break the cycle that's so ingrained in me. But change comes way too slow, and I am in a hurry. There's all of this rejection.
SHAPIRO: A couple of years ago, I spoke to Jackson for the Kentucky Author Forum's podcast series "Great Podversations." At the time, Jackson had recently gotten the good news that he'd won the Pulitzer after the show's off-Broadway run. And he'd also gotten some bad news - the show's Broadway opening was postponed indefinitely because of the pandemic. Well, two years later, that long postponed opening night has arrived. And so we are bringing you an edited version of that conversation from 2020.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TODAY")
OWENS: (As Usher, singing) I hate days like today.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
SHAPIRO: Hi, Pulitzer Prize winner Michael R. Jackson.
JACKSON: Hi. How are you?
SHAPIRO: (Laughter) I'm good. How does it feel to have that attached to your name now, like, forever and ever and ever?
JACKSON: I'm into it, but every once in a while I have, like, a moment of I can't believe this.
SHAPIRO: This show is so much about being an outsider and not being accepted by the mainstream and feeling, like, apart from. It's got to be, like, a mind leap to suddenly be embraced by, like, the biggest awards there are, right?
JACKSON: Yeah. I mean, it definitely wasn't on my vision board for sure...
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
JACKSON: ..You know, and especially with this show in particular, just because the way that it started was such a - like, a personal thing for me, and, like, I'd never expected it to go any of the places that it went when I began it.
SHAPIRO: You began it, like, almost 20 years ago - right? - just after 9/11?
JACKSON: Yeah, like around 2001. And it was just a personal monologue that I sort of wrote for myself as I was about to graduate from college at that time. It was just a monologue called Why I Can't Get Work because I was about to graduate from playwriting school at NYU, and I just wasn't sure what was, like, in store for me. And I - so I just wrote this monologue about this young, Black gay man walking around New York wondering why life was so terrible. And it just sort of took on a life of its own, slowly but surely, after that.
SHAPIRO: What was the first song you wrote?
JACKSON: "Memory Song."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MEMORY SONG")
OWENS: (As Usher, singing) Five-foot-four, high school gym, sneaking a cupcake - these are my memories. These are my memories.
JACKSON: I wrote it when I was in grad school, and that song, like, went over well enough in my class that my teacher encouraged me to continue writing my own music.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MEMORY SONG")
OWENS: (As Usher, singing) These are my memories of one lone, Black gay boy I knew who chose to turn his back on the Lord.
JACKSON: I have a love of what sort of classic Broadway is and can do, but I'm also, like, a Black, queer man living in the world, creating his own stories and narrative. So part of the game for me of writing "A Strange Loop" - and this is something I only came to over time as I was making it - was that I wanted to invite everyone in. And so that means, yes, your grandparents. Like, I want to invite them in with melodies that sound - it could be a classic melody or a big toe-tapping Broadway show and then with content that is very challenging. So it's always been, for me, this push and pull between form and content.
SHAPIRO: Did people give you notes that you had to tone things down and you resisted those notes, or did people support you all the way? Like, write about the Grindr hook-up, write about the - you know, all of the other things that, like, we haven't seen on Broadway before.
JACKSON: So fortunately or unfortunately because of the sort of - the various zeitgeists of time - again, remembering that I started writing this piece in the first Bush era - no one cared, like, what I was doing. Like, oh, oh, well, how cute for you. You're a Black, gay musical theater writer. Who cares? I was left to my own devices to make whatever I wanted to make, and so I just did that.
And then I was ushering at "The Lion King" and "Mary Poppins" and "Aladdin" for periods of time, and I saw what, like, big Broadway was up close. And I was like, oh, that's not really what I do. And so I just did what I wanted. So then by the time the show started to sort of emerge, the culture had shifted and was a little bit more receptive to what the show was on some level.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TYLER PERRY WRITES REAL LIFE")
UNIDENTIFIED ENSEMBLE #3: (Singing) Tyler Perry, Tyler Perry, Tyler Perry...
OWENS: (As Usher) Oh, no.
UNIDENTIFIED ENSEMBLE #3: (Singing) Tyler Perry, Tyler Perry, Tyler Perry...
SHAPIRO: And then that person who you more than call out, like, the show is...
JACKSON: (Laughter).
SHAPIRO: ...In some ways built around, is Tyler Perry, who I understand (laughter) got in touch with you.
JACKSON: He did. He did not see the show, but he heard about it. And then he listened to the cast album after we spoke.
SHAPIRO: And?
JACKSON: He didn't give me any feedback about it. We just talked. He just called me to congratulate me about the Pulitzer and to, like, tell me that he was going to beat my butt.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TYLER PERRY WRITES REAL LIFE")
UNIDENTIFIED ENSEMBLE #3: (Singing) 'Cause Tyler Perry writes real life.
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER: (Singing) Tyler Perry writes real life.
UNIDENTIFIED ENSEMBLE #3: (Singing) He writes stories we can swallow like Popeye's chicken and biscuits.
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER: (Singing) He writes stories we can follow like we follow the drinking gourd.
SHAPIRO: I think it's really interesting that even before the racial justice protests around police violence and larger issues, you were talking about the way that this show represents kind of, like, the everyday misery of being a queer, Black man that is not associated with acute instances of, like, physical harm and danger.
JACKSON: Correct, right. That was also really important for me is that, like, I wanted to also - while dealing with the everyday misery, it was also important to me that people see a Black man, a Black queer man not being sacrificed to police violence and slavery.
SHAPIRO: So how do you see this story fitting in with a national conversation about the legacy of slavery and police violence and all of the other, like, you know, towering historical and present-day injustices?
JACKSON: So I see it fitting in exactly as it does. It's a story that I told with the creative team that I made. And, like, it's one patchwork in a quilt of many stories, but it's not the entire story. And so I don't think that even as we are grappling with these issues nationally, it's not the whole story. It's part of that.
But I think that that also goes to this idea that we're always in every group that is always dealing with the individual versus the group. "A Strange Loop" is about an individual person trying to figure out what's wrong with him and then learning nothing's wrong with him.
SHAPIRO: Yeah.
JACKSON: And so he's - that's one story. What's the next Black queer man story? What's the next one? For me, it's like - it's a very complicated - it's like there's this national thing going on, and then there's, like, individual people in their lives trying to figure it out.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "A STRANGE LOOP")
OWENS: (As Usher, singing) I am the story's writer. I'm barely scraping by.
SHAPIRO: Michael R. Jackson spoke with me in 2020 for the Kentucky Author Forum's "Great Podversations." Jackson's Pulitzer Prize-winning musical "A Strange Loop" opens on Broadway tonight.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "A STRANGE LOOP")
OWENS: (As Usher, singing) I claim to have a plan but feel like nothing more than an angsty, gay Black man. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/a-strange-loop-finally-comes-to-broadway | 2022-05-12T15:18:50Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
In a case that drew national attention, a woman on death row in Texas has won a stay of execution. Melissa Lucio's murder conviction will be reviewed by the state's criminal court of appeals. We get details from Gaige Davila of Texas Public Radio.
GAIGE DAVILA, BYLINE: When told she would not be executed this week, Melissa Lucio could not hold back the tears.
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JEFF LEACH: You haven't heard the news yet.
MELISSA LUCIO: No, what happened?
LEACH: The court of criminal appeals issued a stay of your execution for Wednesday.
M LUCIO: Are you serious? Are you serious? (Crying).
DAVILA: That's Texas State Representative Jeff Leach breaking the news to Lucio yesterday afternoon in audio first published by the Texas Tribune. Lucio was sentenced to prison in 2008 for the death of her 2-year-old daughter, Maria. She says the child died after falling down the stairs outside their apartment. Defense attorneys say police coerced her to confess and allege new evidence proves her daughter's injuries were from a fall and not from child abuse, as prosecutors said. Lucio's oldest son, John, has high hopes for his mother.
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JOHN LUCIO: We're going to believe in God, and we're going to continue believing him and keep our faith up with him and keep on fighting this fight till we bring her home. She's no longer going to be executed. My mother will be free soon.
DAVILA: Lucio was scheduled to be executed tomorrow. Yesterday, one of her lawyers, Vanessa Potkin, explained the significance of the ruling.
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VANESSA POTKIN: Today's stay and remand to have hearings on the new evidence of her innocence really opens the door to the potential of a new trial in her case and ultimately complete vindication.
DAVILA: In a state with the country's highest execution rate, Lucio's case is atypical. In the last five years, only 40% of stays have been granted to Texas death row inmates, and only one of those stays ended up resulting in a reduced sentence. A 2020 documentary on Lucio's case renewed interest in her story. This led to demonstrations being organized across the state on her behalf. The case caught the attention of John Oliver and Kim Kardashian, and it has generated bipartisan support in the Texas legislature for the state's sole Latina inmate on death row.
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UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) Free Melissa Lucio. Free Melissa Lucio.
DAVILA: Lucio says she is grateful for the new chance to prove her innocence.
For NPR News, I'm Gaige Davila in Port Isabel, Texas. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/a-woman-on-death-row-in-texas-has-won-a-stay-of-execution | 2022-05-12T15:18:56Z |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Before Russia invaded Ukraine, President Biden's team was clear. They hoped sanctions would prevent an all-out war.
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ANTONY BLINKEN: The purpose of the sanctions in the first instance is to try to deter Russia from going to war.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: The purpose of the sanctions has always been and continues to be deterrence.
JAKE SULLIVAN: The president believes that sanctions are intended to deter.
MARTIN: But the threat of sanctions didn't stop the invasion. So what are sanctions doing now? NPR White House correspondent Asma Khalid is trying to find out.
ASMA KHALID, BYLINE: The day that Russia invaded Ukraine, President Biden said no one expected the sanctions to prevent anything from happening. A month later at NATO's headquarters in Brussels, he was more insistent.
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PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Sanctions never deter. You keep talking about that. Sanctions never deter.
KHALID: The president said it's about sustaining sanctions over the long run and increasing the pain. The message had evolved. Today, the White House has three main goals - weaken Russia, strengthen the West and maintain a sovereign Ukraine. Sanctions are a tool, the White House says, part of this broader strategy that includes surging military equipment to the battlefield. White House Deputy National Security Adviser Daleep Singh is one of the architects of these sanctions. And in an interview with me, he pointed to a bleak economic climate in Russia - double-digit inflation, a coming recession and the departure of hundreds of international companies.
DALEEP SINGH: Putin's going to have to ask himself, is this the endgame he's playing for? And how does he weigh the costs of this endgame against the costs of pulling back from the brink? That's the question we're putting to him with these sanctions.
KHALID: The U.S. has banned the import of Russian oil, blocked Russia for making debt payments in dollars and sanctioned Russia's largest financial institutions, including its central bank. Experts agree the goal of sanctions is to put costs on Russia, a tangible cost, making it unsustainable for Putin to finance the war, but also an intangible cost, leverage for negotiations with Russia.
RICHARD GOLDBERG: The goal of the sanctions should be to impose maximum pressure on Vladimir Putin in whatever way possible.
KHALID: That's Richard Goldberg. He served on the National Security Council under former President Donald Trump. He feels the Biden administration has not gone far enough. He says, if you really want behaviors to change, you have to put pressure where Russia is most susceptible.
GOLDBERG: And that can only happen if you cut off Putin's access to energy revenue. That we have not done yet.
KHALID: The White House has insisted on working with allies, and Europeans depend on Russian energy. Still, the bigger question is, even if Putin was squeezed, can the U.S. negotiate with him, a man that President Biden has accused of war crimes and genocide? Brian O'Toole isn't so sure. He's a former Treasury Department official.
BRIAN O'TOOLE: Behavior change is the goal. It's just that the reality is Putin is not going to change his behavior.
KHALID: O'Toole was involved in sanctioning Russia in 2014 after it illegally annexed Crimea.
O'TOOLE: I think the long-term goal is at some point, Vladimir Putin will no longer be the ruler of Russia. And somebody is going to walk into that, you know, big, long office table that he sits at in the Kremlin and think to himself, I don't need all of these external misadventures weighing me down. I'm going to get out of Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus in exchange for sanctions relief.
KHALID: Regime change is not an explicit goal. In fact, some experts say you'll never get an autocrat to change his behavior if he knows you're trying to get rid of him. But experts say look at Iran and the nuclear deal as an example of how sanctions can shake up internal politics. Adam Szubin says he believes back in 2013, the desire for sanctions relief helped bring Hassan Rouhani to power in Iran.
ADAM SZUBIN: He campaigned on a promise of getting Iran economic relief, which was basically tantamount to saying, I can get the sanctions lifted.
KHALID: Szubin had helped build those Iran sanctions and was involved in the talks.
SZUBIN: As we sat down with the Iranians, it was very clear they wanted one thing. They wanted sanctions relief.
KHALID: Experts say sanctions are a middle ground between war and words, but they take time to work. The challenge is there's not a lot of time before Russia redoubles its efforts in eastern Ukraine. And so the question for Julia Friedlander with the Atlantic Council is, what if this all just does not work? What if these aggressive sanctions that were rolled out with unprecedented speed do destroy Russia's economy, but Moscow still flattens parts of Ukraine, and in the process, the rest of the global economy gets damaged?
JULIA FRIEDLANDER: And you ask yourself, well, what did that actually do for me? We still lost on two sides. And how viable are sanctions going to be from a strategic perspective?
KHALID: It's why she sees these sanctions on Russia as the sort of ultimate test for the future use of this important tool.
Asma Khalid, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF FATB AND DRYHOPE'S "UNRAVEL") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/as-the-russia-ukraine-war-drags-on-what-is-the-endgame-for-sanctions | 2022-05-12T15:19:02Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Atlanta is taking steps to memorialize the victims of convict leasing - that's forced penal labor, often under brutal conditions akin to slavery. As Molly Samuel of member station WABE reports, the city is buying a property where thousands worked and many died.
MOLLY SAMUEL, BYLINE: Local activists have been fighting for years to protect the former site of the Chattahoochee Brick Company instead of allowing industrial development on it. Right now there's not much there - a few scattered piles of bricks, dense woods, a cracked driveway.
DONNA STEPHENS: This place is probably one of the most horrific post-slavery sites in America.
SAMUEL: Donna Stephens has led the effort to protect the site and to teach people what happened here. The factory churned out bricks that built modern Atlanta around the turn of the 20th century. They're literally the foundation of homes, streets and sidewalks here. The people who made those bricks, mostly Black men, had been arrested and forced to work, living in filth, eating rotting food, being beaten. People died here.
STEPHENS: It's been very personal for me.
SAMUEL: Stephens lives in a nearby neighborhood named after the owner of the Chattahoochee Brick Company. James English was one of the wealthiest men in Atlanta, a former Confederate captain and mayor of the city. Stephens says when she learned who he was and what he was involved in, she was floored.
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SAMUEL: Religious leaders recently honored the people who had suffered at the factory with a memorial at the property. Imam Plemon El-Amin is retired from the Atlanta Masjid of Al-Islam.
PLEMON EL-AMIN: Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can. And ignorance cannot drive out ignorance, only knowledge and understanding can.
SAMUEL: At the event, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said the bricks in his home may have come from the factory. He says now that the city is buying the land, there will be a memorial here and a park.
ANDRE DICKENS: It is time that this space with such an ugly past be turned into something beautiful.
SAMUEL: Journalist Douglas Blackmon wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning book called "Slavery By Another Name" about convict leasing. He describes Chattahoochee Brick as nightmarish, and he says it wasn't alone.
DOUGLAS BLACKMON: At any given time, there would have been tens of thousands, if not significantly more than that, of African American men, primarily, forced into these circumstances all across the South.
SAMUEL: He says the system was part of the backlash to African Americans gaining freedom after the Civil War - trying to vote and to live as full-fledged citizens. And he says he still sees tentacles of it today in mass incarceration.
BLACKMON: In terms of America's acceptance of the idea that it's OK for a huge population of people to be oppressed in these kinds of ways, that's absolutely a legacy of what happened in these years.
SAMUEL: The National Center for Civil and Human Rights, a history museum here, is bringing people together now to talk about what shape a memorial could take. Jill Savitt is the CEO of the center. She says it's important to have a dedicated space to honor victims of convict leasing.
JILL SAVITT: No community is going to move forward on racial justice, on economic justice, on a range of issues, unless we can be really clear-eyed about where we've been.
SAMUEL: Local activist Donna Stephens says she feels like this history has been overlooked, with schools essentially skipping from the Civil War to something Atlanta is more proud of - as the birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr. and home of other leaders of the civil rights movement.
STEPHENS: The history books stop with slavery and pick up with Dr. King. It's ridiculous.
SAMUEL: Now Atlanta is beginning the work to fill in that gap.
For NPR News, I'm Molly Samuel in Atlanta. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/atlanta-aims-to-turn-brick-factory-with-an-ugly-past-into-something-honorable | 2022-05-12T15:19:09Z |
Updated April 26, 2022 at 2:36 PM ET
Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, aka the singer Bad Bunny, doesn't only want to sell out concert venues. Sony announced that the Grammy winner will play the lead role in Marvel's upcoming film El Muerto. This will be the first time a Latinx actor has their own live-action superhero film in the Marvel universe.
Bad Bunny will play the character of Juan Carlos Estrada/El Muerto (the dead one), an antihero who acquires his powers from a mask that has been passed down from generation to generation. The film will be a spinoff of the Spider-Man franchise, in which El Muerto is set to attend a wrestling charity event to wrestle Spider-Man in the attempt to unmask him.
According to Deadline, Bad Bunny told Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group President Sanford Panitch: "I love wrestling. I grew up watching wrestling and I'm a wrestler. I'm a former champion so this is why I love this character. I think it's the perfect role to me and it will be epic."
Bad Bunny searched the Spider-Man comic book archives for characters he thought would fit him and selected El Muerto, who was first introduced in 2006.
The singer also has experience with wrestling. In 2021, he made his wrestling debut on WWE WrestleMania.
This will also not be the singer's first acting role. He previously had a role on Netflix's Narcos: Mexico and this summer he will be on the big screen in Bullet Train, also starring Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock.
A push for Marvel to diversify its cast seems to continue. While Mexican American actor Salma Hayek shared the stage with co-stars in 2021's Eternals, Bad Bunny will be the main character in this film. It wasn't until 2018 with Chadwick Boseman in Black Panther that Marvel had a non-white actor play a lead superhero role. Since then, there has also been Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings, starring Simu Liu and Akwafina.
Bad Bunny will be busy up until shooting for this film. Later this year he will embark on Bad Bunny: World's Hottest Tour and earlier this month he announced another album.
The film is set to premiere in theaters on Jan. 12, 2024.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/bad-bunny-will-be-the-first-latino-to-lead-a-live-action-marvel-movie | 2022-05-12T15:19:15Z |
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RAMZAN KADYROV: (Non-English language spoken).
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
That is the voice of the Chechen Republic's leader and notorious Kremlin ally Ramzan Kadyrov. In a video posted the day after Russia invaded Ukraine, he promised Chechen fighters would occupy Ukraine's hot spots.
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SHAPIRO: This is despite the fact that Kadyrov's own father, less than a generation ago, fought against Russia's wars on their home.
To better understand the role of Kadyrov and this Muslim majority republic in the ongoing war, I spoke to Rachel Denber. She's deputy director of the Europe and Central Asia division for Human Rights Watch. It's good to have you here.
RACHEL DENBER: Good to be here - thank you so much for having me.
SHAPIRO: Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has been described as brutal, Putin's puppet, his attack dog. The U.S. has sanctioned him for human rights abuses, including persecution and torture of LGBT people. So in the years leading up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, what earned Kadyrov this reputation?
DENBER: Kadyrov earned this reputation through his absolutely brutal and feudalistic tight-hold grip over Chechnya, where he has been the leader, basically, since the assassination of his father, who was the leader of Chechnya in 2004. His fearsome security services are responsible for great numbers of enforced disappearances, summary executions, house burning. These days, Kadyrov exercises control through his brutal praetorian guard and also through extensive surveillance.
SHAPIRO: And can you paint a picture for us of the man himself? I mean, you've described a really iron-fisted rule, but the man himself, Ramzan, is almost a larger-than-life figure.
DENBER: He has developed a cult around himself for a number of years. He was quite active on Instagram, where he allowed himself to say the most outrageous, flamboyant and inflammatory things. He sees Putin as kind of his patron. But I think it's also a complicated relationship because, you know, the Kremlin believes that Ramzan keeps a lid on any kind of dissent through these absolutely brutal methods of enforced disappearance, killings and the like. Torture quelled the Islamist insurgency that had continued after the second Chechen war had ended. So I think that the Kremlin felt that Ramzan kept a lid on insurgency. So Ramzan pretty much has carte blanche to do whatever he wants.
SHAPIRO: But what might surprise people here is that Ramzan's father was, at one point, fighting against the Russians and was considered a Chechen nationalist. And so how did leadership go from trying to fight for independence to fighting on Russia's behalf against Ukraine?
DENBER: Well, that's right. Ramzan's father, Akhmad Kadyrov, was aligned with the anti-Russian forces in Chechnya and eventually changed sides. And when papa changed sides, obviously Ramzan changed sides, and they tied their fate to the Kremlin. For what reasons? I know - it's really hard to say. They acquired a tremendous power in Chechnya by doing so.
SHAPIRO: And so when you look at the role of Chechen forces - who are actually known as Kadyrovtsy, they're that loyal to the leader - when you look at their role in Ukraine, is this simply doing a favor for a patron, Vladimir Putin, or is there more going on here?
DENBER: I think that it's showing their power because if they throw their force behind Russia's forces in Ukraine, then they're owed something, aren't they? But it's also - I think it's also important to underscore that Kadyrov is Putin's most loyal and most enthusiastic subordinate. Having said that, it is a very complicated relationship because I think that there are many in the security services who are not great fans of Ramzan Kadyrov, but they tolerate him because they know that because Kadyrov has total control over, you know, his own security services and the like in Chechnya, if they remove him, who knows what he might do?
SHAPIRO: That is Rachel Denber, deputy director of the Europe and Central Asia division for Human Rights Watch. Thank you for speaking with us.
DENBER: Thank you so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/chechnya-once-resisted-russia-now-its-leader-is-putins-close-ally | 2022-05-12T15:19:21Z |
DAVE DAVIES, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross. Raising children can present dilemmas for parents. To name one, how tough should you be if your kids are wasting too much time on television instead of doing their schoolwork? Well, imagine taking scissors and cutting the power cord of the TV set, and telling your daughter she can watch television again when she's earned admission to Oxford University. That's a true story told in the new memoir by our guest, CNN international anchor Zain Asher.
She was born in London to parents who were immigrants from Nigeria. And much of her book is about her mother, who overcame poverty, famine and civil war in Nigeria before raising four children in a struggling neighborhood in London. Asher's early childhood was interrupted by a devastating family tragedy, which you'll soon hear about. Her mother then went to extraordinary lengths to give her children the skills, resilience and determination to be successful in life - and they were. One became a doctor, another a businessman. And Asher's brother is Chiwetel Ejiofor, the actor nominated for an Oscar for his role in "12 Years A Slave."
Zain Asher is a graduate of Oxford and the Columbia School of Journalism. She currently hosts the CNN International program "One World With Zain Asher," which airs weekdays at noon. Her new memoir is "Where The Children Take Us." Zain Asher, welcome to FRESH AIR.
ZAIN ASHER: Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be here.
DAVIES: Your story begins with the tragedy that befell your family when you were just 5 years old. You were living in London with your mom and dad and two older brothers. Give us just a little bit of the circumstances of your family life there in London at the time.
ASHER: My parents, as you mentioned, were immigrants from Nigeria at the time of the tragedy. They lived in London for about 18 years. And they were struggling. My dad was a trainee doctor on his way to becoming fully qualified. My mom ran a pharmacy in a neighborhood known as Brixton, which in the '80s was quite a difficult neighborhood. It was certainly beset by poverty and crime at the time. And so, you know, the book starts with pretty much the worst day in my family's life, September 1988. And my mother is in the living room. She's sort of going between the living room in the kitchen. She's waiting for a phone call. And then she gets that phone call.
And the voice on the other end of the line basically says, your husband and your son have been involved in a car crash. One of them is dead, and we don't know which one. And you can imagine just the level of not just devastation and gut-wrenching pain, but I don't think there's another way to describe it other than a sort of emotional earthquake. You know, it turned out my father had passed away in this car crash. My father and brother were on a road trip in Nigeria because my dad just wanted to give my brother a better sense of who he was, our heritage and culture. And, you know, he lost his life that way. So...
DAVIES: So your mom, the information she gets in this call is that, you know, your son and your husband have been in this terrible car crash. One has died. One has survived. We don't know which. And she has to travel 4,000 miles to find out. One can only imagine the terror and panic of such a journey. She figures out a way to have somebody care for the kids. She goes through this long journey and finally enters a hospital. What does she discover?
ASHER: Oh, that journey was such a painful and difficult one, because, as you mentioned, my mother traveled to Nigeria really without knowing who she was going to be burying in her family that week, whether it was going to be her husband or her son. My father and brother were traveling on the road from Elegu (ph), which is where we're from, to Lagos, which is like the sort of biggest city in Nigeria. And on the road to Lagos, their car was hit by a speeding tractor trailer. And initially, everybody - talking about bystanders and the authorities - thought that everyone had died in the crash instantly. But then, you know, my family in the village, my Nigerian family in the villages had heard that everybody was killed. And then they had heard after that that no, no, no, maybe one had survived. We're not sure. Maybe there was somebody that survived. We think the little boy had survived.
And so there was so much confusion. And because the authorities thought that everyone had passed away instantly, everybody from the scene of the crash was taken to a morgue. And it was only when my father and my brother were taken to the morgue that the driver sort of opened the back of the truck and began unloading the bodies, that he realized that my brother was still breathing. And so my mother arrives in this hospital in Nigeria. And it was just such a difficult moment because on the one hand, yes, her son has been spared. Yes, her son is alive. But on the other hand, she's now having to plan a funeral for, you know, the love of her life.
DAVIES: And this remarkable detail of your brother being discovered when people were taking bodies out of the wagon at the morgue and discovered one of them breathing, that 11-year-old kid was Chiwetel Ejiofor, the actor who so many of our listeners, I'm sure, have seen in the films. So she goes through this funeral, which was a huge thing in Nigeria, must have been emotionally numb. And then she returns to London and leaves her 11-year-old son there, still recuperating in a hospital, goes back where there - you were there. You're 5. Your older brother is about 14 or so, right? What is your mom like when she returns initially?
ASHER: So for the longest time, she locked herself in her bedroom, really finding it difficult to leave, finding human interaction quite difficult. She's obviously just emotionally broken as a person. So sometimes she would come out of her bedroom once a day, maybe twice a day. She would make sure we had something to eat. And then she would go back into her bedroom, lock the door and just cry and cry and cry and cry for hours at a time. And even when she eventually went back to work, it was sort of the same thing. She would be serving customers. She ran a pharmacy. And she would emerge, you know, into the sort of bathroom she had out back and just cry. And people would walk into this shop that was unmanned. And there was sort of no pharmacist to help them because the mother would be, you know, out the back crying.
She just - I mean, my dad was really everything to her. It was - she was - he was really the only sort of man she'd ever held hands with, only man she'd ever kissed. You know, they met when she was 14. And so they had planned their entire lives together. They really were the loves of each other's lives. So it was not just, yes, her partner and her husband and the father of her children, but it was really her everything. And so broken is how I would describe it - her emotionally at that point.
DAVIES: We need to take a break here. Let me reintroduce you. We are speaking with Zain Asher. She's an anchor for CNN International. She has a new memoir, mostly about her mother, called "Where The Children Take Us." We'll continue our conversation in just a moment. This is FRESH AIR.
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DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. And we're speaking with Zain Asher. She's an anchor for CNN International. She hosts the program "One World With Zain Asher," which airs weekdays at noon. She has a new memoir about her mother, who was an immigrant from Nigeria, who raised Zain and three other children in London.
So after your father was killed in Nigeria and your mother was simply shattered by it, your grandmother came to stay and just help out with taking the children because it was clear she needed some help. Your older brother, you describe, you know, began acting out, you know, hanging out on the streets, getting into trouble, was actually eventually expelled from school. And there came a point where your mom somehow turned to face the world. Do you know what allowed her to do that?
ASHER: I mean, I think it was just this idea that, you know, her family was coming apart. You know, most of the time, she had no idea where my oldest brother was. And he used to be a brilliant student. Before my father passed away, I mean, this is a kid that was getting awards at his school for best in math or best in science. And to see my brother Obinze, his light dim and him sort of, you know, go off the rails in that way by hanging out with the wrong crowds, getting expelled from school, you know, talking back to his teachers, getting into fights at school, was really a massive wake-up call for my mother because she realized that her family's future was teetering on the brink. And somehow through all of that, it was a big wake-up call for her. And she began to draw on an inner strength that I describe in the book. And that's when she began to really be a lot more present and focused in getting us back on track and keeping us focused on anything, you know, besides the empty chair at the dinner table. That was a big turning point for us.
DAVIES: What rules did she make for the family?
ASHER: Oh, my gosh, so many. And she started the rules at that point, but they continued throughout the end of my high school. The first rule was a family book club because her main goal at that point was to keep Binze on track. As I mentioned, he'd been expelled from school.
DAVIES: That's your oldest brother, yeah.
ASHER: That's my oldest brother. And he was, you know, hanging out with the wrong crowds and, you know, he was going off the rails. And so one of the first rules she instilled was a family book club. So that meant that my brothers, especially because they were older - I was only 5 going on 6 years old. My brothers especially would be assigned to read one book a week and discuss it around the dinner table. And the discussions would usually take place on Fridays. But it was so powerful for us because it just gave us something to focus on besides loss and besides pain, for example. And my mother was a Nigerian Black, obviously, immigrant woman, single mother now, a widow, raising three Black children in a neighborhood that had a lot of problems. And so she really needed to roll up her sleeves, she felt, to keep us on track and to keep us focused.
DAVIES: Yeah. You know, one of the things I love about this part of the story is you say that, you know, while she was an educated person in Nigeria, she didn't have a lot of background in literature. So she starts going to the library and just asking the librarian, you know, what are some classics that we should all read - and taking this on herself so that she is prepared to participate, in addition, of course, to holding on a full-time job and making sure everyone is fed and and she's pregnant with your soon-to-arrive sister. It's pretty remarkable. You know, you and your siblings were going to school in classes that were overwhelmingly white. What was your experience like? Did you feel picked on? Did you feel accepted?
ASHER: Well, I would say that it was a mixed bag. So in terms of some of the things that my mother did for me when it came to our education, she at one point asked my teachers for the school syllabus for the entire year so she could figure out what I was going to be learning in school in, say, a month or two, for example. And she would teach it to me at home beforehand so that by the time I learned it in school, I already knew it. And that was genius because it had several effects on my sort of - this was in elementary school but my elementary school experience because, A, it meant that my teachers thought I was much smarter than I actually was because everything that we learned in class, I already knew it because my mother was teaching me in advance at home. But it also meant that my teachers would use me as a role model of sorts for the other children. So in one way, you know, being one of the only Black girls in my school because I was shining academically, you know, I sort of - I did feel accepted.
However, there were lots of other experiences that I had that were quite difficult when it came to race. You've got to remember, this is sort of the early 1990s in England, you know, before people were, you know, politically correct. You know, when my parents first arrived in England, there was the whole sort of - this is in the '70s - the sort of keep England white movement. And we were far removed from that because we're in the 1990s, but that still meant that there were issues when it came to racism for my siblings and I. And so that meant it was difficult to find acceptance among peers. Chiwetel had - again, it was a mixed situation because at times, he didn't feel accepted, but because he always, from the age of 13, really thrived as an actor and was the sort of shining star at school as an actor, it meant at times there was acceptance. So it oscillated quite a bit for us.
DAVIES: Yeah. You know, this story of your mom asking for the syllabus of your elementary school work and then teaching it to you ahead of time, I mean, you describe this as being a time when you weren't happy at school. You weren't doing particularly well in school. And it completely turned things around. So it really worked. And I'm just imagining your mom doing this. I mean, she's working all day running the family pharmacy by herself, on her feet 10 hours a day. She got to, you know, cook dinner and then she's got to learn this stuff herself, the multiplication tables and the grammar or whatever you're learning, and then go over it with you. It's, I mean, hard to imagine the stamina that she summoned to do that.
ASHER: Yeah. She would come back - she would look at my school syllabus, figure out, yes, you know, you're going to be learning the times tables, let's say, next month or two months. And times table by times table, she would sit and teach me beforehand. And I remember the times table experience was such a powerful one for me because it was the first thing that I remember her teaching me. And I remember going to school, and while everybody, you know, was just learning their two times table or their three times table, I already knew my 12 off by heart. And it was just such a simple thing to do to teach your child in advance of what they're learning in school. But it had the most profound impact on me because I learnt cause and effect in terms of studying. I understood at that point - this is at 7, 8 years old. I understood that, you know, what you put in is what you get out. And seeing the teachers sort of treat me differently, seeing myself sort of given gold stars and various other scholastic awards just had this amazing impact on my self-confidence. And it really fueled my desire and my drive to come home, roll up my sleeves and study even more.
DAVIES: You know, in addition to all the other things your mom had to worry about, there was crime. I mean, this was a neighborhood where, you know, there were there were crimes. Was she directly affected?
ASHER: Yes. So my mom, as I mentioned, ran a pharmacy. And it was in a difficult neighborhood. She was robbed at the pharmacy multiple times. And, obviously, I'm young at the time, so I don't - she's not going to come home and tell me that she was robbed at knifepoint when I'm sort of 7 or 8 years old. But what's remarkable is that, yeah, she did share these stories years later with me. But what's remarkable is that even on those days, even after going to the pharmacy, being robbed at knifepoint, she would still come back with me, and she would still study. You know, she would still study. And it's bringing tears to my eyes thinking about it because the sorts of things that she had to contend with and do battle with and the resilience that she displayed despite all of that is remarkable. It's astounding, actually.
DAVIES: Now, your brother Chiwetel, who was the 11-year-old who survived the accident in Nigeria that killed your father, eventually comes back and just showed an incredible talent for acting and takes up studying Shakespeare, writes passages from Shakespeare all over his walls. And I gather your mom, while she truly believed in hard work and academic discipline, was more interested in things, I guess, like law and science than in the arts. But there comes a point at which, suddenly, she gets it and realizes what a special thing this is. You want to share that with us?
ASHER: There was one moment where one of Chiwetel's teachers persuaded her to watch him in an upcoming school play. I think it was "Measure For Measure." She watched, you know, didn't really understand what was going on. You know, she'd never really been to a Shakespeare play before in her life. But she sat there. And at the very end, Chiwetel tell came on, you know, after the curtain call and, you know, was bowing to the audience. And she saw the applause, the level of applause in the auditorium, in this all-white, you know, auditorium in south London, to see people giving her son a standing ovation for nothing more than, in her mind, acting in a play. She realized there was something special going on there and that she just sort of felt it was her duty to nurture that as much as she could.
And she did because of the pride and the joy. You know, I mention in the book that Nigerians love the idea of representing our culture well in other sort of environments. That's sort of a big deal for Nigerians. And so seeing my brother sort of honored in this way and given that kind of acclaim was a big deal for her. And so she came back home, and she bought herself her first copy of a Shakespeare play, and she read "Measure For Measure." I don't know if she understood what she was reading, but she went through the text slowly, sort of trying to relive, you know, her son's moment on that stage but also trying to find her own ways to sort of encourage him and push him to be better. It's quite remarkable that she would teach herself Shakespeare in this way after seeing my brother perform.
DAVIES: Let's talk a bit about your mom's background in Nigeria. She and your dad met as teenagers. She was 14. He was 16. They didn't live in the same town but were totally smitten with each other. But they met in 1965, just a few years after the country became independent from Great Britain as ethnic conflict was brewing, which would lead to a bloody civil war. You want to just briefly explain what happened in that conflict?
ASHER: The Biafra war in Nigeria was one of the most brutal civil wars in history. I mean, it only lasted - I say only, but, you know, it was 2 1/2 years. But it really was the stuff of nightmares. It was a dreadful time to come of age. And that is when my mother was a teenager. You know, she was sort of gearing up towards the end of high school, sort of 15, 16 years old as war was brewing. And it was because my tribe, which happened to be in the eastern part of the country, was trying to secede from Nigeria and form their own independent country. And so it meant that more people died from starvation during that time - because hunger was used as a weapon of war - than bullets and bombs. But the bombs were relentless nonetheless.
So it was a really difficult time. My parents actually didn't see each other for a long time because they were just, you know, scrambling to find shelter in different towns, sometimes behind enemy lines, sometimes not. But they were separated for a long time after their romance actually began and was starting to blossom. And then they found each other towards the end of the war. And so it's a beautiful story. And it was just so hopeful because despite sort of all the challenges with losing someone and not sort of being able to track down someone in the middle of a civil war, my dad tracked her down and found her towards the end of the war. And then they moved to Europe to start a life together. So yeah, their love story really survived all of that.
DAVIES: We're going to take another break here. Let me reintroduce you. We are speaking with Zain Asher. She's an anchor for CNN International. She hosts the program "One World With Zain Asher," which airs weekdays at noon. Her new memoir is "Where The Children Take Us." We'll continue our conversation after this short break. I'm Dave Davies. And this is FRESH AIR.
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DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross. We're speaking with CNN International anchor Zain Asher about her new memoir which tells the story of her mother, an immigrant from Nigeria who survived poverty, famine and civil war before coming to England. She lost her husband in a traffic accident when Zain was 5 and managed to raise four children herself in a crime-ridden London neighborhood. She was tough at times, but all four children got good educations and did well. Asher's brother is the actor Chiwetel Ejiofor. She hosts the program "One World With Zain Asher," which airs weekdays at noon. Her new memoir is "Where The Children Take Us."
When you were 9 years old, living in London with your mom and your three siblings - this is remarkable - your mom comes to you and says she's going to send you home for training. What did she mean?
ASHER: Yeah. So in Nigerian culture, if you are Nigerian and you are raising your children in the West - so typically, in either England or the United States - at some point, usually before the end of high school, it is discussed and often acted upon that your children will be sent back to Nigeria to live with extended relatives for a brief period of time. Now, that brief period of time would be without you, without the parents. It would be usually with extended relatives. And it could last anywhere from one year to five years. But the idea behind it is that Nigerian parents want their kids to spend some time in Nigeria back home, even if they are born and raised in England or the U.S., because the Nigerian sort of values include discipline, hard work, resilience, respect for elders, and they really want to find a way to inculcate that, especially during a time in a child's life when they are still, quote-unquote, "malleable" - so not really towards the end of high school because, you know, their ways are set by then, but usually by the age of 9, 10, 11, 12.
DAVIES: So you go there. And, you know, you mentioned that you didn't do a lot of cooking in London because your mom wanted you to focus on school. So now you got to help in kitchen, with kitchen duty. Describe the kitchen and maybe one of your first meals that you helped with.
ASHER: Yeah (laughter), OK. Yes. So I arrived. And, you know, my grandparents obviously didn't have much money, and so we were in a neighborhood called Abakpa-Nike, which is one of the poorest parts of Enugu, you know, to the point where when I meet Nigerian today and I say that, oh, my - I lived in Abakpa-Nike for two years, they are so shocked, and they're like, my God, you're from there? Because that part of the city was really poor. And so, you know, a lot of times in Nigerian culture, especially with, you know, one of our cousins who was from the village, some people did catch their own food. And so when I was there, you know, I sort of witnessed and participated in seeing this - Chinua (ph), who is one of my distant cousins who was living with my grandparents, catch her own food, and it was a pigeon.
And so coming from London, having to do that (laughter) was really difficult. And I was getting a taste of what my mother had experienced during her childhood and what my grandmother had experienced during her childhood as well. And again, this is all - you cannot go through that and not be a different person. If you come from London or you're living in New York and you experience two years in that kind of environment, you are a changed person as a result, and you take nothing for granted afterwards. So it did have the desired effect, but it was rough (laughter).
DAVIES: Your mom had this idea that you should go to Oxford University. And you were a good student, but this was a huge mountain to climb academically. You had to have tiptop grades, and you had to have recommendations from teachers even to apply. And then the entrance exam process was really brutal. And initially, you know, the high school counselor said, no, no, yeah, she's not ready for this. One thing she had to do was get you interested in the idea. How did she do that?
ASHER: Yeah. So when you are an immigrant from, you know, another country and you get a chance to move to England, education becomes almost like a fixation because you've been given this lottery ticket to change your family's future. And you - the last thing you want to do is waste that opportunity. And so for my mother, she really believed that Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, places like that, were the ticket to a better life, so help her God. I mean, that's really what she believed. And so when I was 13, she would just sort of - she just wanted to expose me to Oxford University, right? So she would put me in the car, and her and I would drive together. It was about an hour and a half drive or so from where we lived. And we would just spend the day, maybe just a few hours, just walking around Oxford. Oxford doesn't really have a central campus, so the university is folded into the town. And so we would just wander around, and we would go every so often.
But that, again, changed my subconscious belief because there I was, this 13-year-old girl, I barely even knew what Oxford was or why it was relevant or what its reputation was at all, but just by being there and sort of seeing the people there and sort of breathing the air in, if you will, it sort of began to allow me to dream about the possibility that maybe, eventually, I could attend this university, too. It began to feel normal, almost like I belonged. And then, you know, every single time that I sort of rebelled in my teenage years, which of course I did, you know, when I turned 14, 15, rather than punishing me or grounding me, she would take me back to see Oxford, you know, to show me something better to aspire to. So that was the first thing she did.
DAVIES: Well, in order to do this, in order to even get your teachers to give you the recommendations that you would need to apply, you needed to really get your grades in to kind of the elite status. And, you know, you didn't want to put as much - I mean, you're a teenager. You want to watch TV. You want to talk to your friends on the phone. What did she do to make sure that you put the time in? This is pretty draconian (laughter).
ASHER: It's pretty draconian, yeah. So she - one day, she was pacing her bedroom, and she was just thinking to herself, what can I do? And she'd heard from my teachers that, you know, your child is smart. You know, she does well. But listen; Oxford requires a whole different level in terms of grades, and your child really just isn't there yet. But here are some other universities you can apply to instead. And, you know, coming from Nigeria, she hadn't really heard of the others, you know, even though they were very good. So she had her heart sort of set on Oxford for me. And so she paced her bedroom, and she thought to herself, what can I do? What can I do to guarantee that my child is going to go to Oxford University? What can I do? And then she came in to my bedroom, and she said, oh, my God, I've got it. I know exactly what to do to guarantee - guarantee - that you are going to go to Oxford University. And I said, what, Mom? And she decided to ban me from watching any television whatsoever until I had an actual Oxford acceptance letter in hand. So this would have been roughly around two years, just under two years or so. And, you know, it sounds so extreme when I tell this story, but I would say that I am so grateful that she did that because, honestly, it worked.
DAVIES: Let me reintroduce you. We're going to take another break here. We are speaking with Zain Asher. She's an anchor for CNN International. Her new memoir is "Where The Children Take Us." We'll talk some more after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.
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DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. We're speaking with CNN International anchor Zain Asher about her new memoir, "Where The Children Take Us." It's about her mother, an immigrant from Nigeria who raised four children in a struggling neighborhood in London after her husband had died in a car accident. When we left off, Asher was recalling her mother's determination that Zain get into Oxford University and her imposing a rule when Zain was 16 that she couldn't watch any television until she got an acceptance letter, which would mean nearly two years without TV.
Telling you not to watch television is requiring a lot of willpower on your part. And so at a point, she comes and literally cuts the power cord to the television in half. It is over. And then there's a matter of you spending time on the phone with your friends. What did she do about that?
ASHER: Yeah. So, you know, if you stop your child from watching television, you know, they're going to replace one distraction for another. And for me, luckily, during that point in time, there was no, like, Netflix or YouTube or, you know, apps or Instagram. You know, I just started spending more and more time on the phone. And so one day, she gets what is called - you don't have them in America, but they're sort of widely used in England in, like, doctor's offices, at least, you know, when I was growing up. They're residential pay phones. And what they look like is a normal, tiny, little phone, but it has a slot for coins on one side.
And so she brought home a pay phone, and if I wanted to talk to my friends or anyone, I would have to pay 20 pence a minute. And that meant that I didn't talk on the phone very much. And if I did, it was - it had to be an emergency. And I didn't really have television, and so I had nothing else to do but study. That is how I got into Oxford.
DAVIES: Well, it's remarkable. And, you know, you describe how, actually, as you adapted to it, a group of friends came to appreciate - you would come and study together. You had this kind of almost cult of studying in your house. And in the end - right? - I mean, the grades shot up, and the teachers gave you the recommendations you needed. And then you went to - and the exam to get in, which you describe in the book, were just incredibly tough and stressful and brutal. And I love the fact that, in the end, you wait and wait, and then the letter comes. You've been accepted. And then you have to use the pay phone and find a coin to call your mom and tell her, hey, we made it (laughter).
ASHER: Yeah. You know, that day that I got that acceptance letter, I was so nervous because I'd put in, you know, two years of my life and focused on really nothing else but studying. And, you know, a lot of people from my background see a place like Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, and they just don't even bother to apply because they just think it's not for - it's not - that place is not for me. Even if they have the grades, they don't even think they can actually get in. But because of, you know, some of the things my mother did, I actually really believed that I could achieve that dream. And so when the letter finally came, yeah, I had to call my mom and tell her. And she was at work at the pharmacy. And, you know, she cried. You know, she was so, so happy because it was just really proof that anything was possible.
And you think about all that she'd sacrificed for us to be in England in the first place, I mean, even before my - you know, she lost my dad. But, you know, going through the civil war in Nigeria, at that time, people had to eat snakes to survive. They had to eat crickets and termites to survive at that time. And so going through all of that and deciding to sort of draw a line under that kind of past, starting afresh in England because you believe that, you know, this will give you a fresh start, and this will allow your children to thrive, especially in terms of what they have access to with their education. And seeing all of that manifest in this one letter from Oxford University saying, we are pleased to welcome you to - was just - I mean, that was just a beautiful moment for our family.
DAVIES: You - so you got in. You finished with degrees in French and Spanish. You went to the United States, attended the Columbia School of Journalism. And, you know, you found your way into journalism, you know, small jobs at first. But it's interesting that, as you describe how you got your first reporting job and how you got an anchor job, in every case, you kind of followed that pattern you had learned from your mother of preparing ahead of time for what you might encounter, you know, practicing kind of auditions and, in fact, practicing reporting before you ever had a chance to do it. That's something that's stayed with you, hasn't it?
ASHER: Absolutely. I mean, that is the two things that I would say that my mother taught me about success. Number one is, you know, what I sort of refer to in the book as the eight-hour rule. And, you know, my mother sort of growing up...
DAVIES: What's the eight-hour rule?
ASHER: I'll explain. So my mother, growing up would make us divide our day into three equal parts. So obviously, 24 hours in a day, three equal parts - so eight hours, you know, for sleeping, eight hours to be spent at school, generally, or sort of at work if you're an adult. And the last 8 hours would be spent working towards our dreams. And that was her idea just to sort of, again, give us focus, give us discipline. And, you know, her whole philosophy was that, listen. Everybody, generally speaking, spends seven or eight hours sleeping, generally. Obviously, there are exceptions. And everybody, generally, if they're lucky enough to have just one job, will spend roughly eight, maybe nine hours working.
ASHER: a day. So the only thing that differentiates you from the next person is how you spend the last 8 hours of your day. And so when it came to, you know, becoming an adult and sort of exploring the working world in the United States, that was something I really remembered, like, understanding the importance of accounting for my time. I have to say that, you know, when I was young and single, before I had children, I could really focus on the last 8 hours of my day and using it to prepare in advance. But obviously, having kids changes that because the last 8 hours of your day are not yours anymore (laughter).
DAVIES: Right. You know where that's going. Yeah. You know, a lot of people would say, yeah, that's - you do need fun, too, don't you? Do you have fun?
ASHER: Yes, now I do have fun. But I would say that, no, my childhood didn't have, if I'm honest, that much, quote-unquote, "fun" in the traditional sense. But, you know, what my childhood did for me is - it wasn't the easiest childhood, but it prepared me for real life, you know, and that I'm grateful for. I think that, you know, I could have had a very different childhood or a very different life now had my mother not been as strict, had my mother been a bit more relaxed. And I would take the childhood that I got every single time.
DAVIES: You know, the name of the book is "Where The Children Take Us." And I was reading it, and I was thinking, this is really where my mother took me or where our mothers take us. But it does come from a moment in the book. Do you want to share that with us?
ASHER: Yes. So my mother obviously had a difficult time fitting in in England and feeling like she was actually welcome and belonged, especially as a foreign immigrant coming in in the 1970s. And so she felt quite lonely. I mean, especially also after my father passed away, that loneliness grew louder. And so, you know, it would have been about nine years ago, my brother was actually awarded an OBE by the Queen. And that's an award that the Queen gives every year to honor those who have made a difference in a particular chosen field. And, you know, we went to Buckingham Palace. And my mum was there when sort of Prince Charles - she watched from the front row as Prince Charles pinned this golden sort of medal on my brother's lapel. And, you know, they sat and they spoke - they stood and they spoke, rather, for several moments.
And it was just a really proud moment because my mother, after not fitting in in British society for so long, to be able to go to Buckingham Palace and watch as your son is awarded this medal by the royal family is quite an astounding moment. And she decided that she was going to wear something that was very Nigerian, you know, to show the world that, you know, I'm a proud, strong Nigerian woman. She wore a Nigerian outfit to the ceremony. And afterwards, you know, her and my brother were sort of linking arms. And she was, you know, wiping away the tears that were streaming down her face. And she turned back to the palace, looking at the queen's residence, and then turned to us and said, you never know where your children will take you. And that is where the title of the book comes from.
DAVIES: Well, Zain Asher, thank you so much for speaking with us.
ASHER: Thank you so much.
DAVIES: Zain Asher is an anchor for CNN International. She hosts the program "One World With Zain Asher," which airs weekdays at noon. Her new memoir is "Where The Children Take Us." Coming up, Maureen Corrigan reviews "Tasha," novelist Brian Morris' (ph) memoir about his mother, which Maureen says is a pleasure to read. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/cnn-anchor-zain-asher-looks-back-on-the-tragedy-that-helped-drive-her-success | 2022-05-12T15:19:27Z |
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Danica Roem became the first openly transgender state legislator in the country when she was sworn in as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates back in 2018 - and she defeated a Republican who had served for a quarter of a century. In her new book, "Burn The Page," Roem explores the experiences that got her to that moment as well as the music that moved her along the way. NPR's Juana Summers spoke with Roem about her new memoir.
JUANA SUMMERS, BYLINE: Yes, Danica Roem made history when she was elected to represent voters in suburban Northern Virginia. But take a listen to how she describes herself.
DANICA ROEM: You know, you don't get too many transgender metalhead reporter yogini stepmom vegetarians running for office.
SUMMERS: That's right. She is an openly transgender woman and former journalist who has also fronted a metal band. And Roem was reelected in November to a third term. She said she feels like her story is relatable.
ROEM: I like to think that, for all the, you know, eccentricities, you know, I have and even the, you know, just different worlds of identities, I think one thing that's very common on this is that, you know, like, I do know what it means to have to work. I do know what it means to have to make ends meet and to struggle financially.
SUMMERS: In her memoir, she addresses head-on the types of stories that most politicians would seek to bury as deep as possible. And so I asked Danica Roem, why put yourself out there like this?
ROEM: I want to encourage people to own their own narratives and set fire to the stories that they don't want to be in anymore. And this - the whole point of this is about being yourself at your most authentic sense. And in trans world, one of the things we kind of talk about is your authentic sense of self. And I think this applies regardless of whether you're cis, trans or whoever you are, that if you are able to reflect on the very core of your identity and the very core of your being, why would you want someone else to tell that story for you?
SUMMERS: Your book is sprinkled with some quotes from opposition research you commissioned on yourself. I want to read one example.
(Reading) Danica Roem in 2008 was videotaped performing a keg stand as people chanted suck it, and then proceeded to pick up the keg and chuck it through the window. Seriously.
ROEM: So that last part was an embellishment. Did I do the first two things on that? Yes. But I do not have the upper body strength to be able to perform that last stunt. Therefore, the whole thing - the reason I wanted to include that in the book is that when other people even write, just in that case, as a Facebook status just among friends that was just supposed to make people laugh - right? - other people find things that are either embellishments or not true about you, and they can be the ones who will tell the story.
And very much in politics, what ends up happening is that people will create a narrative about who you are in terms of what they think is politically advantageous for their side. And so one of the things I really wanted to do was kind of own the entire concept of, like, hey, look, things that are written about you online or things that you've written about yourself online - good, bad, right, wrong, correct, incorrect - you've got to be able to own that, recognize it for what it is, and at the same time, use it to empower you to feel confident about telling your own stories, and which is so much of this book.
SUMMERS: You wrote really openly about your childhood growing up in Virginia and the struggle that you describe to fit in. One thing that stuck out to me when I was reading it is that you described how - and I'm quoting how you described yourself - that as a closet case trans girl, that experience taught you how to be resilient.
ROEM: Well, so I on the one hand very much know what it's like to be too afraid to be yourself in front of other people, and so you put up a facade, and you try to become a version of you that you believe is socially acceptable to other people. And because I was so scared of being outed, I was scared of other people, you know, who I knew finding out that I was trans and everything and just looking for these moments of genuine feminine expression. It was so hard.
And when I think in the modern context about what these kids are going through today, where their very - the very state legislators and governors who are elected to serve them and their school board members and their local government officials are singling out and stigmatizing their most vulnerable constituents. Why on Earth and how on Earth would you look at a trans kid and want to demonize them and hurt them rather than say, what can I do to help you and your family day? What can I do to serve you? What can I do to make you a part of this community and make you feel welcome and safe and respected because of who you are, not despite it?
SUMMERS: One thing that's come up over and over again in our conversation, but also in your book, is this idea of being seen for who one is. I wonder if you can talk a little about the importance of that visibility of being seen.
ROEM: So the way I like to phrase it is being vulnerable enough to be visible. And when you're being visible, it's an inherent state of vulnerability because you're putting yourself out there. You're letting people know who you are and that you exist. And so I like to think that my vulnerability, my visibility in 2017, as scary as it would be for me sometimes, it would inspire other adults to run for office, and it would also inspire kids who would send me messages, and they would, you know, just like - I got handwritten letters in the mail.
One of them was from a kid in Hampton Roads who said, you're the first person I'm ever telling this to, but I'm trans, and I'm scared, but I thought that you would understand. And I thought, you know, at least they know that they have a friend in my office. At least they know that there's someone like them and who hurts when they hurt, and at the same time is trying to do something about it, too.
SUMMERS: I cannot have this conversation with you without talking about the throughline that music and particularly metal has had in your life. I would love to know what made it so necessary for you when you were growing up to just hit up all of these shows and all of these venues night after night?
ROEM: Well, you know, I always tell people that when you are into metal, metal isn't just a sound, and it's not just music. It's a lifestyle. It's, you know, the way you dress, the way you talk to your friends, the way you're interacting with other people. The reason that this is - it was all so important for me was I was looking for a sense of community. And, you know, I also knew what it's like to be singled out. And so, you know, when you're a teenager and you're trying to, you know, figure out your identity and trying to figure out how you fit into the world, you know, one thing that very much resonated with me for metal was that kind of audio rebellion that is very much inherent to it. It's very antiauthoritarian. It's very intense musically.
SUMMERS: Danica, you are a stepmom, a yogi, a metalhead, a delegate. What is next on the horizon for you? I know you were just recently reelected. Any plans of running for other offices?
ROEM: Well, so not Congress and not statewide, but check in with me May 9. I'll have another announcement about my next political move then.
SUMMERS: Danica Roem is a Virginia state legislator and the author of the new book "Burn The Page." It's out now.
Juana Summers, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/danica-roems-new-book-shares-her-journey-from-closet-case-trans-girl-to-legislator | 2022-05-12T15:19:33Z |
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
As the political calendar inches towards midterm elections coming right up in November, President Biden's approval ratings are down overall. Democratic pollsters are really sounding the alarm about his approval ratings among young voters. A recent Gallup poll noted support for the president had plummeted 21 points among Gen Z - that is people born after 1997 - and the slump in approval extends through millennials and into Gen X. So what gives?
Well, to make sense of this, we are joined by Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez. She's president and executive director of NextGen America. That's one of the biggest youth vote-mobilizing organizations in the country. I asked her, what's driving this?
CRISTINA TZINTZUN RAMIREZ: What we're seeing from the polling and talking to millions of young people across the country is that young people are very clear that they are inheriting a climate crisis, a democracy in decline and deep and grotesque income inequality. And, you know, a lot of people don't realize, but young Americans, young adult Americans are the first generation in American history to be worse off than their parents.
KELLY: Do you see differences among the generations? Like, Gen Z turn-offs, are they the same as millennials or as Gen X? I don't know. I'm Gen X. I don't know if we count as young anymore - but at the upper end of what you're watching.
TZINTZUN RAMIREZ: I'm a millennial, and, you know, when you combine millennials and Gen Z, they are the largest voting bloc in American history - 65 million young people that are eligible to vote in that younger demographic. And they are consistently progressive, but a lot of them see themselves as independents. They care mostly about issues. And while a lot of young people went and voted to defeat Trump, a lot of them also wanted to see real structural change on the economy.
And there is one thing that is really critical in the back pocket of the Biden administration that would greatly help Democrats, which is canceling student debt. And it's something that the Biden administration really needs to consider to improve the lives and show that they understand the economic pain of the new generation that feels like they don't know when they can have kids; they don't know when they can buy a house. They don't have a lot of security in their economic future.
KELLY: Which is so interesting because, you know, the Biden administration would argue that a lot of things are going right with the economy, that it is better than it was two years ago. Unemployment is way down, for example.
TZINTZUN RAMIREZ: Ordinary Americans don't judge how the economy is doing just by the GDP or how well big corporations are doing; they judge it by how well they're able to make ends meet, how it impacts their pocketbook, how much housing costs, how much they're earning. Truth be told, Biden doesn't control everything that happens in the economy by any means. No president does. But when we talk about the issues that especially young people care about, you see they want big structural change on the economy. They want a minimum of a $15 minimum wage in this country. They want to hold big corporations accountable. They are suspicious of how much inequality has grown in this country.
KELLY: Well, so is the Democratic Party (laugher) going to put the time and energy into this? I mean, in your view, does the White House have a plan to turn things around before the November elections?
TZINTZUN RAMIREZ: You know, I am starting to see people have the right conversations. But for me, it's not just about the conversation about the youth vote, it's about, ultimately, budget priorities and how they spend money speaking and reaching to millions of young people. You know, we have 25,000 volunteers across the country that helped us text, call, organize on dating apps and Twitch and all kinds of ways digitally that I'm - since I'm a grandma millennial, is too old even for me...
KELLY: (Laughter).
TZINTZUN RAMIREZ: ...To fully understand. But we were able to reach millions of young voters that way, and it's really critical that all of those strategies be employed for '22.
KELLY: Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez, grandma millennial and president and executive director of NextGen America, thanks for talking with us.
TZINTZUN RAMIREZ: Thanks. I'll start using that in my title. Take care (laughter). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/democratic-pollsters-sounds-the-alarm-as-young-voters-support-of-biden-plummets | 2022-05-12T15:19:39Z |
ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
Atlanta is taking steps to memorialize the victims of convict leasing - that's forced penal labor, often under brutal conditions akin to slavery. As Molly Samuel of member station WABE reports, the city is buying a property where thousands worked and many died.
MOLLY SAMUEL, BYLINE: Local activists have been fighting for years to protect the former site of the Chattahoochee Brick Company instead of allowing industrial development on it. Right now, there's not much there - a few scattered piles of bricks, dense woods, a cracked driveway.
DONNA STEPHENS: This place is probably one of the most horrific post-slavery sites in America.
SAMUEL: Donna Stephens has led the effort to protect the site and to teach people what happened here. The factory churned out bricks that built modern Atlanta around the turn of the 20th century. They're literally the foundation of homes, streets and sidewalks here. The people who made those bricks, mostly Black men, had been arrested and forced to work, living in filth, eating rotting food, being beaten. People died here.
STEPHENS: It's been very personal for me.
SAMUEL: Stephens lives in a nearby neighborhood named after the owner of the Chattahoochee Brick Company. James English was one of the wealthiest men in Atlanta, a former Confederate captain and mayor of the city. Stephens says when she learned who he was and what he was involved in, she was floored.
(SOUNDBITE OF DRUMMING)
SAMUEL: Religious leaders recently honored the people who had suffered at the factory with a memorial at the property. Imam Plemon El-Amin is retired from the Atlanta Masjid of Al-Islam.
PLEMON EL-AMIN: Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can. And ignorance cannot drive out ignorance, only knowledge and understanding can.
SAMUEL: At the event, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said the bricks in his home may have come from the factory. He says now that the city is buying the land, there will be a memorial here and a park.
ANDRE DICKENS: It is time that this space with such an ugly past be turned into something beautiful.
SAMUEL: Journalist Douglas Blackmon wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning book called "Slavery By Another Name" about convict leasing. He describes Chattahoochee Brick as nightmarish, and he says it wasn't alone.
DOUGLAS BLACKMON: At any given time, there would have been tens of thousands, if not significantly more than that, of African American men, primarily, forced into these circumstances all across the South.
SAMUEL: He says the system was part of the backlash to African Americans gaining freedom after the Civil War - trying to vote and to live as full-fledged citizens. And he says he still sees tentacles of it today in mass incarceration.
BLACKMON: In terms of America's acceptance of the idea that it's OK for a huge population of people to be oppressed in these kinds of ways, that's absolutely a legacy of what happened in these years.
SAMUEL: The National Center for Civil and Human Rights, a history museum here, is bringing people together now to talk about what shape a memorial could take. Jill Savitt is the CEO of the center. She says it's important to have a dedicated space to honor victims of convict leasing.
JILL SAVITT: No community is going to move forward on racial justice, on economic justice, on a range of issues, unless we can be really clear-eyed about where we've been.
SAMUEL: Local activist Donna Stephens says she feels like this history has been overlooked, with schools essentially skipping from the Civil War to something Atlanta is more proud of - as the birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr. and home of other leaders of the civil rights movement.
STEPHENS: The history books stop with slavery and pick up with Dr. King. It's ridiculous.
SAMUEL: Now Atlanta is beginning the work to fill in that gap.
For NPR News, I'm Molly Samuel in Atlanta.
(SOUNDBITE OF KINOBE'S "CELESTION") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/encore-atlanta-aims-to-turn-brick-factory-with-an-ugly-past-into-something-honorable | 2022-05-12T15:19:45Z |
ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
There are musicals about fairy tales, musicals about Founding Fathers and now a musical about one woman's journey through competitive college bhangra dancing. NPR's Hafsa Fathima recently caught up with the show's writers and brought us this story.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ISHQ KO KAL MEIN KHOJIYE")
ARI AFSAR: (Singing) When I dance, I'm connected. When I dance, I'm here.
HAFSA FATHIMA, BYLINE: That's the sound of "Ishq Ko Kal Mein Khojiye," a song from the new musical "Bhangin' It." It had its first production this spring at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego. Bhangra is a Punjabi folk dance from India and Pakistan.
REHANA LEW MIRZA: As time gone on, it has become popularized in the U.S. through these intercollegiate competitions, where they honor the traditions of bhangra, and they put their own American flavor to it.
FATHIMA: That's Rehana Lew Mirza, who co-wrote the book for the musical. She's followed bhangra competitions around the country.
LEW MIRZA: I became obsessed with it shortly after graduating from college. And I would trade writing classes for tickets to bhangra competitions.
FATHIMA: She co-wrote the book with her husband, Mike Lew. Longtime playwrights, this was their first musical. And it explores similar themes they've brought to other plays.
MIKE LEW: Within our plays, there is a real bruising race politics. And, indeed, like, the way that our marriage was formed was from having a lot of conflict over what our responsibilities are as Asian American writers and as both individuals and kind of members of a community.
FATHIMA: Lew is third-generation Chinese American. Lew Mirza is the child of Pakistani and Filipino immigrants. The protagonist of their musical is a mixed-race college student named Mary, who joins her collegiate bhangra team in order to connect with her culture. But when Mary and her team disagree about how much their dancing should keep with tradition or embrace new styles, conflict arises.
LEW: That conflict is a larger sort of meditation on being multigenerational Americans and sort of, how do we hold on to our culture and yet let it evolve?
FATHIMA: Lew and Lew Mirza turned to composer Sam Willmott to write the music and lyrics.
LEW MIRZA: We wooed him by (laughter) taking him to Basement Bhangra as well and to Big Apple Bhangra competition in Queens. We basically rented a Zipcar and zipped him away (laughter).
FATHIMA: Willmott loves Golden Age musicals that put dance at the heart of storytelling, but writing in the bhangra style was new to him.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SAM WILLMOTT: I think the first thing to do was just to listen, listen, listen, listen. You know, we went to bhangra competitions, but also just, like, broad strokes research.
FATHIMA: Over time, they added other styles of music - poetic recitations from India and Pakistan called ghazals, Bollywood numbers, and, of course, pop music. Willmott says it was important to give the music cultural depth and scope, so they brought in Indian classical musician Deep Singh to co-orchestrate.
DEEP SINGH: There's a moment where we go from, like, ghazal - but there's still a theater aspect to it. But then we go, like, suddenly into this classical world with tanpura and lira and classical tabla playing, and then we go back into theater again. It's the coolest thing ever to hear.
FATHIMA: Hafsa Fathima, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SCHMITZ: The show has closed in La Jolla and heads to Boston later this year.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/encore-new-musical-bhangin-it-centers-a-competitive-college-bhangra-dancer | 2022-05-12T15:19:51Z |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
An exhibition of the works of Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide runs through the end of May in Paris. The iconic photographer, now almost 80, was first known for her portraits of Indigenous peoples. She later traveled to photograph Chicano communities in Los Angeles and transgender people in India before changing her focus again. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley got the chance to sit down with Iturbide, who makes a strong first impression.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Draped in an elegant black cape, Graciela Iturbide greets me with warm words and a twinkling, observant gaze. Born in 1942 in Mexico City, where she still lives today, this emblematic figure of Latin American photography says she happened upon her life's work quite accidentally. She had wanted to study literature and become a writer, she tells me through an interpreter.
GRACIELA ITURBIDE: (Through interpreter) But in my bourgeois family, it was just not possible at all for a woman to go to university in the '60s. So I felt very frustrated.
BEARDSLEY: Iturbide married young. But after her kids grew a little, she went back to night school to study cinema. Well-known photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo was giving classes. Bravo had made a name for himself in the '20s and '30s working with muralist Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Iturbide says she got lucky and became his apprentice in the early '70s.
ITURBIDE: (Through interpreter) He opened, I would say, the wonders of the world to my eyes. And he gave me the opportunity to discover my country and then the rest of the world.
BEARDSLEY: When talking about being a successful photographer, Iturbide quotes another icon, Henri Cartier-Bresson.
ITURBIDE: (Through interpreter) Henri Cartier-Bresson said - I had the great luck of meeting him in Paris. He said that there was one decisive moment when you are a photographer, and it is the moment when you actually seize your camera and take the picture.
BEARDSLEY: Whatever the camera, success depends on the eye behind it, she says, and passion, dedication and discipline.
ALEXIS FABRY: Personally, I have a very emotional relation to Graciela.
BEARDSLEY: That's Alexis Fabry, curator of the Cartier Foundation for Modern Art, which is hosting the exhibition.
FABRY: There's a word some people use in relation to her work that I think is not a bad word. It's anthropoetry - that very subtle oscillation in her work between something that could be anthropological and something that is poetical.
BEARDSLEY: Fabry says this exhibit traces Iturbide's slow journey from people to abstraction, uniting herself with nature, objects and animals. Iturbide says her interests changed in the years, partly because drug wars made it difficult to travel to Indigenous regions. Instead, she decided to focus on human beings' relationship with objects.
ITURBIDE: (Through interpreter) I think we are accompanied with gardens, mountains, objects, you know, and stone. I mean, the stones were the first thing that actually arrived, in a way, after the Big Bang. And I'm very interested in everything that has to do with life, with everything that surrounds us.
BEARDSLEY: The retrospective at the Fondation Cartier brings together more than 200 of Iturbide's images from around the world, spanning her work from the 1970s to the present.
Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHEQUERBOARD'S "QUOTIDIAN DEBRIS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/encore-paris-exhibit-looks-back-on-graciela-iturbides-photographs | 2022-05-12T15:19:57Z |
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Harvard says it will make amends for what it calls its extensive ties to slavery from its founding in 1636 to after the Civil War. Harvard is the world's wealthiest private university, and it has now committed $100 million to redress that history. Max Larkin from member station WBUR reports.
MAX LARKIN, BYLINE: A 130-page faculty report identifies dozens of enslaved people who served Harvard's presidents, faculty and staff. and the university's endowment - now over $40 billion - was seeded with the wealth of slaveholders. Harvard's president, Lawrence Bacow, announced the plan in a video message published this morning.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LAWRENCE BACOW: The legacy of slavery continues to influence the world in the form of disparities in education, health, wealth, income, social mobility and almost any other metric we might use to measure equality.
LARKIN: Bacow says it's Harvard's moral obligation to work toward repair. The university's governing board has set aside $100 million in that effort. Some may be spent on new partnerships with historically Black colleges or on memorials or on projects involving descendants of slavery.
Freshman Christian Gines says Harvard feels haunted by its history to him and his Black classmates. Gines says he worries that Harvard's commitment here, however large, will pale in comparison to the earnings on its big endowment, which includes investments in private prisons and foreign real estate.
CHRISTIAN GINES: There are still Black and brown people locked up today. They invest in a lot of Black and Indigenous land in America and throughout the world, whether that be in Brazil and Africa and in other places. And so there are structural things, not only in the past that they've done, but in the status quo that they're continuing to do, that they could easily disinvest and reinvest that in other places.
LARKIN: The university has formed a committee that will make concrete decisions on the use of the funds.
For NPR News, I'm Max Larkin in Boston. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/harvard-university-has-committed-100-million-to-redress-its-early-ties-to-slavery | 2022-05-12T15:20:04Z |
Russia is regarded as one of the world's most advanced countries when it comes to anything and everything related to spying, and that includes secretive, high-tech military communications.
For Russian leader Vladimir Putin, a former intelligence officer, this is a particular point of pride. Yet Russia's reputation has taken a major blow with the often bumbling way the military has handled communications in Ukraine.
Here's a look at how the Ukrainians have effectively countered the Russians on multiple fronts:
⚡️ The interception by @DI_Ukraine: a conversation between the occupiers, which refers to an order to kill all the @ArmedForcesUkr in the #Popasna district, #Luhansk region
— National resistance: Ukraine (@ResistUA) April 20, 2022
The #russians violate all the laws of war. But war crimes have no statute of limitations#RussianWarCrimes pic.twitter.com/rsnjOUkmLC
Q. Ukraine keeps publicly releasing what it says are intercepted Russian communications from the battlefield. Wouldn't Ukraine want to keep this under wraps?
Ukraine feels there are huge public relations benefits in releasing intercepted material that's either embarrassing to Russia or points to Russian wrongdoing, possibly even atrocities.
Ukraine's military intelligence recently put out audio on social media, saying that as two Russian military members were speaking, one called for Ukrainian prisoners of war to be killed.
"Keep the most senior among them, and let the rest go forever. Let them go forever, damn it, so that no one will ever see them again, including relatives," a voice says on the tape.
NPR can't confirm the authenticity, and there's no indication that the Russians acted on this statement.
But collectively, the ongoing stream of audio released by the Ukrainian government and military points to Ukraine's sustained ability to intercept Russian military communications.
While the public releases are limited, military analysts say the Ukrainians are certainly capturing additional calls that provide important battlefield intelligence, which is not being shared publicly.
Q. How are the Ukrainians intercepting these calls?
This is probably happening in several ways. But at the most basic level, some Russian troops have apparently been far too casual in their communications.
The Russians brought their own cellphones into Ukraine. When the Ukrainians figured this out, they cut off Russian phone numbers from the Ukrainian network — so the Russian phones stopped working.
Russian troops then began seizing cellphones from Ukrainian civilians, according to Ukraine's State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection.
"We call on Ukrainians whose mobile phones were taken away by representatives of enemy troops to inform the operator as soon as possible," the Ukrainian agency said in a statement last month.
Ukrainian civilians have complied, and this let the Ukrainian government know which phones were stolen by the Russians — and effectively became listening devices for the Ukrainians.
Dmitri Alperovitch, a cyber expert who heads the Silverado Policy Accelerator, says this is just one way the Ukrainians are tapping into Russian communications. The overall result, he said, has been a huge Ukrainian advantage in intelligence.
"The intercepted phone calls are just invaluable in getting a sense into what the Russians are thinking, the state of their morale," said Alperovitch. "There was an intercepted phone call where the Russian officer was saying how half of his troops have frostbite on their feet, how they don't have any hot stoves for food. They're sleeping in trenches."
Q. If this has been happening since the beginning of the war, why can't the Russians figure out how to prevent it?
This has been a real mystery, especially since the Russians have a long history of having strong military intelligence and communications.
The Russians have a modern, secure radio system for the military. Russian intelligence has been extremely active in Ukraine for years. But Russia has so far squandered these advantages, according to military analysts.
Inexplicably, the analysts say, Russia has used basic, off-the-shelf, unencrypted radio communications in many cases that made it relatively easy for the Ukrainians and others to listen in.
Also, it's not clear why Russia hasn't simply bombed Ukrainian communications networks to rubble.
Russia expected a quick and easy takeover of Ukraine, and there's been speculation that Moscow wanted to keep the phone system, the railways, the electrical power grid and other infrastructure in place so Russian forces could use it.
And, no doubt, Russia is also tapping into Ukrainian communications and would like to continue these operations.
But whatever the reasons, Ukraine's phone and internet systems are functioning in most places, in contrast to what was predicted before the war.
Q. Are the Ukrainians getting any outside help?
The Ukrainians are getting significant intelligence help from the United States and other NATO countries, according to U.S. officials.
Most of this assistance remains secret, but some is easily visible on social media.
"If you look at the flight radar right now, almost constantly, you see U.S. Air Force planes that are flying near the Ukrainian border, collecting intelligence," said Alperovitch.
The U.S. planes are not entering Ukrainian airspace but are nearby over the skies of Poland, Romania and elsewhere in the region.
"I'm sure that they're collecting radio communications and other forms of intelligence that they then pass on to the Ukrainians that is invaluable in their prosecution of this fight," said Alperovitch.
Q. Is this intelligence sharing new, or has this happened before?
There's history here, and it's dripping with irony.
Russia waged a major cyberattack in Ukraine in 2015, taking down parts of the electricity grid, and then Moscow interfered in the U.S. presidential election in 2016.
These Russian actions prompted the U.S. and Ukraine to work together to counter Russian cyber measures.
NSA Director Gen. Paul Nakasone doesn't say much in public. But he testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee about U.S. cooperation with Ukraine on March 10, just a couple of weeks after the war started.
"The intelligence that we're sharing is accurate. It's relevant and it's actionable," Nakasone told the committee.
CIA Director William Burns offered a similar assessment in a rare public speech earlier this month.
"We have been equally committed to rapid and effective intelligence sharing with our Ukrainian partners throughout the fighting and for months beforehand," Burns said.
Putin probably doesn't appreciate this irony, but his cyber actions against the U.S. and Ukraine several years ago helped forge a partnership that's now being used very aggressively to undermine his war in Ukraine.
Greg Myre is an NPR national security correspondent. Follow him @gregmyre1.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/how-does-ukraine-keep-intercepting-russian-military-communications | 2022-05-12T15:20:10Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The Perseverance Rover that's scooting around Mars is equipped with microphones. It captured the sound of the wind on the Martian plains.
(SOUNDBITE OF WIND BLOWING)
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
And to simulate how you would sound on Mars, NASA has developed a new online tool. We gave it a try.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
FADEL: This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Leila Fadel.
MARTIN: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Rachel Martin.
FADEL: I sound out of this world. Sylvestre Maurice is a planetary scientist in Toulouse, France.
SYLVESTRE MAURICE: Mars is a very quiet place. The atmosphere is so thin, the high-pitched sound gets attenuated a lot.
FADEL: And Maurice says the carbon dioxide that makes up most of the Martian atmosphere mutes high-pitch sounds.
MAURICE: It has to do with a molecule of CO2 that is vibrating. It's going to absorb very efficiently that sound. It would be very strange to listen to music on Mars.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOUND DOG")
ELVIS PRESLEY: (Singing) You ain't nothin' but a hound dog, cryin' all the time.
MARTIN: Elvis on Mars. The Perseverance mission breakthrough gives humans their first chance ever to hear both real and imagined sounds from another planet.
MAURICE: We've been touching. We've been smelling. But we never hear anything. I think we - honestly, we're sitting on a pile of gold or something. And we don't know exactly what we're going to find.
MARTIN: A virtual pile of gold on the red planet, which is yielding some very cool discoveries.
(SOUNDBITE OF TIMMY DUKERR'S "SHUFFLE FEELINGS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/if-you-could-speak-on-mars-how-would-you-sound | 2022-05-12T15:20:16Z |
A third of the way through Tasha, novelist Brian Morton's superb short memoir about his relationship with his smart, difficult and funny mother, he recalls a professor he had in college "who once mentioned that he'd recently gone into therapy to work out some unresolved feelings about his parents."
Morton remembers his younger self scornfully thinking: "You're still trying to work out your stuff with your parents! Does it ever end! Christ, you must be thirty years old!"
"And here I was, at sixty," Morton dryly comments.
No, it never ends. But one thing that sets Tasha far apart from the usual one-sided literary conversation with a deceased parent is Morton's rigorous attempt to see his mother, Tasha, whole — as a person — not "just" in relation to him, or, God forbid, an eccentric "character."
Another thing that distinguishes Tasha is Morton's elastic style as a writer, by turns droll, emotionally wrenching, and profound. Despite the serious acclaim he's garnered for novels like Starting Out in the Evening and Florence Gordon, Morton is one of those novelists who's still under the radar of the larger reading culture.
Indeed, there's a scene here where Morton pokes fun at his own literary reputation. His mother Tasha has just been picked up by the police in his old hometown of Teaneck, N.J., after she's gotten into an argument with another elderly woman on the jitney transporting them to a nearby senior center. The police take Tasha to a state psychiatric facility. When a frantic Morton calls the police to find out what the heck happened, this screwball conversation ensues:
"You're the writer, right?" [The cop says.]
Was I famous? [wonders Morton] Was I such a famous son of Teaneck that my name was known to the police?
"Your mother kept talking about you" [says the cop]. "She kept saying you were going to write a book about the Teaneck police force and expose us all."
"I'm already on it," [Morton] says.
"You ever written anything I might have read?" [the cop asks]. "You as good as she says?"
"No," [Morton says.] "No to both."
Years before a series of falls and a stroke propel Tasha's descent into dementia, Morton tells us his mother was the kind of woman who didn't respect boundaries, bursting into his teenage bedroom, even offering to act as chauffeur on a date when Morton is in his 20s: "It took me years, even decades, to fashion a relationship with my mother in which I could affirm my love for her while placing limits on her."
With Tasha's deterioration, Morton fears there will be no limit to her claim on him.
In her prime, Tasha had been a beloved teacher in Teaneck; but after the death of Morton's silent, Irish father, Tasha had become an eccentric, turning into a hoarder. In one maddening scene here, she refuses to let Morton throw out even so much as a swizzle stick from her jam-packed, mouse-infested house.
Those of us who've already trailed a declining parent down this slope will understand what Morton means when he says that when it comes to senior services, the motto of this country is "You're On Your Own." At one point, Morton hires a highly recommended live-in aide, whom his mother ferociously dislikes. Unsure if Tasha's complaints are based in reality, Morton resorts to hiding a listening device in her cluttered house. When Morton listens in on a conversation, he's stunned by the caregiver's verbal abuse, but he's also aware of himself thinking, along with all his other thoughts, "At least she doesn't beat her."
Shortly afterwards, Morton embarks on the dizzying search for a good nursing home. He describes a tour of:
...a Jewish home that had a great reputation — it's like a country club a social worker had told me — ... [B]ut when I visited the main room it was the same old bullshit with the residents nodding out and the aides looking at their phones. You couldn't blame the aides: they were undertrained, underpaid, unorganized by any union, ... This was just the way things were, in the land of no mercy.
"The land of no mercy" would have been a fine alternate title for this powerful memoir. No mercy for the elderly in need; no mercy for the labor force that cares for them; no mercy for the guilt-ridden, exhausted adult children. It's a wonder that with themes this heavy, Tasha is such a pleasure to read, oscillating between past and present, horror and hilarity, the big social picture and one son's ongoing attempt to work out some stuff with his mother.
Copyright 2022 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/in-tasha-a-son-tries-to-make-sense-of-his-smart-difficult-mother | 2022-05-12T15:20:22Z |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
WNBA All-Star Brittney Griner is still in a Russian prison. When she's not playing for the Phoenix Mercury, the 6-foot-9 center plays for a team in Russia. Griner was arrested back on February 17 of this year for carrying hash vape cartridges in her luggage at the Moscow airport. It happened just days before war broke out between Ukraine and Russia. Jeff Eisenberg with Yahoo Sports has been looking into the timing of her arrest and the implications, and he joins us now. Hey, Jeff.
JEFF EISENBERG: Hey. How are you?
MARTIN: Doing well. Thanks for doing this. Can you start off by telling us about Brittney Griner's career in Russian basketball?
EISENBERG: Yeah. So in the offseason, a lot of WNBA players will go overseas to earn more money. And one of the most lucrative teams is UMMC Ekaterinburg. It's owned by two Russian oligarchs. And they're certainly a team that American players would want to play for because of the salaries and because of the way that they're treated there.
MARTIN: So as a result, Brittney Griner's kind of a big deal in sports circles in Russia. Nevertheless, she's arrested. Russia accuses her of breaking the law by having these vape materials with her. Her next court date is May 19. Can you explain the two possible ways the court could rule?
EISENBERG: Well, so it's a pretrial date on May 19, and the decision that the court will make is, is there more time needed for criminal investigation or is this case ready to proceed towards trial? And that decision is significant for a number of reasons. One, if they need more time, it's a suggestion that perhaps she might be there for more than just legal reasons because this is a pretty simple case. There's not a ton of witnesses. There's not a ton of evidence. So if it needs another extension, it's a suggestion that there is value for the Russian government for Brittney to be in custody because, potentially, she could be useful to them down the road.
MARTIN: Well, let's talk about that possible utility because it's impossible to ignore the fact that her arrest happened right as Vladimir Putin was launching this war in Ukraine, which was obviously going to invoke the ire of the United States. Is Brittney Griner a political prisoner at this point?
EISENBERG: I think it's too soon to say definitively. But what we can say definitively right now is that she is at risk of being a political prisoner. There's basically two ways that her case could go. Her case could go down a legal track where she is essentially at the mercy of the Russian legal system, which is scary enough in its own right, or she could be dangled by Vladimir Putin as a political prisoner in exchange for perhaps another prisoner or something else that he wants.
MARTIN: Do we know anything about the conditions under which she's being held?
EISENBERG: We don't know much at all. We know that the State Department has visited her one time and declared her to be in good physical condition. But we don't know where she is being held. We don't know the conditions in that prison.
MARTIN: The WNBA starts its new season May 6. How has her home team, the Phoenix Mercury, been dealing with her absence?
EISENBERG: From what I understand, the Mercury are very concerned about her, but they also haven't spoken very much about her. And they have tried very, very hard not to shine a spotlight on this case and not to potentially increase her value as a hostage. So the lack of information is, again, troubling, like a lot of aspects in this case.
MARTIN: Jeff Eisenberg is a writer with Yahoo Sports. He joined us on Skype. Thanks so much, Jeff.
EISENBERG: You're welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/investigating-the-timing-and-implications-of-brittney-griners-arrest-in-russia | 2022-05-12T15:20:28Z |
ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
NASA and SpaceX are set to send the next round of astronauts to the International Space Station tomorrow from the Kennedy Space Center. One member of the mission is NASA's astronaut, Jessica Watkins, who will become the first Black woman on a long-duration space mission. WMFE's Brendan Byrne reports she's only the fifth Black woman to travel to space, a fact NASA wants to change.
BRENDAN BYRNE, BYLINE: Jessica Watkins is humble about her soon-to-be-record-breaking flight. The 33-year-old geologist from Colorado joined the astronaut corps in 2017. She's part of NASA's Crew-4 mission, a six-month journey to the space station.
JESSICA WATKINS: I think it really is just a tribute to the legacy of the Black women astronauts that have come before me, as well as to the exciting future ahead.
BYRNE: That legacy took a long time to develop. Early on, astronauts were far from diverse, says NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
BILL NELSON: In the old days, when we first started flying in space, they were all military test pilots. They were usually white males of only a certain height.
BYRNE: The astronauts that flew in the 1960s during NASA's Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions that landed on the moon were all white men. When the space shuttle program was developed in the 1970s, women and people of color were encouraged to apply to the astronaut corps, but it would take decades to see the first Black woman launch to space.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Two, one - solid rocket ignition and lift off; lift off of Endeavour on America's 50th space shuttle flight.
BYRNE: NASA's Mae Jemison launched on the shuttle Endeavour in 1992. After that, just two more Black women would fly on shuttle missions - Stephanie Wilson and Joan Higginbotham.
SIAN PROCTOR: It is frustrating.
BYRNE: Sian Proctor became the fourth Black woman to fly to space and the first to pilot a spacecraft on a commercial mission with SpaceX. She spent three days in orbit last year, which was more than a decade after the last Black woman astronaut flew to space.
PROCTOR: When you don't have people of color, women of color in particular up there doing science, paving the way, showing that it is possible, then you're not inspiring that section of the population to dream that as a career for themselves.
BYRNE: NASA understands the importance of representation. Its astronaut corps is now the most diverse it has ever been, but there's still work to be done. For its next lunar program, what it calls Artemis, NASA promises to land the first woman and first person of color on the moon this decade. Again, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
NELSON: We want to see that all people of all backgrounds have the opportunity to participate in the space program.
BYRNE: For Proctor, it's a large responsibility to be that role model and inspire those who look like her to enter a field in which so few Black women have been before.
PROCTOR: I kept thinking how, you know, I really want to be successful so that other women of color will follow behind me.
BYRNE: Ahead of her flight, that responsibility is not lost on Jessica Watkins, either.
WATKINS: For me, growing up, it was important to me to have role models in roles that I aspire to be in, contributing in ways I aspired to contribute. So to the extent that I'm able to do that, I'm honored and grateful for the opportunity to return the favor.
BYRNE: And it might not be her only chance to return that favor. NASA selected Watkins to train for those next lunar missions so she can continue her trailblazing ways and leave footprints on the moon for others to follow.
For NPR News, I'm Brendan Byrne in Orlando. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/jessica-watkins-to-be-the-1st-black-woman-to-serve-at-the-international-space-station | 2022-05-12T15:20:34Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
The Biden administration was planning to rescind Title 42 on May 23. In March of 2020, the Centers for Disease Control under the Trump administration issued a public health order that allowed border agents to send migrants at the U.S. border back rather than hearing asylum claims, citing COVID infection risks. But yesterday, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order preventing any action by the Biden administration before the next court hearing on May 13. We're now joined by Democratic California Congressman Tony Cardenas. He was at the White House yesterday with other members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Congressman, thanks for being here.
TONY CARDENAS: My pleasure to be here. I appreciate this opportunity for us to discuss this important topic.
MARTINEZ: So at the moment, what do you expect to happen on May 23?
CARDENAS: Well, I'm hoping and expecting that on May 23, the Biden administration will follow through. What this judge did today stands for apparently 14 days. The judge might extend it. But in the meantime, the Biden administration is looking to follow through with their commitment to try to responsibly and appropriately rescind this effort on Title 42, which started with the Trump administration.
MARTINEZ: Now, the judge is Robert Summerhays from Louisiana. He's a Trump appointee. What would make you think that the temporary restraining order would not be extended, considering his ruling today?
CARDENAS: Well, I'm sure the Biden administration is going to continue to fight this lawsuit. And it's important for people to understand that the Biden administration, as he told us members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus leadership who met with the president face-to-face, that he is committed to following through with his commitment to make sure that they recognize and give asylum-seekers the due process that they deserve when they come seek asylum at our border.
MARTINEZ: Considering that President Trump invoked Title 42 in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, did you ever think that it ever made public health sense? In other words, was it ever a policy that made sense from a public health standpoint?
CARDENAS: I think it was a policy that was manipulated to try to make sense. But now we have vaccines. We have quarantine practices. We have COVID that is still with us but very much in the sideview mirror, soon to be in the rearview mirror. So I think that the Biden administration is going to do everything that it can to treat people with the dignity that they deserve and give them the opportunity to follow through with their seeking of asylum when they come to our borders.
MARTINEZ: Congressman, when you say it was manipulated to make sense, are you saying that Title 42 was invoked strictly as an anti-immigrant, anti-asylum maneuver?
CARDENAS: Absolutely. This has the fingerprints of Stephen Miller, who is very anti-immigrant and someone that Trump trusted and entrusted very much to help him come up with policies exactly like this. But Stephen Miller is no longer in the White House. We have a Biden administration who is a lot more thoughtful and respectful to people who want to seek asylum here in the United States.
MARTINEZ: Your colleague Texas Democrat Henry Cuellar's district runs right along the border. And he has said that he has seen infections rise there recently. Also, he believes it was a mistake to think about rescinding 42 for political reasons. Here's a quote. "We can't believe that they're hurting Democrat chances for the November election. Democratic voters are not happy. And if you look at independent voters, they're not happy about this decision. So who are we trying to please?" Congressman, is the migrant surge that is expected if 42 gets lifted too much of a political risk for vulnerable House and Senate Democrats right now?
CARDENAS: I believe when 42 is rescinded and we bring proper order to those seeking asylum, what you're going to see is they're going to have the opportunity to get a vaccine. They will take it, and they will be safe here. They will not be endangering the lives of people in this country.
MARTINEZ: Because I know some senators - Mark Kelly, Chris Coons, Gary Peters - they've all come out asking the Biden administration to reconsider rescinding Title 42. How does it feel to hear members of your own party have their doubts about whether rescinding 42 is a good move at this time?
CARDENAS: Well, I can't speak for the homework that some of my colleagues did or did not do. But what I know - I'm on the Energy and Commerce Committee. I'm on the Health Subcommittee. And we have heard testimony after testimony about how to treat this pandemic that is still in our midst. And we do have vaccines. We do have quarantine practices. We do have best practices. And we can do things as good as anybody in the world can. And when we apply those practices and those vaccines, etc., you're going to see that these people seeking asylum are not going to hurt our country in any way. And our country is not going to be less safe with them here.
MARTINEZ: Congressman, one last thing. Politically, though, does it make more sense to hit a pause on rescinding 42 until after the midterms are over?
CARDENAS: I believe that when it comes to doing the right thing, doing the right thing doesn't know a season. The season for doing the right thing is now. We have people who are seeking asylum, people who are fleeing death in their own countries. And our country has always been the beacon of light for folks. And I believe that as long as we look at that as our path forward, we are going to be able to do the right thing again.
MARTINEZ: That's Tony Cardenas, Democrat from California. Thank you very much.
CARDENAS: Thank you so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/judge-temporarily-blocks-biden-administration-from-lifting-covid-border-rules | 2022-05-12T15:20:40Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Since the war began in Ukraine, the highest-profile peace mission is happening in Moscow today. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres started his first meeting with Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov. In brief opening remarks, Lavrov said he wants to talk about the need for multilateralism, and Guterres said he was interested in brokering a cease-fire. Guterres is also scheduled to meet with President Vladimir Putin today. These meetings come just after Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin traveled to Kyiv and later declared that Russia is failing to achieve its goals in its war on Ukraine.
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LLOYD AUSTIN: We want to see Russia weakened to a degree that it can't do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.
FADEL: In response, Russia's foreign minister warned the threat of nuclear war should not be underestimated, as he accused NATO of waging a proxy war with the Kremlin. We're joined now by Ivo Daalder. He served as the U.S. ambassador to NATO from 2009 to 2013 and is currently president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Good morning, Ambassador.
IVO DAALDER: Good morning, Leila.
FADEL: So we just heard Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin say the U.S. wants to see Russia weakened. So is this a proxy war, as Russia's foreign minister claims, between NATO and Russia, with the goal of undercutting Russia's power?
DAALDER: Well, if it is a proxy war, it's a war - it is such because Russia invaded Ukraine. If Russia had not invaded Ukraine, we wouldn't be where we are today.
FADEL: Right.
DAALDER: What I think Secretary Austin has underscored in the meeting he has today with all NATO countries and others is about helping Ukraine to win this war, fundamentally helping a country that was attacked to defend itself. That's what this is all about.
FADEL: Now, Austin says the U.S. wants to see a weaker Russia after this invasion started and with this war ongoing. Biden did make that comment that Putin shouldn't stay in power. He later said it was an expression of outrage rather than a call for regime change. So the Biden administration is not calling for regime change in Russia. In your view, what is the U.S. goal here?
DAALDER: Well, I think the U.S. goal is something that Jake Sullivan said, the national security adviser, just a few days ago on the Sunday shows. He said the goal in the end is a free and independent Ukraine, a weakened and isolated Russia and a stronger and united NATO and Western alliance. And I think on the weakened part - of course, that is what Secretary Austin emphasized. It's something that has been around in the U.S. statements for quite a while. When the United States imposed the export control sanctions way back when the war started, President Biden said that our goal is to weaken Russia's ability to wage war. And over time, what we want is a situation where Ukraine is free and independent and where Russia is no longer able to do the kinds of things that it has been able to do by invading Ukraine.
So there is a longer-term strategy to make clear that Russia cannot get away with what it's trying to do now and shouldn't succeed in trying to do so in the future. It's why we're bolstering NATO. It's why we're helping Ukraine with more and capable weapons. And it's why we have real sanctions that are biting and continue to bite on the Russian economy, in order to make sure that what Russia did on February 24 - invading a neighboring country without being provoked - doesn't happen again.
FADEL: So in part, it is about curbing Russia's power and its ability to do these things.
DAALDER: In part, it is curbing Russia's power until Russia starts to behave like a country that belongs in the family of nations, that doesn't use force to change borders, which it has tried to do repeatedly - in Georgia in 2008, of course in Ukraine since 19 - since 2014, and now full force with the invasion of - on February 24. It's on Russia to demonstrate it is willing to behave in a way that one expects from great powers and from all nations, to respect the sovereignty and independence of its neighbors, not to use force to change borders, and to accept that the best way it enhances its own security is to have good and friendly and positive relationships with other countries around the world.
FADEL: Now, Lavrov made clear that the Kremlin sees this as a power struggle between Russia and NATO, a proxy war, and as I mentioned, he hinted at nuclear war. How serious should the world take this now-repeated threat from the Kremlin?
DAALDER: Well, we always have to be - as soon as a nuclear power is threatening nuclear war, we have to take that very, very seriously. I think the administration is. It is something that is more likely today, unfortunately, than it was before Russia invaded. At the same time, we cannot and should not allow threats and bluster of the kinds that not only Foreign Minister Lavrov, but frankly, Vladimir Putin and others in the Russian government have expressed. We should not allow those threats to determine our behavior. We stand on the right side here. Ukraine was invaded. There was nothing that Ukraine - there was no threat that Ukraine posed to its neighbors. And we want Ukraine to be a free and independent country. And therefore, we're going to help it to defend itself. We've not crossed the line of bringing our own forces directly into the conflict, although under the U.N. Charter, we would be perfectly in the right to do that. It would be legal from that perspective, but we've decided that how we're going to help Ukraine is by sending it weapons, not by directly helping it. The problem remains, of course, that Russia is the country that invaded Ukraine, and here we are doing what we can to help them defend themselves.
FADEL: In the few seconds we have left, what do you expect from the meetings today between the U.N. and Kremlin?
DAALDER: Nothing, really. I don't see Vladimir Putin wanting to have a serious political solution to this problem. He wants to get as much control of territory and control the country as best he can. That's what it's all about for him.
FADEL: Thank you. Ivo Daalder is currently president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Thank you for being on the program.
DAALDER: My pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/nato-defense-officials-meet-in-germany-to-decide-the-next-steps-for-ukraine | 2022-05-12T15:20:46Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Every one of the 88 cities in Los Angeles County is affected by unhoused populations. But they don't all deal with the crisis in the same way. Anna Scott from member station KCRW reports on one plan in an exclusive southern California beach community that doesn't sit well with its neighbors.
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ANNA SCOTT, BYLINE: Malibu is known as a beautiful getaway for locals and for tourists, like Zebedee Pedersen (ph).
ZEBEDEE PEDERSEN: We're having a picnic on the beach and a can of wine, which maybe isn't such a good idea. But why not?
SCOTT: Malibu is a long, skinny city stretched out along the coast and sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean and the Santa Monica Mountains.
PEDERSEN: We've been turning around and looking at the hills and trying to work out which houses we would want to live in.
SCOTT: This is one side of Malibu, dreamy landscapes, mansions. There's another side. Malibu is a surprisingly rural place. And if you're experiencing homelessness, it's downright rugged.
AARON MARSHALL: I don't got nowhere to lay my head and feel at ease. Yeah. It's really stressful - just keep walking around all day.
SCOTT: Aaron Marshall walked to Malibu a few days ago from the city of LA and is now one of more than 200 unhoused people estimated to camp out on the streets and in the canyons of Malibu on any given night. That's a tiny fraction of the more than 66,000 people unhoused throughout LA County. But it's nearly 50% more than Malibu saw just a few years ago, which City Councilmember Bruce Silverstein says has people worried about public safety, campfires getting out of control. And, he says, Malibu should remain exclusive.
BRUCE SILVERSTEIN: I am able to live here because I've worked hard all my life and I can afford to. If I couldn't afford a house in Malibu, I wouldn't have a house in Malibu. I'd live in another city that's less expensive to live in. And I think the unhoused population is in the same boat.
SCOTT: Malibu has laws against camping in public spaces. But they're tough to enforce because of a federal court ruling that says cities can't ticket or arrest people for sleeping outside unless there's shelter available. That's why city officials decided to pursue setting up shelter beds and voted to put them someplace outside city limits and transport people there. Silverstein, an attorney, says this fulfills the city's legal obligations. And beyond that, why should Malibu be responsible for people who have walked there from other parts of LA County?
SILVERSTEIN: The people living unhoused in Malibu are not really, quote, "Malibu's homeless," unquote. They didn't lose their home in Malibu.
SUE HIMMELRICH: If each of us took responsibility for the people in our jurisdiction, I think it would be a lot easier for all of us to have a comprehensive approach.
SCOTT: Sue Himmelrich is the mayor of Santa Monica, a city just south of Malibu. She says treating a regional crisis city by city just won't work.
HIMMELRICH: Sixty thousand people cannot be solved by Santa Monica or by Malibu. My view is that we're all in LA County, and we are obligated to all pitch in with this crisis.
SCOTT: These types of disagreements aren't just between cities. Even the city of LA's 15 council districts have different approaches and are reluctant to shelter people from other districts.
MARSHALL: I guess there's a bad stigma attached to homelessness, you know? A lot of us are fighting, like, drug problems. And so, yeah, I understand why they're trying to push us out.
SCOTT: Back in Malibu, Aaron Marshall empathizes with housed residents. And if he could go to a shelter right now, he would.
MARSHALL: If they could put anything - I don't know - close enough for us to get to on foot or - you know what I mean? That would be nice. I don't want to get a tent and just live in the woods, you know? That doesn't seem right, you know?
SCOTT: But to get a shelter bed, he'll first need a ride to a different city.
For NPR News, I'm Anna Scott in Malibu.
(SOUNDBITE OF SLOW DANCING SOCIETY'S "A SONG THAT WILL HELP YOU REMEMBER TO FORGET") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/neighboring-communities-criticize-malibus-plan-to-deal-with-homelessness | 2022-05-12T15:20:52Z |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Monday was a day of legal setbacks for former President Donald Trump. A judge in New York ruled that Trump is in contempt of court. And he's fining him $10,000 a day for not responding to a subpoena for business documents and information. The judge also decided that a former real estate broker for Trump must turn over all kinds of documents stemming from an investigation into his business empire by the New York attorney general. NPR's Andrea Bernstein was in the courthouse yesterday, and she joins us now. Good morning, Andrea.
ANDREA BERNSTEIN, BYLINE: Good morning, Rachel.
MARTIN: So $10,000 a day - a lot of money but maybe not so much if you have a business worth billions. How big a deal is this contempt charge for Donald Trump?
BERNSTEIN: Big. So this is a very attention-getting amount of money for Donald Trump. In the course of my reporting on Trump, I've read business contracts where he made sure his company was paid a cut of money for minibar items sold at hotels that licensed his names, like M&M's and peanuts. I've spoken to former employees who had to pony up for gifts they thought their boss had given them. So yes, $10,000 a day is big money even when your name is Donald Trump, and you're someone who famously never likes to lose. Now, Donald Trump and his company have denied any wrongdoing. And they've accused the New York attorney general, Democrat Letitia James, with being politically motivated. What's different now is that a judge, Judge Arthur Engoron of New York's Supreme Court, a neutral arbiter, has agreed with the attorney general's position that Trump is not being forthcoming. Trump's lawyer says she's appealing, so he likely won't have to start paying right away.
MARTIN: Andrea, how - I mean, how often does a contempt charge like this happen?
BERNSTEIN: So Donald Trump, as a businessman and as president, has a pretty consistent pattern of refusing to turn over documents and records, even when courts tell him to. But I've written a book about Trump's business. I've hosted two podcasts about him, and I can't think of any ruling like this one holding him in contempt for the practice of refusing to comply with a court. We also spoke to Rebecca Roiphe, a New York Law School professor and a former prosecutor, who told us it's very rare that a document request like this one results in a contempt citation.
REBECCA ROIPHE: And especially because, you know, this is really a losing claim. Like, why would you push it to the point where you got sanctioned?
BERNSTEIN: What she's saying is you might get a contempt citation, like, after a trial or if you're ordered to pay a fine. But most lawyers don't let it get to this so early in a case for among other reasons, because they don't want to antagonize a judge before an actual case has been filed. So this is really unusual.
MARTIN: So it's unusual in general for a contempt charge like this to happen. It's unusual for Donald Trump in particular. So how did it come to this?
BERNSTEIN: So this is the long-running investigation into whether the Trump Organization lied to tax authorities and to lenders about the value of its properties. And one of the things that came up in court yesterday is that Donald Trump has turned over no documents to the state attorney general, zero in response to a subpoena from last year and that the attorney general only has 10 documents of his that they got from his business. Trump's lawyer said the documents, text messages, Post-its, notes do not exist. But a judge told her that her filing saying that was, quote, "woefully inadequate."
MARTIN: Just real quick, Andrea, there was a second ruling yesterday involving the real estate brokerage. What can you tell us there?
BERNSTEIN: This what's so interesting. The brokerage is Cushman & Wakefield, a major firm. And an assistant attorney general stood up in court yesterday and said two appraisers who work for Cushman had, quote, "made misstatements at the Trump Organization's behest." Translation - they'd allegedly fudged property values so the Trump Organization could underpay taxes or lie to its lenders. Judge said that Cushman had to turn over documents, meaning there's more evidence to come in this investigation.
MARTIN: NPR's Andrea Bernstein in New York. Thank you, Andrea.
BERNSTEIN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/new-york-judge-holds-trump-in-contempt-of-court-and-fines-him-10-000-per-day | 2022-05-12T15:20:59Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Elon Musk says he wants to, quote, "unlock Twitter's potential," and now he can.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Musk is buying the social network for $44 billion, and he's taking the company private. The Tesla CEO is the richest man in the world, and he has repeatedly tweeted to his millions of followers what he plans to change at the company.
FADEL: NPR tech reporter Bobby Allyn joins us to explain what Musk plans to do with Twitter. Hi, Bobby.
BOBBY ALLYN, BYLINE: Hello.
FADEL: So before we get to Musk's vision for Twitter, let's talk about why he wanted to buy the company in the first place.
ALLYN: Yeah, well, it's a coveted piece of internet real estate, so it's a status boost to own it, and Musk thinks he can make it better. Now, Musk is already CEO of the world's most valuable car company, Tesla, and, you know, he runs a very successful rocket ship company, SpaceX. But in his spare time, he likes to play on Twitter, sending out jokes and memes and promotional stuff to his more than 80 million followers. So he's a power user of Twitter, right? But, you know, as a business, Twitter has been struggling for a while. So Musk says he can make it a better business. And if shareholders and regulators approve, you know, he's going to have a real shot at it. So we'll see what happens there. In his statement announcing the purchase of Twitter, Musk described it as being a digital town square that he thinks should have fewer rules. In the same statement, Musk said that free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy.
FADEL: And a lot of people have expressed concern about what that could mean - the implication, of course, being that Twitter right now is not a welcome place for free speech. But is that actually true?
ALLYN: Yeah, I think it's fair to say that Musk is exaggerating quite a bit. There are rules on Twitter, right? You can't harass people. You can't bully. You can't incite violence. You can't spread misinformation about things like COVID-19. But for the most part, you know, a lot of edgy and toxic and offensive material is allowed on Twitter, but apparently not enough for Musk. So he wants to radically open the floodgates to all sorts of content on Twitter. And he hasn't specifically spelled out what he means, but he has said, you know, tweets that are sort of in the gray zone of Twitter's rules, as long as it's not illegal, he says those tweets should be allowed on Twitter.
FADEL: So it sounds like it could be possible that things like hate speech would be allowed on Twitter under Elon Musk's vision of unfettered free speech. What else does he say he's going to do?
ALLYN: Yeah, he wants to open-source Twitter's algorithm - that's the software code that determines what goes viral - so, you know, anyone can look at it. OK, that's one thing. Another proposal he's floated is to let people edit their tweets after they're sent, which is pretty controversial. You know, on the one hand, you can clean up typos after a tweet is sent. I know, personally, that would be a relief to me. But...
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FADEL: I'm full of typos all the time.
ALLYN: Exactly. But on the other hand, you can imagine people going back and editing tweets to cover up, say, you know, harassing someone to make it look like it never happened. Another Musk proposal that almost nobody is against is a crackdown on Twitter bots. Those are the anonymous accounts that can sort of gang up on people and attack them en masse on the platform. It's pretty unpleasant. And I think it's fair to say that there's a user consensus that fewer bots on Twitter is a good thing.
FADEL: OK, but how about people who've been banned from Twitter, prominent people like former President Trump? Would this mean he'd be allowed back?
ALLYN: Yeah, that's the question on everyone's mind. Musk hasn't publicly addressed whether Trump is going to come back. Trump, for his part, told Fox News that he has no plans to return, but we shall see. I mean, you know, from Trump on down, there could be invitations to these people who have been banned to come back to the platform, but we just have to see. There was an all-hands meeting on Monday, and Twitter's CEO was asked specifically about Trump - will he be coming back to Twitter? And the CEO said, that is now completely up to Elon Musk, as are so many things about Twitter's future right now.
FADEL: NPR's Bobby Allyn. Bobby, thanks.
ALLYN: Hey, thanks so much.
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FADEL: Today the White House is announcing a new push to inform people about Pfizer's life-saving antiviral drug.
MARTIN: Yeah, the pill is called Paxlovid, and it's been shown to reduce the risk of COVID-19 hospitalization by up to 90% - so highly effective - yet hundreds of thousands of doses are sitting on shelves just unused. The administration wants to make sure that people know about it, and they're trying to encourage doctors to prescribe it.
FADEL: NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith has the details and joins us now. Hi, Tamara.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Hi.
FADEL: OK, Tam, so if this pill could save lives, why is it sitting on shelves?
KEITH: Several reasons, but it all comes down to this - actually getting the drug is, as one health care expert put it to me, a bit of a rigmarole. You have to start taking it within five days of the onset of symptoms. So it is a race to get a COVID test, get someone to prescribe it and then find a pharmacy that carries it. It is currently authorized for people 12 and up who have high risk for severe COVID, but that could include being overweight or having asthma or diabetes or high blood pressure. Those are all risk factors. And a large share of the U.S. population has one of those, but they may not realize it. Many doctors have been reluctant to prescribe it. One administration official on the call with reporters last night explained that a lot of doctors are operating from a scarcity mindset because back in December and January, it was scarce.
FADEL: OK.
KEITH: But now there are plenty of pills to go around.
FADEL: OK, so then what is the White House saying it's doing to address this disconnect?
KEITH: Education and outreach, not just to potential patients but also to doctors and other providers who could prescribe it. A lot of patients simply don't know Paxlovid exists, or their doctors tell them that they don't qualify when they really do. Paxlovid does have quite a few drug-drug interactions, which means that to prescribe it, a doctor sometimes has to puzzle through their patient's medication list. So, for instance, they might have to pull their patient off of their cholesterol medication for five days while they're taking Paxlovid.
The White House COVID team is providing doctors with information to make it easier to decide whether their patients are a good fit for the drug. And they're also - the White House - announcing a new pharmacy program to get these pills into even more retail pharmacies - 10,000 additional locations this week, with more to follow. And one more thing - they're working to expand the Test to Treat program, getting help from FEMA and working with states to set up one-stop shops where people can get tested and get Paxlovid with less of the rigmarole. Health professionals I've spoken to say the fact that people don't know about Paxlovid and aren't taking it when it could keep them out of the hospital is a failure. And today's announcement is an acknowledgment from the White House that just procuring the pills isn't enough.
FADEL: Now, Congress is back this week, and the White House still hasn't gotten the $22 billion in additional COVID funding it requested last month. Has there been any movement on that?
KEITH: Not much. You might remember just before the spring recess, there was a bipartisan deal to fund less than half of what the White House wanted, and it blew up. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says both parties must come back to the table and find an agreement, but the timeline he gave was weeks rather than days.
FADEL: NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith. Thanks, Tam.
KEITH: You're welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FADEL: A New York judge is holding former President Donald Trump in contempt of court for failing to turn over subpoenaed documents.
MARTIN: This is part of an ongoing civil investigation by the New York attorney general into Trump's business dealings. The judge is fining the former president $10,000 a day for not responding to a subpoena for documents and information related to his business empire.
FADEL: NPR's Andrea Bernstein was in the courthouse yesterday. Hey, Andrea.
ANDREA BERNSTEIN, BYLINE: Good morning.
FADEL: Good morning. So, Andrea, $10,000 a day - that's a lot of money, at least for most people. But maybe it's nothing if you have a business worth billions? How big a deal is this?
BERNSTEIN: Big. It is a very attention-getting amount of money. So I have read business contracts for Trump's hotels, for example, where he made sure his company was paid a cut of the money for the M&Ms and the beers sold at minibars in hotels he was licensing.
FADEL: Wow.
BERNSTEIN: I've spoken to former employees who've had to pony up for gifts they thought their boss had given him. So, yeah, $10,000 a day - that is big money. And Donald Trump is someone who really does not like to lose. Now, he and his company have denied wrongdoing. They've accused the New York attorney general, Democrat Letitia James, of political motivations. What's different now is that a judge, a neutral arbiter, has agreed with the AG's position that Trump is not being forthcoming. Trump's lawyer says she's appealing, which means he likely won't have to start paying right away.
FADEL: So is a ruling like this unusual?
BERNSTEIN: I have written a book about Trump's businesses, and I've hosted two podcasts that concern him. I can't think of any ruling like this one. This is someone whose businesses have been in court literally thousands of times. We spoke with Rebecca Roiphe, a New York Law School professor and a former prosecutor, who told us it's very rare that a document request like this one results in a contempt citation.
REBECCA ROIPHE: And especially because, you know, this is really a losing claim. Like, why would you push it to the point where you got sanctioned?
BERNSTEIN: What she's saying is you might get a contempt citation if you, say, refuse to pay a fine or after a judgment after a trial, but most lawyers don't let it come to this before a case has even been filed because, among other things, they don't want to potentially antagonize a judge. So this is really unusual.
FADEL: So you said most lawyers wouldn't let it come to this, and yet here they are in this case. Andrea, how did it come to this?
BERNSTEIN: This is a long-running investigation into whether the Trump Organization lied to tax authorities and to lenders about the value of its properties. And one of the things that came up in court yesterday is that Donald Trump has turned over no documents to the state attorney general in response to a subpoena from last year and that the AG only has 10 documents from him, and that's only because they got them from his company. Trump's lawyer says the documents don't exist, but the judge told her that her filing attesting to that was, quote, "woefully insufficient."
FADEL: There was a second ruling yesterday involving the real estate brokerage. What was that about?
BERNSTEIN: So this is so interesting. The brokerage is Cushman & Wakefield, which is a major firm, and an assistant attorney general, Austin Thompson, stood up in court and said that two appraisers who had worked for the brokerage had, quote, "made misstatements at the Trump Organization's behest." Translation - they had allegedly fudged property values so the Trump Organization could underpay its tax authorities and also misrepresent the amount of money it had to lenders. And the judge said Cushman & Wakefield had to turn over big quantities of documents, meaning there's even more evidence of alleged unlawful behavior that could come to the AG. And the broker's attorneys haven't said if they will appeal.
FADEL: NPR's Andrea Bernstein. Thanks.
BERNSTEIN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/news-brief-musk-to-take-twitter-private-paxlovids-availability-trump-civil-probe | 2022-05-12T15:21:05Z |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
There's a lifesaving antiviral drug from Pfizer out there called Paxlovid. It's been shown to reduce the risk of hospitalization from COVID by up to 90%. And yet, hundreds of thousands of doses of this drug are just sitting on pharmacy shelves, unused. Today, the White House plans to reveal a new push to make sure people know about it and to encourage doctors to prescribe it. NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith has details, and she joins us this morning. Hey, Tam.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: If Paxlovid is something that could save your life, why aren't people taking it?
KEITH: There are several reasons, but it all comes down to this - actually getting the drug is, as one health care expert put it to me, a bit of a rigmarole. You have to start taking it within five days of the onset of symptoms. So it is a race to get a COVID test, get someone to prescribe it, find a pharmacy that actually carries it and then start taking it. It is currently authorized for people 12 and up who have risk factors for severe COVID, but it turns out that's a lot of people because that could include being overweight or having asthma or diabetes or high blood pressure. But many doctors have been reluctant to prescribe it. One administration official on a call with reporters last night explained that a lot of docs are still operating from a scarcity mindset because back in December and January it really was scarce. But now, there are plenty of pills to go around.
MARTIN: So what's the White House plan to do something about this?
KEITH: Education and outreach and not just to potential patients but also to doctors and others who could prescribe it. A lot of patients simply do not know that Paxlovid exists, or their doctors tell them they don't qualify when they really do. Paxlovid is a bit complicated to prescribe. There are some drug-drug interactions, which means the doctors have to puzzle through their patient's medications list and decide, for instance, that they need to go off their cholesterol medication while they're taking the Paxlovid. The White House COVID team is providing doctors with information to make it easier to decide whether their patients are a good fit for the drug.
They're also announcing a new program with pharmacies to get these pills into even more retail pharmacies - 10,000 additional locations this week with more to follow. And the administration is also working to expand its test-to-treat program, working with FEMA and the states to set up these one-stop shops where you could get tested and get Paxlovid with less of the rigmarole. But health professionals I've spoken to say the fact that people don't know about it and they aren't taking it when it could keep them out of the hospital is simply a failure. Today's announcement is an acknowledgment from the White House that getting the pills wasn't enough. They have to do more.
MARTIN: Right. So meanwhile, Congress is back this week, and the White House still doesn't have the $22 billion in additional COVID funding that they asked for last month. Any movement there?
KEITH: Not much. You might remember just before the spring recess, there was a bipartisan deal to fund less than half of what the White House had asked for, and it blew up. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer now says both parties must come back to the table and find an agreement, but the timeline he gave was weeks rather than days. The White House says that this lack of funding won't affect Paxlovid supplies today. This is about the next generation of antiviral pills or a variant-specific booster that might be needed this fall.
MARTIN: NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith. Extra points for using the word rigmarole, Tam, this morning.
KEITH: Twice.
MARTIN: Thanks so much. Twice.
KEITH: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/paxlovid-a-highly-effective-covid-drug-will-be-made-available-to-more-pharmacies | 2022-05-12T15:21:11Z |
The sell-off continues in Wall Street.
On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by more than 800 points, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq slumped almost 4 percent lower, sinking further into bear territory.
All three indexes are on track to end the month with sizeable losses, with the Nasdaq set to end April down more than 10%.
There is plenty of cause for alarm on Wall Street at a time when investors were already worried about sharply higher interest rates as the Federal Reserve fights inflation.
Shares also tumbled late last week after Fed Chair Jerome Powell signaled policy makers could raise rates by half a percentage point at the central bank's next meeting in early May, or double the rate hike it delivered in March.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has also led to concerns about food and energy supplies, further ratcheting up inflation fears.
And now, lockdowns in China amid a spike in COVID cases are raising concerns about global supply chains, while some of the world's largest companies have reported disappointing earnings.
After the closing bell on Tuesday, Alphabet announced its profits were lower than Wall Street expected, thanks in part to higher costs, and Microsoft reported revenue that was slightly higher than anticipated.
More than 150 publicly traded companies are reporting earnings results this week for the first few months of the year, including some of the biggest names in tech.
Meta, Facebook's parent company, will report earnings on Wednesday, while Apple and Amazon are set to report on Thursday.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/shares-continue-to-slump-as-fears-about-the-economy-and-earnings-grip-wall-street | 2022-05-12T15:21:17Z |
Mercedes tells owners of 292K vehicles to stop driving them
DETROIT (AP) — Mercedes-Benz is telling the owners of more than 292,000 vehicles in the U.S. to stop driving them because the brakes could fail.
The automaker is recalling the vehicles and says it will offer free towing so owners can get them to a dealership for service.
The recall covers certain ML, GL and R-Class vehicles from the 2006 through 2012 model years.
Mercedes says moisture can get into a brake booster housing and cause corrosion.
That can cause a vacuum leak, which would decrease brake performance.
Mercedes says in a statement Thursday that in rare cases the brakes can fail.
The company says it has no reports of crashes or injuries.
Dealers will inspect the booster and replace parts as needed.
Owners will be notified by letter starting May 27.
Check your vehicle’s recall status.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/12/mercedes-tells-owners-292k-vehicles-stop-driving-them/ | 2022-05-12T15:21:18Z |
The Supreme Court seemed skeptical Tuesday of Texas and Missouri's effort to block the Biden administration from terminating the so-called "Remain in Mexico" program, but it's not clear there are five votes backing the Biden administration.
Officially called the Migrant Protection Protocols, the Remain in Mexico policy is a Trump-era immigration policy that required asylum seekers to wait for their immigration hearing in Mexico. It was devised by the Trump administration in hopes of deterring migrants from coming into the United States and asserting asylum claims, but has been criticized for subjecting asylum seekers to squalid living conditions and violent attacks, kidnapping, extortion and rape at the hands of criminal cartels.
The Biden administration suspended the program immediately upon taking office, but the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, acting on a challenge brought by Texas and Missouri, ordered the new administration to continue the Trump policy. The Supreme Court heard Tuesday's case on an expedited appeal.
The justices peppered each side with questions about the complicated layers of the Immigration Nationality Act, executive discretion, and how immigrations officials weigh the public interest when deciding whether to release asylum seekers or detain them.
The argument comes on the heels of another loss for the Biden administration. On Monday night, a Trump-appointed judge blocked the administration's attempt to terminate Title 42, another Trump-era immigration policy which dramatically expanded the number of undocumented immigrants subject to expedited removal without a hearing before an immigration judge.
This story will be updated
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/supreme-courts-conservatives-divided-over-remain-in-mexico-policy | 2022-05-12T15:21:23Z |
ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
In Northern Illinois, a multimillion-dollar airport expansion on a rare patch of prairie threatens an endangered bumble bee, and environmentalists say the Endangered Species Act is not helping protect it. Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco reports.
JUANPABLO RAMIREZ-FRANCO, BYLINE: Mary Griswold was recently at a makeshift party outside of the Chicago Rockford International Airport. The group celebrated the emergence of the rusty patched bumble bee, a federally endangered species since 2017.
MARY GRISWOLD: The queen is supposed to come out of hibernation around this time, so that's one of the things that got us motivated to come out today.
RAMIREZ-FRANCO: This celebration was the latest in a series of events organized by a grassroots campaign trying to save a rare remnant prairie which is also the site of a proposed $50 million expansion at the Rockford Airport. The bee was found on the prairie last fall, and that was enough to temporarily halt construction. It also triggered an Endangered Species Act consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Rob Telfer is with the Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves. He says saving the bumble bee is linked to saving its habitat.
ROB TELFER: The problem is the Endangered Species Act does not protect remnant prairies.
RAMIREZ-FRANCO: In 2020, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided against designating critical habitat for the rusty patched bumble bee. That additional protection would require federal agencies to determine that a project using federal dollars would impact threatened or endangered species or their critical habitat. The service concluded that habitat destruction is not the bee's main threat, calling the bee a habitat generalist. That decision ushered in a legal challenge by the Natural Resources Defense Council. The group's Lucas Rhodes argues that habitat remains key.
LUCAS RHODES: The tool is there. It's in the Endangered Species Act. But the Fish and Wildlife Service is just not using that tool in this particular circumstance to protect the bee's habitat, and that's the problem.
RAMIREZ-FRANCO: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would not comment for this story, citing the lawsuit. Neither would airport officials, though they did confirm that the consultation is now in its final phase, and the service has 135 days to deliver a final decision.
The rusty patched bumble bee was once common throughout much of the Midwest and Northeast United States into Canada. It's now disappeared from nearly 90% of its native range.
Margarita Lopez-Uribe teaches entomology at Penn State and has been studying bees for more than two decades. She says habitat loss is a major driver of the bee's demise.
MARGARITA LOPEZ-URIBE: So a lot of areas that used to have very diverse floral resources have now been converted to agriculture or, you know, through urbanization. And basically, there is not a lot of food available.
RAMIREZ-FRANCO: Lopez-Uribe adds that, on top of the habitat loss, pesticides and the unknown effects of climate change further complicate life for this bumble bee. The airport has installed a chain-link fence and added a large no trespassing sign to deter people from getting on the land while it's in legal limbo. Conservationist Rob Telfer says he's fine letting the legal process play out, but says the prairie and the bee are worth fighting for.
TELFER: We're out here for a few acres because that's all that's left because we've been giving these tiny little pieces to different projects for, you know, hundreds of years, and we're running out of space.
RAMIREZ-FRANCO: In the meantime, environmentalists and the airport officials are waiting to see if summer on the remnant prairie here will be filled with the sound of bumble bees or bulldozers.
For NPR News, I'm Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco in Rockford.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAURYN HILL SONG, "DOO-WOP (THAT THING)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/the-endangered-species-act-is-failing-to-protect-a-bumble-bee-environmentalists-say | 2022-05-12T15:21:29Z |
ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
Pfizer and BioNTech asked the Food and Drug Administration today to authorize the first COVID-19 vaccine booster shot for children age 5 to 11.
NPR's Rob Stein joins us now to talk about this. Hey, Rob.
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: Hey, there. Doing, Rob (ph)?
SCHMITZ: Good. Until now, boosters have only been available for adults and kids as young as 12, so this would make these younger kids eligible for a booster for the first time. What are the companies saying about why these younger kids should get a booster?
STEIN: Yes, other companies say their research indicates two things. No. 1 - a third shot of their low-dose pediatric vaccine six months after the second shot appears to be very safe for kids ages 5 to 11. And second, a booster can pump up their antibodies big time, including against the omicron variant. And so a booster should help counter any waning of protection that has occurred among these kids, just like in older kids and adults.
SCHMITZ: Do other experts agree with this?
STEIN: Well, the first thing I should say is that all the experts say we need to see the data. So far, all we know about this is what the companies have said in a news release. That said, many say that it'll probably be a good idea to make boosters available for these kids given the fading protection we've seen in older age groups.
Here's Dr. Yvonne Maldonado at Stanford University. She's helping the companies test their vaccine and advises the American Academy of Pediatrics.
YVONNE MALDONADO: Over time, immunity to the vaccine wanes. And we know that that happens in children as well. So the data really right now support boosters to maintain immunity, so I would vaccinate my 5- to 11-year-olds and boost them.
STEIN: But, you know, Rob, others aren't so sure. They say the vaccines are still protecting kids from getting severely ill. I talked to Dr. Paul Offit at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia about this. He advises the Food and Drug Administration.
PAUL OFFIT: If there is clear benefit for a third dose - and to me, the definition of benefit is enhanced protection against serious illness - then, of course, get the third dose. But absent that, I don't see a compelling reason to give a third dose now.
SCHMITZ: So Rob, what happens now?
STEIN: You know, the FDA will review the company's case and could convene a meeting of the agency's outside advisers to help make a decision. Then the CDC would weigh in. And in the past, all that's happened, you know, pretty quickly.
SCHMITZ: OK. So do we have any idea how much demand there'd be for boosters for 5- to 11-year-olds?
STEIN: Some parents will probably be very eager to get their kids boosters - you know, many of the same parents who rushed out to get their kids the first two shots. But, you know, Rob, that's a minority of parents. Less than a third of parents of kids ages 5 to 11 have gotten their kids the first two shots, and less than a quarter of children ages 12 to 17 have gotten boosters, even though they've been eligible for months. So, you know, given the fact that the omicron surge has faded and kids don't typically get as sick as adults, it may be a tough sell for many parents.
SCHMITZ: While we're on the subject of kids, where do things stand with getting a vaccine for the youngest kids - those under the age of 5?
STEIN: Well, this week, we're also expecting Moderna to seek authorization for a low-dose version of its vaccines for kids as young as 6 months old. Moderna says two shots of that vaccine look safe and effective at boosting antibodies high enough to protect kids. But, you know, two shots don't look that great for actually protecting kids against getting sick from omicron, so that's raised questions about whether kids will actually need three shots. And that's what happened with Pfizer's vaccine, so Pfizer started testing a third dose. And, you know, at one point, we expected this vaccine for young kids to be available this month, but it looks now like the FDA probably won't take this up until June.
SCHMITZ: That's NPR health correspondent Rob Stein. Rob, thanks.
STEIN: Sure thing. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/the-fda-may-soon-authorize-a-covid-booster-for-kids-ages-5-to-11 | 2022-05-12T15:21:35Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Aristotle once theorized that nature abhors a vacuum. And as many of us retreated indoors during the pandemic, rats were great at filling that vacuum, especially in cities. Lawrence Wu is a New York City-based producer on NPR's history podcast, Throughline. And in this report, he looks at how rats became one of the planet's most successful mammalian colonizers.
JASON MUNSHI-SOUTH: You know, you kind of see the landscape, and you're looking for signs of rats everywhere. Are there burrows there? Is there a rat feeding in that corner? So yeah, they're just, to me, like, part of the city.
LAWRENCE WU, BYLINE: This is Dr. Jason Munshi-South. He's a professor of biology at Fordham University in the Bronx, where he leads his own research lab.
MUNSHI-SOUTH: And since about 2008, when I moved to New York City, I've been studying the effects of urbanization on wild animals and also pest species like rats.
WU: Jason's lab focuses on understanding how humans and cities affect wild animal populations in those places. So I call him up to get a little more insight into what is up with New York City's rats.
MUNSHI-SOUTH: They're primarily nocturnal. They live in burrows. So they'll burrow into soil and spend, you know, most of the day down there. And they build these colonies...
(SOUNDBITE OF RATS SQUEAKING)
MUNSHI-SOUTH: ...Almost like villages of related rats. They're highly social. They spend a lot of time with other rats. They have to be somewhere near water sources. And they are, you know, territorial to some degree. But over time, they'll add more tunnels, and they'll start to connect. They'll sort of overlap with neighboring burrows. And so it becomes this big tangle.
WU: Like a subway but for rats.
MUNSHI-SOUTH: So I've seen them, you know, in, like, New York City parks where there wasn't a lot of control going on, where you could count, like, 300 holes. And you could just watch them coming in and out all day.
WU: Seeing all those rats coming in and out of those rat holes sparked a question.
MUNSHI-SOUTH: What's going on with rats in New York City? How did these animals get here?
WU: And Jason decided to build a whole study around it. The first thing he discovered was that New York City is actually overrun by just one kind of rat - the brown rat.
MUNSHI-SOUTH: Their Latin name is Rattus norvegicus, which would translate to the Norway rat. But that's a misnomer. They did not originate in Norway. We don't exactly know why they have that name.
WU: Jason and his team decided that in order to find the actual origin of the New York City rat, they had to compare its DNA to other rats in the world to find a match, kind of like an ancestry.com or 23andMe but for brown rats. So he and his team started calling and asking labs around the world to send them DNA samples of their brown rats.
MUNSHI-SOUTH: We ended up with, you know, like, 500 samples all around the world. And we just decided, OK, let's do this properly and try to understand what major groups of rats exist everywhere and use that as context to understand what rats are in New York City.
WU: And what they found was that all the signs were pointing to a place thousands of miles east of Norway.
(SOUNDBITE OF FOREST AMBIENCE)
MUNSHI-SOUTH: As far as we know, they originated in East Asia.
WU: Likely in a region between northern China and Mongolia a couple million years ago.
MUNSHI-SOUTH: It's likely that originally they were living along, like, streams, sort of grassy savannah areas where there was water sources. And they were probably eating all sorts of things - seeds, fruits, insects, you know, snails. They've even been found in coastal areas to eat, like, mussels and things.
WU: And for a long time, the brown rat kind of did its own thing. So the question is, how and when did our paths get so intertwined?
MUNSHI-SOUTH: When did they become commensal with humans? Commensal is this Latin term that basically means eating from the same table. And they probably began utilizing human foods when agriculture began in China. And that was, you know, 11,000 years ago. It seems like brown rats kind of stayed for a while, and they didn't really spread out for a long time, for hundreds of years, maybe thousands of years. And then boom, something happens. Our date suggests less than a thousand years ago they got to Southeast Asia. By the time they got there, you know, humans had more advanced ships, and you were starting to see, like, regional trade through the Indian Ocean and even up into Europe. Cities start building up. Human populations are expanding. And you see the brown rat just getting everywhere.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
WU: But the great brown rat migration didn't end there. In fact, in order for the brown rat to take over the world, they needed to hitch a ride with humans looking to take over the world. Rats would hang around ports, waiting to board ships that were stocked with all kinds of foods perfect for rats to feast on. And it turned out in the 17th and 18th centuries, there were a lot of ships moving around the globe. It was the age of conquest.
MUNSHI-SOUTH: The British Empire, the Dutch, the Spanish, the French - they were all moving rats all over the place in North and South America, in Africa, in New Zealand, in Australia.
WU: And at some point, one of those ships crossed the Atlantic and made its way to the United States.
MUNSHI-SOUTH: And once they were in all those ports, they just moved inland across continents. And so they hitched a ride with humans. And, you know, we can look at their history as kind of a proxy for human history 'cause humans moved them around around the world.
WU: Rats have been our companions for a long, long time. And you know what they say about couples. The longer you're together, the more you start to resemble one another.
MUNSHI-SOUTH: They're very intelligent. They're very adaptable, just like humans. You know, they moved around with us because they can live in lots of different places and figure out how to survive. They also - you know, they're not lone wolves. They're like humans. They're very social. And part of their survival is going to be because they live in these groups.
FADEL: That was associate professor Jason Munshi-South of Fordham University, speaking with Lawrence Wu of NPR's history podcast, Throughline. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/throughline-how-rats-became-one-of-earths-most-successful-mammalian-colonizers | 2022-05-12T15:21:41Z |
ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
Another mass grave was discovered outside of Mariupol yesterday, this one just north of the city. Ukrainian officials say it's the latest example of Russia trying to hide evidence of war crimes. And Ukraine's prosecutor general is determined to hold Russian President Vladimir Putin accountable.
Iryna Venediktova is leading Ukraine's investigations into war crimes. NPR's Franco Ordoñez recently sat down with her to discuss the cases, and he joins us now. And a warning - this story contains descriptions that may be upsetting. Hello, Franco.
FRANCO ORDOÑEZ, BYLINE: Hello, Rob.
SCHMITZ: So what can you tell us about Venediktova?
ORDOÑEZ: You know, she's 43. She's a former member of Parliament and a former law professor. She's also the first woman to hold the job. She's been in it for two years, but the war has really totally reshaped her focus. She says she spends most of her time now in the field, working directly with her 8,000 prosecutors and meeting with victims. And now she's really attentive on trying to punish Putin and his military leaders. And she speaks about this very forcefully with this matter-of-fact tenacity of a prosecutor.
SCHMITZ: Wow, 8,000 prosecutors - that sounds pretty...
ORDOÑEZ: Yeah.
SCHMITZ: ...Impressive. How is she going about investigating these cases?
ORDOÑEZ: You know, she has opened more than 8,100 investigations into alleged war crimes and identified hundreds of suspects. She says a lot of those cases are concentrated around Kyiv and villages like Bucha that Russians abandoned after a month of occupation. But she says it's far from complete because they haven't had access to areas like Mariupol, where they've discovered mass graves holding hundreds of bodies. And she says the real number is much higher.
IRYNA VENEDIKTOVA: No one knows - doubled or in three time or in five time (ph). Nobody can say about it. It is a full-scale invasion to our country - very aggressive, very brutal.
ORDOÑEZ: You know, but she says that she and her investigators have already been taking testimonials from refugees who have escaped Mariupol. And she also cited Russian airstrikes on the maternity hospital in Mariupol and other attacks on critical infrastructure.
SCHMITZ: So it's still early in the investigation, but what kinds of things is she finding?
ORDOÑEZ: You know, Rob, everyone has seen some of these horrific images, but she's poring over them, and she's looking for patterns, you know, trying to decipher what was target, what was indiscriminate. And she acknowledges they've had an impact a bit personally.
VENEDIKTOVA: I do everything as a prosecutor. And even now you see that I try to be not emotional. But from other side, of course, I am a Ukrainian citizen. I see everything every day from morning till night that my country is bloodied, actually (ph).
ORDOÑEZ: And she - you know, while sitting there, she asked her assistant to give her a picture of a teenage boy, which, again, I just want to note is graphic and upsetting. And the boy - he's on a hospital table.
VENEDIKTOVA: Natashka (ph), please show Rostlav. The picture was Rostlav, this boy. You just - now you just imagine what I see here. This is chest of the boy and the piece of projectile inside this boy, this chest.
ORDOÑEZ: Now, Rob, you can see a greenish-gold shell lodged inside his chest. You know, that boy's name was Rostlav. He was just 14. You know, Venediktova asked me - she said, how was she supposed to feel after seeing something like this? You know, was she supposed to forgive? And she said, just, no.
SCHMITZ: That is an awful image. And as awful as it is, still, these kinds of cases have historically been very hard to win, right?
ORDOÑEZ: Yeah. I mean, building a case that goes all the way to the top to hold Putin and other top leaders accountable will be tough. As one of her advisers told me, modern leaders just do not write down orders to kill and rape innocent people.
SCHMITZ: Right.
ORDOÑEZ: But it doesn't mean that they're not responsible. Now, that adviser told me it's still very worthwhile just to document these crimes for history even if Putin isn't actually locked up. But Venediktova, she said that's not enough, and she said that she won't quit until Putin and his military leaders are convicted.
SCHMITZ: That's NPR correspondent Franco Ordoñez. Franco, thank you.
ORDOÑEZ: Thanks, Rob. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/ukraines-prosecutor-general-is-determined-to-hold-russia-accountable-for-atrocities | 2022-05-12T15:21:48Z |
Updated May 4, 2022 at 3:08 PM ET
TROSTYANETS, Ukraine — Walking through the heavily shelled second floor maternity ward, Dr. Hanna Shvetsova stops to stare at a glossy picture of a blond baby lying on a white pillow. It's the kind of image seen in countless ads for baby products.
It's now covered in bullet holes.
Six babies were delivered here at Trostyanets Hospital during the Russian occupation, including a pair of twins.
Shvetsova says most of those were conducted in the hallways, where they felt a bit safer working between two extra walls.
"I could have died three times with my patients," she says. "First, when the tank was shooting at us. Second, when the ceiling was falling."
She says the third was when she decided to walk a new mother home around the tanks, through a forest that she later learned was full of land mines.
The liberation of this small northern Ukrainian town just 22 miles from the Russian border after four weeks of occupation was not only a great victory for the people of Trostyanets, but a source of pride for the country.
Yet, a month after the Russian forces left, local officials are only just beginning to understand the long-term impacts of the devastating Russian occupation.
The bridge into town remains split in two. The factories that employed thousands of workers have been destroyed.
And in a sign of what other liberated Ukrainian communities will face, the biggest challenge for Trostyanets is likely not rebuilding the town's infrastructure, but recovering from the psychological scars of the occupation.
Thousands of jobs were lost
The first Russian troops arrived in Trostyanets on Feb. 24, day one of the war, as Russian forces started their initial push toward the west.
The Russians quickly took control of City Hall and the local police department.
Thousands of jobs were lost when the local chocolate factory and wood factory were destroyed. He said hundreds more were lost when the bombed-out train station stopped working.
Zhenya Skorohodov, an administrator at City Hall, says it will likely take years to rebuild.
"It's very hard because the infrastructure of the city is almost destroyed," Skorohodov says. "So nowadays, we don't have any abilities to go back to normal life because it needs much financial resources to reconstruct the infrastructure subjects in the city."
Wrecked infrastructure can be rebuilt, but deeper scars will last a long time
But Trostyanets' mayor, Yuriy Bova, is confident that they'll get the money. The infrastructure, he says, will be rebuilt. He worries more about the scars on people's minds.
Fifty-two residents were killed, including two children, before Ukrainian forces were able to wrest back control of the city. There are 18 residents still missing.
Bova says most everyone in the community lost a family member or a friend.
Some watched them die.
And some also had to live alongside the dead because they did not want to risk leaving their homes and getting killed by the Russians — or caught in the crossfire.
"The trauma that people experienced will last for years," Bova tells NPR. "It's something that can't be cured by humanitarian aid."
Many fear the Russians' return
Many resident fear the Russians will return again. They imagine troops sitting and waiting on the border, which is just 30 minutes away.
"It's hard to imagine this happening again," says Myroslav Shylo, a local baker. "I don't know if I could survive psychologically."
During the occupation, Shylo, 23, secretly secured flour so that he could make bread and stole fuel from the gas station so that he could deliver it to the neediest residents, including patients and doctors at the hospital.
On a recent day, hundreds of desperate residents were standing in line outside his shop waiting to get a loaf of bread for their families.
"You can't buy anything," Shylo says. "This is the only place you can get food."
Attacks tore through the hospital walls and windows
Nowhere is that trauma as apparent as at the local hospital.
The once state-of-the-art facility renovated last fall looks as if it could crumble at any moment.
Two large slabs of the exterior walls — almost as big as the tanks that likely fired on them — have been torn off.
The head of the maternity ward, Dr. Tetiana Sydorenko, says staff continued to work throughout the occupation.
Without windows and in some places no walls, she says there was no escaping the cold. And the shelling was just incessant.
"It's hard to explain — the explosions. It was in your head. It was above your head. It was exploding inside of you. It was hell," she says.
Some of the last days of the occupation were also the worst, forcing patients and doctors to the basement.
Sydorenko says they had to use flashlights. She never wants to go back to that basement.
"This is pain. It was just horrible," she says. "I don't want to go down there. I don't want to remember. It's psychologically difficult."
Dr. Shvetsova says the staff and patients cried a lot — and laughed when they could.
She says they had a job to do and figured out ways to keep doing it.
"One baby was born in the bomb shelter during the heavy fighting. Everyone got quiet waiting to hear the child. When she finally cried — everyone cheered."
She said it was the one moment when everyone forgot about the shelling.
They named her Daria.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/ukrainian-doctors-describe-delivering-babies-as-russia-shelled-the-hospital | 2022-05-12T15:21:54Z |
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
We begin this hour with the latest diplomatic effort to end the conflict in Ukraine. The head of the United Nations was in Moscow today meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin and his foreign minister. The U.N. chief's mission - to try to bridge differences with Russia.
Well, NPR's Charles Maynes is there in Russia, in Moscow. Hey, Charles.
CHARLES MAYNES, BYLINE: Hi there.
KELLY: This is interesting, this visit, because, as we know, there have not been a lot of diplomatic breakthroughs on Ukraine to celebrate of late. What exactly was the secretary general hoping to achieve?
MAYNES: Yeah. Well, the secretary general, Antonio Guterres, said it was simple - he'd come to Moscow as, quote, "a messenger of peace." Let's listen in.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ANTONIO GUTERRES: My objective and my agenda is strictly linked to save lives and to reduce suffering.
MAYNES: Now, Guterres seemed to have no illusions going in. He noted that the U.N. and his Russian host had very different views about what was happening in Ukraine. And he admitted his own previous calls for a cease-fire had gone nowhere. So his focus, again, was on easing the suffering. He said this conflict was creating shockwaves not only in Ukraine and Russia, but throughout the world, causing rising food and energy prices. And he said the sooner this conflict ends, the better it'll be for everybody.
KELLY: Yeah. On that focus that he's proclaiming there of reducing suffering, saving lives, was there any progress on humanitarian corridors in Ukraine, you know, trying to get civilians out of cities under siege and then they're not allowed to leave safely or they're safe only for a few hours? Any movement?
MAYNES: Well, yeah, in a way. It's really his one big proposal. He said he wanted to allow the U.N. to take the lead in working with both sides to establish humanitarian corridors for civilians fleeing the fighting. It was a way, Guterres argued, to build trust that these offers were truly safe and not some, you know, propaganda tool for either Russia or Ukraine. You know, he also singled out the humanitarian crisis in the city of Mariupol, where Ukrainian soldiers and civilians had been trapped in a Soviet-era steelworks factory by Russian forces, calling it a crisis within a crisis that demanded action.
But, you know, Guterres also got into a remarkable back and forth at the televised portion of his meeting with President Putin. You know, the two men were sitting in the Kremlin at the far ends of a giant white table. Some people might recognize it from recent visits that Putin has had with world leaders. And Guterres told Putin that the U.N. viewed Russia's actions against its neighbor as, quote, "an invasion."
KELLY: Wait, really? He used the word invasion? How did that go down?
MAYNES: Well, not well. As you might imagine, Putin challenged him on it.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: (Speaking Russian).
MAYNES: So Putin said he'd closely studied legal precedents for recognizing independent countries and defense treaties in Western Europe, and said, you know, why can't Russia do the same in the Donbas? You know, there, of course, Russia has recognized and now come to the military aid of these self-proclaimed Donbas republics. And so he really tried to provide legal cover for Russia's actions in Ukraine to the head of the U.N. live on Russian TV.
Now, he also repeated an argument that Russian officials have made often of late, and it's this - that Russia wants a diplomatic solution to the conflict, but Ukraine hasn't been a reliable negotiating partner. And the reason, Moscow says, is that the West keeps giving Kyiv increasingly heavy weapons and tells them to try and settle it on the battlefield.
KELLY: Which I guess brings me back to where we began, the dearth of diplomatic breakthroughs. Where does diplomacy go from here?
MAYNES: Well, we'll see if Guterres makes any progress with his humanitarian corridor idea, first with Putin and then with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with whom he meets later this week. The Ukrainians, I should add, weren't too happy to come in second on that list. If Guterres is successful, it may go some way toward silencing critics who say he and the U.N. have been largely missing amid this crisis in Ukraine so far.
KELLY: That is NPR's Charles Maynes reporting in Moscow. Thank you.
MAYNES: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/un-chief-met-with-putin-to-bridge-differences-with-russia-over-its-actions-in-ukraine | 2022-05-12T15:22:00Z |
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
To other news, the world's richest man is purchasing Twitter for about 44 billion bucks. In a tweet - where else? - Elon Musk said, quote, "I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter because that is what free speech means." Well, those critics point out that Twitter can be rife with disinformation and racism and harassment, and they question whether Elon Musk is the right person to address those problems.
Among those questioning, Anand Giridharadas - he's author of the book "Winners Take All: The Elite Charade Of Changing The World" and wrote about the acquisition for The New York Times opinion section. Anand, welcome.
ANAND GIRIDHARADAS: Thank you so much for having me.
KELLY: All right. So when Elon Musk says he wants to promote free speech on the platform, that seems like a good idea in principle. Why does it raise a red flag for you?
GIRIDHARADAS: Free speech is a great concept. And I'm a big supporter, as I know you are. You work in the business of it, as do I. But free speech has become a dog whistle in American life in recent years, and Elon Musk means it in a much more specific way. And he's been much more specific about it. And what he's talking about is the feeling that what is, frankly, content moderation on sites like Twitter and other social media platforms is suppressing free speech.
In other words, efforts that have been made to clamp down on very real problems that you and I see on Twitter every day - which is Nazi speech going unchecked, racism going unchecked, disinformation going unchecked, misogyny, rape threats to women who've made the mistake of having opinions going unchecked - there have been modest - inadequate, but modest efforts in recent years to clamp down. And Elon Musk thinks that kind of reform, which actually allows more people to speak more freely and safely, is the problem.
KELLY: You actually take this a little bit farther in your piece for the Times. I want to quote one line. You ask, what happens when the incarnation of a problem buys the right to decide what the problem is and how to fix it? I mean, you're - just to take one example - the bullying and harassment problem on Twitter. Why is Musk the wrong person to fix that?
GIRIDHARADAS: It's not only the wrong person, it is the perfect embodiment of the problem, right? So I kind of focused on three in the piece. And when I talk to people who work at Twitter, these are the three they're thinking about, right? So Twitter has a disinformation problem by its own acknowledgment, right? And Elon Musk has shown himself to be someone who spreads falsehoods. Twitter has a racism problem, which, again, Twitter has fessed up to and has tried to fix and not done enough, but owned up to the fact that it is working to make it a less bigoted, harassing place for people of color. Elon Musk runs a company that the California Department of Fair Housing and Employment recently said is a segregated workplace; not awkward, not mean - segregated. And Twitter has a bullying and harassment problem, as particularly women and people of color experience every day. And Elon Musk is the incarnation of that kind of social media behavior, siccing his followers on people who disagree with him...
KELLY: A recent tweet against Bill Gates, for example.
GIRIDHARADAS: ...Living in a kind of perpetual adolescence.
KELLY: Belittling...
GIRIDHARADAS: Correct.
KELLY: ...Bill Gates. Just - I mean, setting aside for the moment, you know, the question of Elon Musk and whether he's the right man for the job, are you assigning too much power to Twitter? I mean, most Americans aren't even on Twitter. How does this affect them?
GIRIDHARADAS: Twitter is incredibly powerful in certain ways. It's not powerful in the way that network television was in the '70s with, you know, 40 million people watching the same thing. But it is. I think Elon Musk is correct when he calls it the closest we have to some kind of global town square. And now one rich guy has bought the thing he described as the town square. Town square's necessarily a kind of public thing.
And so the problem is he is going to have a disproportionate power to shape discourse, shape journalism, shape how people think about public problems. And a man who embodies many of our biggest public problems is going to have the chance to shape the solution...
KELLY: Right.
GIRIDHARADAS: ...To those problems...
KELLY: Just a couple seconds...
GIRIDHARADAS: ...And to veto solutions that threaten him.
KELLY: Sorry - just a couple seconds left. So a yes or no question, are you going to stay on Twitter?
GIRIDHARADAS: I will stay on Twitter, and I hope Elon Musk does not.
KELLY: We will leave it there. Anand Giridharadas, author of the book "Winners Take All" - it was a pleasure. Thanks for talking with us.
GIRIDHARADAS: Thanks for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/why-one-writer-questions-whether-musk-is-the-right-fit-for-twitter | 2022-05-12T15:22:06Z |
Another day, another hot-button issue at the U.S. Supreme Court. This time the question is whether the Biden administration must continue to enforce the Trump-era program known as Remain in Mexico. The policy requires asylum-seekers, mainly from Central and South America, to remain in Mexico while they wait for a hearing in a U.S. immigration court.
The Trump administration devised the Remain in Mexico policy in hopes of deterring migrants from streaming into the U.S. with asylum claims. The Biden administration suspended the program immediately upon taking office, but the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, acting on a challenge brought by Texas and Missouri, ordered the new administration to continue the Trump policy. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court hears the argument in an expedited appeal.
The case centers on the meaning of numerous immigration provisions, how they have been interpreted for decades and, bluntly put, whether the Supreme Court will be as deferential to the Biden administration as it was to the Trump administration when it comes to immigration enforcement policies.
How the law works
Immigration law operates like a Russian nesting doll: You open it up, and another doll is inside and then another and another.
According to the states of Texas and Missouri, backed by 21 other red states, the law says that all asylum-seekers "shall be detained," and "shall" means that they must be detained for however long it takes until their cases are decided in court.
"The administration basically has two choices," says Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher. "You either detain people seeking asylum at the border," or "if you don't have the detention space, you're sort of left with returning them to Mexico." Fisher wrote an amicus brief on behalf of 19 states supporting Texas and Missouri.
But that is not the way the law has ever been enforced by any administration, Democratic or Republican, including the Trump administration. In fact, while the "shall" language has been in the immigration law since 1903, so has other arguably contrary language, using qualifiers and words such as "may."
For example, another provision says the government "may" release asylum-seekers into the U.S. "on a case-by-case basis for 'urgent humanitarian reasons.' " The Biden administration argues that this provision serves as an alternative release valve, allowing the government to release asylum-seekers who "present neither a security risk nor a risk of absconding."
A complicated issue
Former immigration officials, Republican and Democratic, say there's a good reason for the fudgy language: Everything about borders is complicated. To begin with, there has been no major rewrite of the nation's immigration laws in more than 25 years. The last time the law was updated, in 1996, legislative disagreements were resolved with compromise language to deal with the fact that, on the one hand, Congress wanted to make it more difficult to release asylum-seekers pending their hearings and, on the other, detaining everyone would be prohibitively expensive.
At no time since the 1996 law was passed has everyone — or even most of the people — seeking asylum been detained, including in the Trump years.
The problem is that "Congress has only appropriated money for Homeland Security to detain around 30- to 40-thousand individuals at any given moment," says Stewart Verdery, who served as assistant secretary of homeland security during George W. Bush's administration. These days, Verdery observes, over a million people cross the border a year, so "by definition, you can't detain everybody."
Did Remain in Mexico work?
Immigration specialists disagree as to how effective the Remain in Mexico policy has been as a deterrent.
Indiana's solicitor general, Fisher, argues that the Trump program was working. "The volume of applicants showing up at the border decreased precipitously," he says, citing a 2019 report by the Trump administration.
"That's false," says Jeh Johnson, who served as the Obama-era secretary of homeland security from 2013 to 2017. On the Trump administration's watch in 2019, "we had almost 1 million apprehensions on our southern border ... the highest number we've seen in years," Johnson observes.
Under the Trump administration, only 68,000 people were put into the Remain in Mexico program by Customs and Border Protection — a tiny fraction of those seeking asylum in the United States.
Implications for foreign policy
At the heart of all this is a separate legal question: whether the courts should second-guess the foreign policy judgments that undergird this and other immigration policies. At this point, neither Mexico nor the Biden administration wants Remain in Mexico to continue. Both see it as a flawed program in which migrants in squalid camps at the border have little ability to find lawyers or information for their hearings and are subject to violent attacks, kidnapping, extortion and rape by criminal cartels.
What's more, the Biden administration sees the lower court's order as invading its ability to deal effectively with Mexico. A group of former immigration officials from both parties echoes that point in friend-of-the-court briefs filed in this case.
For instance, Verdery points to the port of San Ysidro, south of San Diego, the busiest port of entry in the U.S., with 32 lanes of traffic, trucks, cargo, tourists and an unknown number of migrants trying to cross the border illegally. It's a place where billions and billions of dollars in trade and people transit across the border every day, according to Verdery, and managing priorities with Mexico is a complicated and fluid task.
To cite just one example, he notes that after the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. and Mexico went to a maximum level of protection and then over time relaxed restrictions because the economies in both countries were suffering. Such continually changing circumstances are part of why the courts have largely deferred to the executive branch in managing the border with Mexico.
"This is something that has to be worked out between governments, and it really is not a place for a court to get involved," Verdery says.
Johnson, the former DHS secretary, echoes that sentiment, contending that the lower court was outside its constitutional lane when it told the executive branch of the U.S. government to tell the government of Mexico to restore Remain in Mexico. "Rarely, if ever, has a court decision intruded into the foreign policy of the United States in this way," Johnson says.
But countering that argument, Texas and other Republican-dominated states argue that in 1996 Congress intended to narrow the executive branch's discretion and that now is the time to hold true to that mandate.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-26/will-the-supreme-court-be-as-deferential-to-biden-on-immigration-as-it-was-to-trump | 2022-05-12T15:22:12Z |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The threat that Republicans will take over the House of Representatives hovers over the progressive movement of the Democratic Party. There's also a new wave of candidates fighting for congressional seats in the November midterms. Two progressive lawmakers in the House, Democrats Jamie Raskin and Ro Khanna, are working on new strategies they believe will rack up new victories for the party's liberal wing.
JAMIE RASKIN: We need to defend American constitutional democracy with everything we've got at this point. And that calls upon us to be as ambitious as we can be in terms of reaching out to people all over America.
MARTIN: They say this includes coalition-building, sharing a more optimistic message and less preaching. NPR congressional reporter Claudia Grisales sat down with Raskin and Khanna. And she joins us now. Good morning, Claudia.
CLAUDIA GRISALES, BYLINE: Good morning, Rachel.
MARTIN: How are progressive Democrats outlining the stakes in this election?
GRISALES: Democrats are deeply worried about this threat in November. And this is part of how this conversation began for Raskin and Khanna. Khanna warned if the GOP does indeed take over, President Biden will be impeached. Certain Democrats will be forced off committees. But he's trying to stay hopeful that they can defy political projections. He says it will be critical to remind Americans that Democrats passed the trillion-dollar bipartisan infrastructure plan into law, along with the nearly $2 trillion pandemic relief bill last year.
MARTIN: So these two lawmakers think they have a plan to help Democrats, in particular progressives. They both entered Congress in the same year, 2017, from opposite sides of the country, though - Raskin from Maryland, Khanna from California. How did they become the leads on this?
GRISALES: They said that there is a new urgency. And they saw in each other partners to address it, to grow Democrats' reach. Khanna said their brainstorming session started after a phone call from President Biden into a closed-door Congressional Progressive Caucus meeting last October, where Raskin made a poignant remark to the president.
RO KHANNA: I don't know if Jamie remembers this. But he got up, and he said, yes, we're all progressives. But we're also Democrats. And most importantly, we have to recognize that the challenge against us is the return of authoritarianism and that those are the stakes.
GRISALES: Khanna is seated next to Raskin. The two have met up this afternoon in Raskin's office in the House Rayburn Building to lay out their new mission to shake up discussions for the Progressive Caucus and Democrats. Khanna, of California, is a Silicon Valley progressive, while Raskin, of Maryland, a constitutional scholar. Both have tired of purity politics that have overtaken Democrats' message. In each other, they see coalition builders and pragmatists who can work to reorient how their wing of the party reaches voters and expands that reach along the way.
RASKIN: You know, I hear from Republicans frequently in my district who say they can't take it anymore. And they want to become Democrats. But they want to make sure that there's a place for them in our party, and I assure them that there is.
GRISALES: Raskin and Khanna argue that former President Trump was able to encroach on what was traditionally Democrats' turf - that is, middle America - by speaking their language. Still, voters have issues with both parties. During a recent visit to Pennsylvania, Khanna learned about a focus group that characterized Republicans as, quote, "crazy" and Democrats as preachy. Khanna and Raskin say that preachy tone has got to go - for example, when talking about sweeping proposals for progressives, such as Medicare for All. Here's Khanna.
KHANNA: Preachy is just go on TV and say, well, if you're not for Medicare for All, then you must be evil. And you must want people to die. And you must be wrong - right? - as opposed to saying, here is why.
GRISALES: Khanna says Democrats can make the case for Medicare for All for voters, start a dialogue and listen to their concerns. And he says progressives face a constant challenge along the way, asking the right questions.
KHANNA: How do we get people on board with it? And how do we make sure that if we have to compromise on something that we get something done? My view is we should be firm in our ideals, but then also pragmatic about what it's going to take to move the ball forward.
GRISALES: Raskin, who is also a member of the House panel investigating the January 6 attack, argues the right wing is trying to demolish faith in democracy. He says it's time for progressives and Democrats to better defend against Republican attacks.
RASKIN: I call myself a liberal because I think that liberty has got to be a central value of what we're doing. But these days, I love to call myself a conservative, too, because I want to conserve the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the land, the air, the water, the climate system, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, the National Labor Relations Act, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. Everything that our friends across the aisle seem to want to be tearing down is everything that we want to conserve.
GRISALES: Khanna says there's pockets of America that have been left behind that Democrats are not reaching today.
KHANNA: And so we have a skepticism out there for a large part of the country that has fallen behind, that's lost jobs. And when I or Jamie or someone's up on TV saying, here's what's going to happen, there's a skepticism whether - those communities, whether people feel like they're going to benefit.
GRISALES: Raskin says Democrats need to restore the idea that it's the American people's government, it's a democracy and they can make government work to get stuff done. And that, he says, is how you win back new voters to the party, warts and all.
RASKIN: What people say about the Democrats is, you guys are too big and disorganized and chaotic. And what's the message and all that? I hear all of that. I agree with all of that. But that is democracy. We are the party of democracy, and it's messy. We are not a religious cult. So we're going to work it out. And we want people to come and join us and to be part of this big, sometimes messy conversation, but the conversation that's actually moving America forward and making progress for the people.
MARTIN: Claudia, so interesting to hear the two congressmen there laying out their vision for Democrats and, in particular, progressives in this election. But they noted that President Trump made a lot of inroads in parts of the country that Democrats had taken for granted for a long time, in particular the middle of the country. Did they talk about how they expect to defend against that?
GRISALES: They say they need to reclaim issues of patriotism, talk about race more openly. For example, Khanna says it's naive to believe that becoming the first major multiracial, multiethnic democracy in the world could happen without conflict. Also, Raskin said Democrats should reject the socialist label and should not be in the political correctness business, noting that times have changed.
RASKIN: All of the political dogmas of the past are not serving particularly well. And we need to be opening up our minds to new interpretations of democracy.
GRISALES: He said the GOP has gotten a jump on Democrats on some issues and in some spaces in social media. And Democrats need to fend off Republicans, which they see as a, quote, "ruled or ruin" party.
MARTIN: NPR's Claudia Grisales. Thank you, Claudia. We appreciate it.
GRISALES: Thank you much.
(SOUNDBITE OF GOGO PENGUIN'S "TO THE NTH") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/2-progressive-house-lawmakers-are-working-on-a-strategy-to-keep-their-seats | 2022-05-12T15:22:18Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Good morning. I'm Leila Fadel. At stake in this story are a million steaks, all grilled by Gayle Dudley. Dudley has worked at the LongHorn Steakhouse in Columbus, Ga., for more than 20 years. She recently earned the honors of Grill Master Legend for grilling up more than a million tenderloins, rib-eyes, sirloins and filets. Dudley got a gold chef's coat and a $5,000 check and bragging rights to skills in a rare medium. Well done. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/a-georgia-restaurant-employee-is-honored-for-grilling-a-million-steaks | 2022-05-12T15:22:24Z |
ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is now in its third month. Stories of alleged Russian military atrocities have piled up. The toll of dead children continues to rise. And anecdotes of suffering among the civilian population continue to spread. All of this is pushing many in Ukraine towards an absolutist view - there can be no negotiated peace with the Russian government. NPR's Tim Mak has more from eastern Ukraine on how this affects the prospects for peace.
TIM MAK, BYLINE: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently acknowledged there was ultimately only one way to end the war.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY: (Through interpreter) I think that whoever started this war will be able to end it. From the beginning, I have insisted on talks with the Russian president.
MAK: Even with the fresh Russian offensive now underway, Zelenskyy is thinking ahead to how this war eventually ends.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ZELENSKYY: (Through interpreter) It's not that I want, it's that I have to meet him so as to settle this conflict by diplomatic means.
MAK: But among much of the Ukrainian public, pursuing diplomacy is a hard pill to swallow. We first met Iryna Stefaneko in the early days of the war. A medical doctor by training, at the time, she was appealing for more medical supplies. When we followed up with her more recently, the situation had become a little less bleak for the Ukrainian military.
IRYNA STEFANEKO: Mostly now I am feeling hope. I try to don't lose my hope for the future.
MAK: Fear had given way to guarded optimism, but sometimes...
STEFANEKO: Some time I can be angry.
MAK: Iryna is as humanitarian in spirit as they come, a soft-spoken professional who is seeking to alleviate human suffering in her country. But this war, the atrocities, the stories of life under Russian occupation, anecdotes of her personal acquaintances in those areas - all of this has crossed a line for her.
STEFANEKO: You can listen. I'm Christian. I understand that we must love people. We must be peaceful. But really, I am so angry. I really - I understand that now we must win this war.
MAK: Stories of Russian military conduct around civilians have built up a vast store of anger among the Ukrainian population, many of whom reject the idea of formal negotiations. Before the war, Vasily Busharov owned a factory that built garden swing sets. Since the invasion, he and volunteers in the city of Zaporizhzhia have turned that factory into a place where they manufacture body armor for soldiers on the front lines.
VASILY BUSHAROV: (Through interpreter) I think it's impossible to find a peaceful solution, and I think that hate and envy between the two countries and their people will go on more than 50 years, not less.
MAK: The broad impression that I've received in conversations all over the country is that the only exchange that Ukrainians want to have with the Russian government is through artillery shells and rifle rounds.
Borys Filatov is the mayor of Dnipro, a city in eastern Ukraine which is a hub for humanitarian and military convoys to the front lines. A popular politician, he's known for being outspoken, brash and blunt. But even he has to balance the popular distaste for negotiations with a reality that wars generally only end through talks of some kind.
BORYS FILATOV: (Through interpreter) I would say it this way - Russians always lie. They lie to the whole world, lie to the West, lie to their own people and lie to themselves. That's why we don't believe them at all. That's why we do not believe in those talks, although talks have to take place. Any war ends with peace and talks.
MAK: This is the difficult path that President Zelenskyy must navigate. With so much of the public dead set against formal peace discussions with the Russian government, it's hard to see how the democratic government of Ukraine can pursue it, which suggests that the prospects for peace are low, at least in the short term.
Tim Mak, NPR News, Dnipro. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/after-atrocities-many-ukrainians-arent-interested-in-negotiating-peace-with-russia | 2022-05-12T15:22:30Z |
ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
The World Health Organization's goal of getting 70% of the world's population vaccinated by June is not going to happen. And it may never. It's making officials reconsider what the real goal of global COVID vaccination should be.
To talk about this and the many twists and turns in the global vaccination effort, we're joined by NPR global health correspondents Nurith Aizenman and Jason Beaubien. Hello.
JASON BEAUBIEN, BYLINE: Hey.
NURITH AIZENMAN, BYLINE: Hi.
SCHMITZ: Nurith, let's start with you. You are, in fact, in Brazil right now reporting on this vaccine issue.
AIZENMAN: Yes. I'm in Rio de Janeiro. I'm looking out through my window over this city's famous Ipanema beach, where I'm not seeing any masking. There's definitely a relaxed feeling here about the coronavirus right now, and that's largely due to a vaccination rate that is very high and certainly higher than the U.S. But the path to get there has been twisty, indeed.
SCHMITZ: Oh, yeah. Even before vaccines and treatments, Brazil's president, Jair Bolsonaro, was basically comparing COVID to a bad cold.
AIZENMAN: Exactly. And he was also totally initially disinterested in vaccines. But then by January of 2021, when Brazil's Sao Paulo state started doing vaccinations, there was such a clamor across the country for vaccines to be made available everywhere that Bolsonaro's government basically had to change tack. Brazil got the technology to make the AstraZeneca vaccine. Then it started buying tens of millions of Pfizer doses.
And today, 76% of Brazilians are fully vaccinated. Among Brazilians age 5 or older, it's 85% that are fully vaccinated. And by the way, in the U.S., 65% of the population is fully vaccinated.
SCHMITZ: Wow. That's a big difference. How did Brazil's government turn things around? Was there a major public relations campaigns, stuff like giveaways like we had in this country?
AIZENMAN: Well, President Bolsonaro did not start promoting the vaccines. If anything, he continued making comments suggesting incorrectly that vaccines aren't all that protective. But Brazil has this very long and proud tradition of public vaccination.
I spoke about this national culture of vaccination with Sotiris Missailidis of the Bio-Manguinhos Institute at Fiocruz Foundation. It's a government-funded facility that essentially makes many of the vaccines that are used in Brazil. And Missailidis noted that Brazil has this network of public clinics that offer people vaccines for free. Brazilians are used to this, and so he says when it came to COVID...
SOTIRIS MISSAILIDIS: The national response, the general response is to go in the line and vaccinate. And for the population, it's almost their right. They have the right to vaccination.
AIZENMAN: Even without a major public relations campaign, people just came forward to get their COVID jabs in a steady stream month after month.
SCHMITZ: As he said, it's a right. Let's turn to Jason. Jason, you've been in the Middle East, in Iraq, where vaccination rates are pretty low. Is this a matter of not having enough doses? Or what's going on here?
BEAUBIEN: Yeah. I was in Iraq for much of February, and at that point, only 17% of Iraq's population was fully vaccinated. Now it's only up to 18%, so there hasn't even been a lot of movement in the last couple of months. And what's interesting here is that this is a country that has plenty of vaccines. Iraqis can get Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Sinopharm. Doses are offered for free in clinics. Also, we've got campaigns of people out in markets and shopping malls offering it.
But health workers were telling me that people simply weren't interested. You know, there are very high levels of distrust both about the West and, by Iraqis, about their own government. So some people simply didn't want to get vaccinated because the government was telling them that they should. And also, for many people, they just didn't see it as a priority. You know, they've got other problems in their life, and this was not something that was important to them.
SCHMITZ: And Iraq is not an isolated case. You're seeing this elsewhere, too, right?
BEAUBIEN: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, a lot of places that have struggled with other, you know, health and social programs in the past are also struggling with COVID vaccinations. Haiti, for instance, has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the world. I should point out that they did struggle to get doses early on. But, you know, they've also been facing earthquakes and political instability and unbelievable levels of gang violence. And, you know, in that context, a vaccine against what's seen as a disease that doesn't seem to be killing a lot of people around them or making people very sick - you know, it isn't a major priority.
The average Haitian is 24 years old, so this is a very young country. And people are less vulnerable to severe cases of COVID, even if they do catch it. And this is something you are also seeing play out in many African countries.
SCHMITZ: Wow. You know, I'm looking at a map showing vaccination rates globally, and Africa really does stand out for having very low rates of vaccination. Nurith, you've also been speaking to health officials there, right?
AIZENMAN: Yes, particularly health advocates in South Africa, where there's a robust discussion now about whether, given that so many people who couldn't get the vaccine early on now have some protection due to infection with the coronavirus, the discussion is whether this repeatedly stated goal of vaccinating as many people as possible is kind of misplaced. There's the sense that it's distracting from a much bigger priority, which is to get a really high share of the elderly and other very vulnerable people vaccinated and boosted. These are the people who, even after exposure to the virus, are still at the most risk from future infections.
BEAUBIEN: Yeah. This is definitely something that we're hearing more of globally. You know, many officials are giving up on the idea that everybody should get vaccinated or will even choose to. It seems like we're entering a new phase, and we're adopting this more pragmatic approach and focusing efforts more intensely, as Nurith says, on the most vulnerable.
SCHMITZ: That was Jason Beaubien and Nurith Aizenman from NPR's global health reporting team. Thanks to you both.
AIZENMAN: You're welcome.
BEAUBIEN: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/an-update-on-the-global-covid-19-vaccination-effort | 2022-05-12T15:22:36Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Let's turn now to China and its battle against COVID. Beijing has started mass testing 20 million residents to try to contain a new omicron outbreak. The new measures triggered fears that the capital will be locked down like China's biggest city, Shanghai. With us now by way of Skype is the Beijing bureau chief for The Economist, David Rennie.
Hi, David.
DAVID RENNIE: Good morning.
FADEL: So as this mass testing program gets underway, what's the mood in Beijing right now?
RENNIE: I think if you're a government official, you are extremely concerned because this is not just a very big city; it's the capital. It's where the big bosses live. And they have done everything for the last two years to keep COVID out of Beijing. We have uniquely strict rules here. And China did an extraordinary job for two years of keeping COVID levels kind of incredibly low. It involved incredibly tough controls. But Shanghai has just been hit by a massive wave of the omicron variant. We currently have tens of millions of Chinese in cities around China more or less locked down. And now omicron is beating at the gates of Beijing.
So if you're an official, you're looking at the numbers. They're still very low. We had about 46 new cases today in a city of 22 million. So by American standards, that's incredible. But if you're an official, you know that the political and the public health crisis of omicron hitting Beijing is just vast. The population actually out on the streets - talking to regular Beijingers - they're kind of weirdly confident that they live in the most important city. They live in the same city as the big Communist Party leaders. And so they'll be fine. They won't let omicron come in to Beijing. Now, whether that confidence is justified, we will find out.
FADEL: But let's talk about those strict measures because we've seen these scenes out of Shanghai of people shouting at workers, erecting barriers, some even kicking down barriers. Could we see those same strict lockdowns in Beijing and scenes like that?
RENNIE: Sure. I mean, I think that the leadership in Beijing has only unpopular choices ahead of it. It can either have the embarrassment of erecting fences, locking people into buildings, like you've seen in Shanghai, or it can play it calm for now. And that risks COVID getting hold here, and then it really takes off, and you have, you know, very, very large lockdowns. So they only have unpalatable choices. Right now, because Beijing is such a privileged, special city, we're seeing them try something different from anywhere else in China. We've got these kind of ultraprecision lockdowns. We've got, I think...
FADEL: OK.
RENNIE: ...21 areas that are locked down very tightly. But the rest of the city is weirdly normal but kind of a bit tense.
FADEL: So how is Beijing going to go about testing 21 million people?
RENNIE: They got this down to a fine art. I mean, I've had, like, dozens and dozens of tests to just move around. I've had two tests this week. It was free. It took about 5 minutes. These are PCR tests - you know, the proper swab down the throats.
FADEL: Right.
RENNIE: Then they take you - you know, it's all linked through your smartphone, which is an ID in this country. Every time you move around the city - any building, any cab you go into, you have to scan a code so your movements are tracked. I mean, the degree of privacy that we've kind of got used to kind of losing here...
FADEL: Yeah.
RENNIE: ...I think, would boggle the mind of Americans. But, you know, we've been at this for two years, and we've got this kind of high-tech surveillance cameras, smartphone tracking, real-time movement tracking going on all around us in an attempt to make sure that anyone who gets COVID - they will track anyone they've met in the last several days, lock them all into quarantine. I mean, it's an extraordinary kind of vision of a science fiction future.
FADEL: I mean, with the tracking of people, the QR codes, it also raises issues of civil liberties. Is there room for the dissent against government rules and advice that we see here in the U.S.?
RENNIE: Absolutely not. This is a completely different sort of social contract between the leadership and the people. The deal here - and I think after two years, everyone understands this - is in exchange for most people living in a China that does not have to worry about catching COVID - 'cause most Chinese have never been anywhere near COVID - a minority - but we're now up to tens of millions of people in dozens of cities - basically loses their privacy, is locked indoors for weeks at a time, sometimes without earning any money 'cause they've...
FADEL: Wow.
RENNIE: ...Lost their jobs or can't go to work. That kind of compact would be just absolutely impossible in the West. But it is what the Chinese party is saying is not a success but is, in fact, superior to the American or the Western system. And part of the propaganda here is that Americans are decadent and selfish and individualist and cannot do the tough things that the Chinese Communist Party can do, which makes the Chinese Communist Party ultimately more benevolent because it cares about human life. So this is not just a public health fight; this is a gigantic political contest explicitly between China and the West.
FADEL: Interesting. In the few seconds we have left, where does China stand right now with access to vaccines?
RENNIE: They've banned - or they have not approved foreign vaccines - so the Pfizers, the Modernas, which are clearly more effective than the Chinese vaccines that they're using. They've also not vaccinated their old people in large enough numbers. And so, frankly, they have left themselves, for political reasons, without an exit strategy. And that is going to come to haunt them. But right now they're boasting about toughness being the Chinese solution to COVID.
FADEL: David Rennie is the Beijing bureau chief for The Economist. Thank you so much for your time.
RENNIE: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/beijing-conducts-mass-covid-19-testing-as-increased-cases-may-force-a-lockdown | 2022-05-12T15:22:43Z |
A 28-year-old playwright is making her debut on Broadway tonight with a play set in the White House. Called POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, the farce is complete with slamming doors, profanity and a cast of seven comic actresses, including Vanessa Williams and Rachel Dratch.
"The thing I love about farce is that it is tragedy that you laugh at," said playwright Selina Fillinger. "And there is so much tragedy around. And yet we still need to laugh in order to keep moving through it."
Here's the set-up: The President of the United States is a man who the audience never meets. And he's said a word, a slur against women, in front of a Chinese diplomatic delegation and the press corps, causing a variety of crises which spiral out of control. Seven women, from his chief of staff to his press secretary to the First Lady, try desperately to save him.
"When they hear the first word, people are shocked and, you know, gasp a little bit," says Vanessa Williams, who plays the First Lady, "and then they know that they're in for an unconventional ride."
"When you think about it, often the things that we consider the most derogatory about women are curse words that are just referring directly to genitalia," said playwright Selina Fillinger. Her fall-down funny play asks a lot of questions.
"[I'm] trying to unpack the misogyny and assumptions that are just even in our vocabulary. And why is this word derogatory? Why is that an inherently bad thing? Why is it bad to call a woman this? Who decided that this is a bad word and made this into an oppressive thing? And can that be reclaimed?" she asked.
Director Susan Stroman described the play as taking place in an alt universe where the president – his political party is never mentioned – abuses his power. "There are many people who are complicit with it, and it is about that too," Stroman said. "It is about a group of women who do what they can to save him. And then at one point, it's too much. And it asks that question about what happens if at one point no one does help him."
Playwright Fillinger said she wanted to subvert the classic forms of farce in POTUS. For one thing, the ensemble is entirely comprised of women. For another example, instead of having a woman running around in her underwear, which happens in many male-dominated farces, a member of the press corps runs around with a breast pump. "The characters in the play are like all versions of women that I have seen or versions of women I have been," she said, "at various points of crisis or like high stakes. And then just taking that and blowing that up."
The play had initially been scheduled to open during the 2020 election, but COVID scuttled those plans. Yet Julie White, who plays the President's chief of staff, said she's pleased about the timing. "People need to really laugh. And in some ways, to laugh about the states of politics and political discourse, but not in a specific way. I don't want any more Trump jokes."
Stroman said yes, the play is funny - but in some ways, it's also a call to action. "Well, certainly the future is there, but it's going to be a fight," Stroman said. "And I think that's what Selina is saying, too. It's hopeful, but it's not hopeful without a fight."
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/broadways-potus-should-these-women-save-the-president | 2022-05-12T15:22:49Z |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Good morning. I'm Rachel Martin. The University of Central Florida's spring football scrimmage featured a new uniform code, a QR code on the backs of player jerseys. Instead of a 12 on the quarterback or an 88 on the tight end, they wore pixelated squares to scan with your phone. Snapping the codes opened a player profile with their number and a bio, stats and social media handle. The QR codes might return in the fall. But meanwhile, is anyone watching the play?
It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/college-football-team-is-trading-jersey-numbers-for-qr-codes | 2022-05-12T15:22:55Z |
Before she became a mom, comic, writer and actor, Jessi Klein remembers hearing people say how completely motherhood would change her life. She listened, but she didn't really fully understand what they meant until her son was born.
"There's just no way to comprehend how completely your old identity vanishes," Klein says. "All of the things you do on a daily or minute-to-minute basis — the clothes you wear, the way you think of yourself — it just all kind of has to explode away, because the baby/child [is] so all encompassing."
Klein served as head writer of the Comedy Central series Inside Amy Schumer, and is now the showrunner for the Showtimes series I Love That for You. In her new collection of personal essays, I'll Show Myself Out, she writes about the joys and struggles of motherhood.
Klein says that she loves her son, now 6, beyond anything else in the world — and yet, she also acknowledges how tough being a mom is.
"It feels like one of the biggest cultural taboos is to say that you've had a second thought about being a mother, or honestly, even to just to talk about the hard stuff," she says. "But yeah, of course, there are those moments where you're like, 'I can't believe I've gotten myself into this.'"
Interview highlights
On having a child at age 39
After I got married, I ended up kind of doing a couple of tests to check my fertility status because I was having a bit of a career moment, and I was like, if I do become a mom, I'm going to leave it till the last possible moment, like, maybe when I'm 50 or something. And then the tests revealed that I actually had, like, half an egg left, and it wasn't going to be easy and I needed to go through all this fertility stuff. As soon as I found out that I might not be able to have a child, I really went into a spiral about it and I just wanted to have one.
On the physical discomfort and disorientation of birth
I was lucky on a variety of fronts, you know, the privilege of good health care and all of that stuff. I didn't have an especially difficult labor, relatively speaking. It was uneventful, which is like the best thing you can say about a labor. But, that doesn't mean it wasn't still pushing a human out of my vagina.
It's a very intense recovery even under pretty decent circumstances. Some people really do come out of it quite injured in terms of tearing and other kinds of complications that can go wrong. But the minimum is that your body is freaking out, as your hormones kind of overnight turn upside down. You don't have a person in your body anymore; they're now on the outside. Your breasts are insanely swollen. You're trying to figure out how to breastfeed.
I remember a moment when I looked down at my stomach right after, like within an hour after giving birth. And I just remember I was like, what is this? I looked at my skin; it was this crazy texture. It looked like basketball skin, like, sort of puckered. And then you just are bleeding for so long. You can't go to the bathroom, and you're in pain and you're bleeding. And that's for many weeks. And again, that wasn't a particularly difficult birth.
On struggling to accept how her body has changed
On the one hand, you want to sort of be body pos and accept it, and [be] like, "This is gorgeous, the amazing thing my body did." But I was almost 40 when I gave birth. So I've lived 39 years in America knowing what I'm supposed to look like to be acceptable and my postpartum body wasn't it. But I've never looked the same. I'm very lucky to be healthy and I exercise. But a person grew inside of me, and I just don't have the same body anymore. It's a real shift that I think about every day.
On caring and apologizing less
One of the things I really cherish about becoming a mother is that you're so busy, you're keeping a person alive. And it does give you this kind of no 'Fs-left-to-give' vibe about your life.
One of the things I really cherish about becoming a mother is that you're so busy, you're keeping a person alive. And it does give you this kind of no "Fs-left-to-give" vibe about your life. And a lot of that vanity — trying to make nice with other people in certain ways, like having to apologize for things — you just kind of stop doing that. And that feels, in some ways, like a superpower.
On the tensions in a marriage that a new baby can create
There's an old saying that like when a new baby is born, it's like a bomb goes off in your in your house and in your marriage. The baseline thing that's going on is no one's sleeping and that is like one of the primary forms of military torture that exists, sleep deprivation. No one is at their best, just because you are so tired. And then there's also just the stresses of having to be learning all the time. Everyone's out of their element of what they're doing. I think for us also just the number of things that exist minute to minute to fight about sort of multiply exponentially.
On what she loves about motherhood
My son is such a funny, sweet, just endlessly surprising, smart boy. I do feel so lucky to be his mom. One of the things that I really do love is the things that he does that make me laugh. Especially now at 6, you really get into "Kids Say the Darndest Things" territory.
Sam Briger and Thea Chaloner produced and edited the audio of this interview. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Laurel Dalrymple adapted it for the Web.
Copyright 2022 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/comedy-writer-jessi-klein-reflects-on-the-disorienting-experience-of-new-motherhood | 2022-05-12T15:23:01Z |
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
More than 1 billion people in the world speak Mandarin Chinese, and NPR's Emily Kwong wants to join that group.
EMILY KWONG, BYLINE: OK, how do you say this?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Mandarin Chinese).
E KWONG: (Speaking Mandarin Chinese).
KELLY: Emily is Chinese American on her father's side. Last year, at age 30, she began to learn Chinese for the very first time and unpacked why she is so determined to learn it in the first place. Here's Emily in conversation with her dad.
E KWONG: So yeah, this is a conversation I've actually wanted to have with you for a long time.
CHRISTOPHER KWONG: Good.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
E KWONG: That is an understatement. I've wanted to ask my dad about our language for a lifetime.
C KWONG: My name is Christopher Kwong. I'm 62. I was born in New York City.
E KWONG: Growing up, Dad remembers tagging alongside his grandmothers as they did the shopping in Chinatown...
(SOUNDBITE OF MARKET AMBIENCE)
C KWONG: I just went into fish markets, meat markets, vegetable markets.
E KWONG: ...Surrounded by people conversing and bartering and going about their day in Chinese.
C KWONG: It was the only thing I understood. In a world of non-Chinese when I was outside, it was anxiety and confusion and not knowing what was really being said and just clinging a little harder. But when you hear your native language, it's a reminder of, you're safe.
E KWONG: But here's the thing. My father stopped speaking Mandarin when he was 5 years old. He was in kindergarten and really struggling to communicate with his teacher, with his classmates, using the little English that he knew. And his parents, my grandparents, didn't want him to fall behind in school.
C KWONG: I was then given, you know, orders to start speaking English for my own emotional and social survival, so I didn't hear Chinese again.
E KWONG: The transition to English was difficult. My dad struggled with the vowels. He says his mom, my grandma Hui, spent hours drilling him, and he didn't feel like he had a choice.
C KWONG: I realized I had to engage in a different world, a world of English, so, you know, I should just be pragmatic, let go and go with English.
E KWONG: Yeah. That's a big decision for a little kid to make, you know?
C KWONG: Well, my need for, I felt - for survival was greater than my hurt.
E KWONG: Yeah. When you say need for survival, what do you mean?
C KWONG: Meaning to integrate into society - you have to integrate, otherwise you're, you know, going to be really in a terrible place.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
E KWONG: I get what my dad is saying, but assimilation has a cost. Gaining a foothold in America meant losing the first language my dad's ever known.
AMELIA TSENG: When you lose your language, it's almost a form of violence if it's taken from you, right?
E KWONG: Amelia Tseng is a sociolinguist at American University, someone who studies how languages shift across immigrant generations.
TSENG: You know, we're a very multilingual country and always have been, but we are - have not historically been supportive of other languages, either through sort of active suppression or through just sort of a lack of interest in supporting them.
E KWONG: Amelia says that lack of support is rooted in things like nationalism and xenophobia. It has caused some linguists to call the U.S. a language graveyard.
(Speaking Mandarin Chinese).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking Mandarin Chinese).
E KWONG: (Speaking Mandarin Chinese).
So that's why I'm learning Chinese.
Zai.
At least trying to.
Oh. No, I got this. Zai - hold on.
And I've decided that any shame I might feel about imperfect pronunciation, fumbles with grammar is nothing compared to the shame I felt about not knowing the language at all; the shame I feel as my older relatives rattle off dim sum dishes and I stare down the menu pictures, feeling like a fraud within my own identity, missing something I never had in the first place. Meanwhile, my dad isn't as sentimental about this as I am.
When I say something like, wo ai ni - I love you - do you internalize that sentence? If I were to say, Dad, I love you, in English...
C KWONG: In English, of course, it resonates. Chinese - it's like I register Emily is learning Chinese.
E KWONG: Maybe if I get better at the pronunciation, one day, it will, like...
C KWONG: Our words will always be English, Emily. I was hoping the Chinese for you is just to give yourself that opportunity to embrace your other racial half.
E KWONG: I mean, my birth certificate says I'm white, even though my father was standing right there in the delivery room. And this erasure of him, of who I fully am and the language of his family, really hurts. It's left me with a feeling that I'm not Chinese enough.
Amelia says there's a word for what I'm feeling - racial imposter syndrome. And moving through it requires flexibility, self-compassion and reimagining what it means to be Chinese in America - our identities as something dynamic, not a box you check on a form.
TSENG: Part of how we create it is through language - the languages we speak, who we talk to but also how we talk about ourselves and other people.
E KWONG: Learning a language is like building a bridge. And sometimes, that bridge connects you to your identity.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HUI: Yes, I think there's more eggs.
E KWONG: Some of my earliest memories are of my dad's mom, my grandma Hui, trying to teach me Chinese in the years before she and my grandfather died.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: Wow.
E KWONG: Home movies are proof. I can hear both languages being spoken interchangeably. And I find it kind of beautiful that my grandmother - the same person who taught my father English so he could survive - in her last years was teaching me Chinese so it could survive within me.
(CROSSTALK)
E KWONG: It feels like a language that's ours. It belongs to our family, and I can engage with it if I want to and as much as I want to.
C KWONG: That is who we are, so we have to cling or retain or perhaps relearn what we are. So I think, you know, this is a journey of exploration for you, and this is so you can tie back to where you came from.
E KWONG: That means a lot to hear you say that.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
E KWONG: (Speaking Mandarin Chinese). I am Chinese American, even if I'll never be perfectly fluent in Chinese. It's taken me 30 years to say that sentence, and I just wish my grandmother was alive to hear it.
Emily Kwong, NPR News.
KELLY: Emily is a host and reporter for NPR's Short Wave podcast. This story was part of the Where We Come From series - stories from immigrant communities of color. The series was created and produced by Anjuli Sastry Krbechek. And you can find more audio and video episodes of the series, including a video of Emily's journey to learn Chinese, on our website npr.org.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/encore-a-daughters-journey-to-reclaim-her-heritage-language | 2022-05-12T15:23:07Z |
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Across the country, school districts are banning books from classrooms and school libraries; books like "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison and the memoir "Gender Queer" by Maia Kobabe. But NPR's Andrew Limbong says one library system has a novel idea to fight back.
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, 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, it's hard to say 'cause I don't have a favorite book 'cause all books are my favorite (laughter).
LIMBONG: 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 TRENTEMOLLER'S "MISS YOU") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/encore-a-library-system-announces-a-program-to-challenge-the-tide-of-book-bans | 2022-05-12T15:23:13Z |
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Los Angeles is home to hundreds of mom-and-pop doughnut stores run by immigrants from Cambodia. NPR's Neda Ulaby visited one with an artist who has found a new way to use them in her work.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOOR CHIMING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Unintelligible).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: OK.
NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: Donut Star, tucked away in a Southern California strip mall, is an unpretentious oasis of cheap coffee, lottery tickets and a staggering array of freshly baked doughnuts.
PHUNG HUYNH: Twisty, glazed doughnut, sprinkles and blue and pink.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: And chocolate bar.
ULABY: Artist Phung Huynh is here for a little sugary pick-me-up and artistic inspiration.
HUYNH: Onn (ph), what is the orange one?
ULABY: Huynh is a painter with a show up now in Los Angeles. Instead of traditional canvases, she uses the distinctive pink boxes these doughnut shops are known for.
HUYNH: I mean, it's a beautiful color, right?
ULABY: Bubblegum pink - and, she says, surprisingly easy to work with.
HUYNH: It's such a forgiving surface. And it grabs - it grabs the ink. It grabs the pencil, 'cause I've drawn - I made portraits.
ULABY: Huynh's doughnut box series portrays young people who grew up in their families' doughnut shops. They're children, she says, of boat people and refugees. She silkscreened their smiling faces in doughnut-flavor colors - maple, chocolate, banana, maraschino cherry. They look directly at the viewer.
(SOUNDBITE OF BANDY ANDY SONG, "DEAR ASIAN KIDS")
HUYNH: This is of Andrew Hang (ph), Bandy Andy, the rap artist. A lot of his work is about assimilating the immigrant experience.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DEAR ASIAN KIDS")
BANDY ANDY: (Rapping) Ay, Asian boy, Asian kid, I am sorry when they said that you ate your dog's ribs. Asian girl, Asian kid...
HUYNH: So I'm third generation refugee.
ULABY: Artist Phung Huynh's family fled Cambodia in 1975, Vietnam in 1978 and, before that, China during World War II. Her immigrant community has seen a frightening uptick in racist stereotyping, deportations and attacks over the past few years. While her family's story could be framed as the American dream, its critical, Huynh says, not to let their hard work and determination obscure other truths that come with their success.
HUYNH: There's a lot of guilt for being able to survive. There's a lot of guilt for being able to come to the United States and leaving some - you have to leave family. There are a lot of family back home who weren't able to come.
ULABY: Right now, Huynh says, as she looks at the faces of Ukrainian refugees and those from Afghanistan, Central America and so many other places around the world, she thinks about the flash of pink boxes being carried out of doughnut stores all over California as a signal, she says, of strength, of hope, of survival.
Neda Ulaby, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF KUPLA'S "DEW") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/encore-artist-portrays-kids-of-cambodian-american-refugees-on-pink-donut-boxes | 2022-05-12T15:23:19Z |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
New Mexico is the latest state to offer free tuition for higher education. Thirty-three states offer it in some form, and New Mexico’s program is among the most generous. But there are limits, as Alice Fordham with member station KUNM in Albuquerque reports.
ALICE FORDHAM, BYLINE: The celebration when Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed free tuition into law included a mariachi band from Western New Mexico University.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM: New Mexico is the first state in the nation to have this as part of their education platform.
FORDHAM: It's part of a slew of measures designed to increase enrollment at universities and revitalize New Mexico's workforce, which lacks skills. There's a severe shortage of professionals like teachers and nurses here. Lujan Grisham is part of a movement sometimes called College Promise. Eddy Conroy is an analyst at the New America Foundation who's advocated for free tuition.
EDDY CONROY: These guarantees come in a bunch of different forms. We're up to about 20 states that have some form of state-level program.
FORDHAM: In terms of the scope of who it covers and what it covers, New Mexico's initiative does go further than most.
CONROY: New Mexico's program is one of the most generous, if not the most generous, Promise program that we've seen instituted so far.
FORDHAM: But state lawmaker Larry R. Scott points out one big catch. The free tuition is only fully funded for one year.
LARRY R SCOTT: If we were looking for an effective program, that one-year commitment to the project was not really the appropriate course of action.
FORDHAM: The law Governor Lujan Grisham signed means most of the $75 million funding free tuition comes from federal pandemic relief.
SCOTT: If we're going to do this, we probably should have committed at least a few years of resources to it to see how efficient the program was and whether it was going to be effective.
FORDHAM: The expectation is that the scholarship will be renewed next year. An oil and gas boom here means the state will end this year with a projected $2.5 billion surplus. But Scott says oil and gas busts happen, too.
SCOTT: We've gone from being flush with money to not having enough to fund K-12 education.
FORDHAM: Just five years ago, New Mexico had to dip into education funding to balance the state budget. But even a year's free tuition means a lot to someone like Itzayana Banda. She couldn't afford to stay in school even when her favorite teacher tried to encourage her.
ITZAYANA BANDA: But no, it got to the point where I was like, no, I need to stop. It's either, like, I have money for rent, for gas, for other things, or it's I finish my education.
FORDHAM: Banda now has another option and clearly misses studying to be a teacher at Central New Mexico Community College.
BANDA: My favorite class - it was math for teachers. And they would show us there how we could show the students how to count, how to capture their attention.
FORDHAM: New Mexico residents can apply the tuition assistance to the cost of bachelor's degrees, vocational certificates and other qualifications. Emily Wildau, an analyst for New Mexico Voices for Children, says publicly funded tuition pays dividends long-term.
EMILY WILDAU: Because as it trains more and more people, that's an investment in our economy so we have a better-educated workforce. And that will help us attract new industries and create better-paying jobs.
FORDHAM: If oil and gas do end up funding free tuition longer-term in New Mexico, Wildau hopes the result will be a workforce that's less dependent on a single industry for prosperity.
For NPR News, I'm Alice Fordham in Santa Fe. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/encore-new-mexico-has-a-generous-free-tuition-program-but-there-are-limits | 2022-05-12T15:23:25Z |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We are beginning this hour with new developments on the effort to protect kids from COVID. Pfizer and BioNTech just asked the Food and Drug Administration to authorize the first booster shot for children ages 5 to 11. And any day now, Moderna is expected to seek authorization for the first vaccine for children younger than 5. NPR health correspondent Rob Stein joins us this morning. Hi, Rob.
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: Good morning, Rachel.
MARTIN: Before we get to the vaccine news, let's start with some new data out from the CDC about how many people, including kids, have been infected with COVID. What's the latest?
STEIN: You know, Rachel, does it feel like almost everyone you know has gotten COVID-19 by now? Well, you know...
MARTIN: A lot, yeah.
STEIN: Yeah, there's a good reason for that. The CDC data says that the omicron variant spread so fast this winter that almost 60% of everyone in the U.S. has antibodies to the virus. And that number is even higher for children - almost 75% of kids ages 11 and younger. That means lots of people have at least some immunity at this point and helps explain why the U.S. hasn't experienced yet another big surge yet.
MARTIN: OK. So 75% of kids have antibodies.
STEIN: Right.
MARTIN: That's what you said?
STEIN: Yep.
MARTIN: Does that mean these kids still need vaccinations or boosters?
STEIN: You know, the CDC says yes, absolutely. First of all, you know, one-quarter of kids still don't have any immunity. And the CDC says vaccination provides even stronger, perhaps broader, protection for those who have already gotten infected. So the - you know, the CDC is actually frustrated that most parents still haven't vaccinated or boosted their kids.
MARTIN: So we know kids ages 12 and older are already eligible for booster shots. Now Pfizer and BioNTech want the FDA to OK a booster for younger kids, too, right?
STEIN: Yeah, yeah. The companies say a third shot six months after the second shot can safely pump up antibodies for kids ages 5 to 11, especially antibodies that can fight off the omicron variant.
Now, Rachel, there's a bit of mixed opinion among independent experts about whether kids ages 5 to 11 need a booster yet. Some say, look, protection from two shots clearly weakens as the months go by, especially against omicron. And while kids don't tend to get as sick as adults, COVID can still pose a danger to kids. So we should do everything possible to protect them, especially now that no one's wearing masks and the numbers are creeping up again.
But others argue two shots are still keeping kids from getting seriously ill. And the evidence boosters are definitely needed just isn't there yet. So the FDA will have to decide who's right.
MARTIN: Meanwhile, really young kids still have not been able to get even their first shots.
STEIN: Right.
MARTIN: Moderna is expected to ask the FDA to authorize a vaccine for children younger than 5 this week finally. I mean, is this going to happen?
STEIN: You know, Moderna says its low-dose pediatric vaccine looks safe and can boost antibodies to levels equivalent to the adult vaccine for kids as young as 6 months old. That said, the protection still doesn't look that great against omicron. So that's raised questions about whether three doses are really needed. That's what happened with the Pfizer-BioNTech pediatric vaccine, and the FDA is waiting to see if three shots of that vaccine work better.
So while everyone's hoping to get a vaccine for these kids by this month, it now looks like the FDA's probably not going to take this up until June. And that's obviously not good news to all those parents of very young kids who are frustrated and angry that it's already taken this long to get a vaccine for their kids.
MARTIN: NPR health correspondent Rob Stein, thank you.
STEIN: Sure thing, Rachel. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/fda-considers-a-pfizer-booster-and-a-moderna-vaccine-for-children | 2022-05-12T15:23:31Z |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
A former U.S. Marine is now on his way back home after being imprisoned in Russia for 985 days. The Biden administration and Trevor Reed's parents made the announcement this morning. NPR diplomatic correspondent Michele Kelemen is following the story and joins us now.
Michele, just give us more details, as you know them, about Trevor Reed's release.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: So U.S. officials are saying this was the result of months and months of hard and careful work, as they put it. The U.S. released a Russian man from prison - we can talk about that in a minute - and the Russians, as you say, released Trevor Reed. He was first detained in 2019 for a scuffle with Russian police. He's always maintained his innocence. And the U.S. considered him unjustly detained - effectively a hostage. There were a lot of concerns about his health, and officials today say that's what led to this flurry of talks to get him out of prison. We're told that he was in good spirits and is on his way home with the U.S. Hostage Affairs envoy.
MARTIN: Reed's parents, I understand, were instrumental in at least talking about his imprisonment, getting it out, which is a particular kind of strategy. Can you talk about their role in this?
KELEMEN: Yeah. I mean, they've been playing a big role publicly for all this time. But they staged a protest outside the White House last month and got a meeting with President Biden. I think it really was about all their - the concerns about his health. They put a statement out today saying that Trevor Reed will share his story when he's ready, but for now, he needs to deal with what they call a myriad of health issues that were brought on - and this is a quote - "by the squalid conditions he was subjected to in his Russian gulag."
MARTIN: So you nodded to this - this was part of a prisoner exchange. Do we know anything more about the Russian man who was also freed?
KELEMEN: Yeah. The U.S. commuted the sentence of Konstantin Yaroshenko. He's a pilot who was serving a 20-year prison term for drug smuggling. Officials say that he paid a steep price and had served a majority of his sentence. But I should point out that it was actually just over half of his prison term that he served. Officials say that it was a tough call to release him. The Russians have been lobbying for his release for a while in proposing prisoner swaps. The other man they want back is Viktor Bout, but the U.S. would have a hard time releasing someone like Bout. He's an arms dealer who's known as the Merchant of Death, and his story is much more widely known than Yaroshenko's was.
MARTIN: So, I mean, each case is particular, right? There are different circumstances that lead to someone's detention in a nation-state. I mean, as you noted, Trevor Reed was detained initially because of this kind of - he was accused of attacking a Moscow police officer. But does his release signal good news in any way for other Americans who are being detained there - Paul Whelan, who is accused of spying, and most recently, the WNBA star Brittney Griner?
KELEMEN: Right, right. I mean, it's a good sign that the U.S. is - can still talk to Russia about these cases because, you know, the embassy has been very short-staffed, and there are all kinds of problems. But so far, we're told that the talks have not gone beyond these sort of discreet issues about hostages. So hopefully, they can come up with some other deals and prisoner exchanges. But so far, it hasn't gone beyond this.
MARTIN: NPR diplomatic correspondent Michele Kelemen. Thank you so much.
KELEMEN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/former-u-s-marine-trevor-reed-freed-from-russia-in-prisoner-swap | 2022-05-12T15:23:37Z |
Long after the memories of the epic flameouts of Fyre Festival or CNN+ dwindle, a piece of these companies will live on.
Christina Warren has made sure of that.
For the past six years, the software developer and former journalist has made it a point to collect T-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs and PopSockets branded with the names of these spectacularly failed companies.
Warren, currently a developer advocate at GitHub, is also now a bit of a technology and pop culture anthropologist.
Her collection began as a pile of endless swag she'd get at tech conferences, when companies like to hand out beer koozies, shirts and other things branded with their logo.
"Over the years it's turned out that some of those companies have gone out of business in really spectacular ways," she said.
Her formerly useless swag collection turned into an irony lover's goldmine. So she began collecting in earnest, she told NPR, and nabbing items from these major flops that were once thought of as the next Facebook. It's become a fully-fledged hobby and the number of items in her graveyard of items of dead companies total about 20.
The collection spans Enron to CNN+
One of her oldest items is a mug from Enron, an energy giant that filed for bankruptcy in 2001.
And the newest addition to her collection is a PopSocket branded with the logo of CNN+, a streaming platform created by the cable news network.
She recently took to Twitter shortly after CNN announced it would be shutting down its new streaming platform to try to get something to add to her collection. "Plz send me CNN+ merch. I will pay."
But Warren quickly noted on Twitter that she isn't trying to make light of what is likely a big loss to the workers behind these companies.
"But also, all CNN+ jokes aside, I'm incredibly sorry to the teams that clearly worked so hard on this launch to have their project shut down so quickly," she posted. "Better fast than dragging it out? I don't know. But my heart goes out to them."
Looking on the bright side, she notes there is both humor and a lesson to learn about buying into the hype of the so-called "next big thing." That's part of why she gets such a kick out of collecting items from these companies.
She said: "I would say what's been interesting about kind of collecting the stuff over the years is that it makes me think more about, why do certain things get the attention they get? And how do they fall out of favor?"
Warren is still on the pursuit of her 'white whale'
Warren isn't looking for merch from just any business or startup that quickly shuttered. She's looking for the ones that came out of the woodwork with huge fanfare but then failed in an epic way.
"I'm looking at the ones that were flying high, too close to the sun," she said.
Think Fyre Festival, mobile streaming service Quibi, and Theranos, she said. Companies who all promised a changed world, but upon a closer look at their product, didn't make much sense.
Fast garnered a lot of buzz with its goal of helping people expedite online purchases, but said earlier this month it was shutting down.
"Fast is another one of those companies where the hype didn't seem to match with what the company was doing. That makes the fall that much more extreme. Which to me then makes it funnier to be out someplace wearing a shirt from one of those things," Warren said, while wearing a Fast sweatshirt.
Warren pinches pennies when it comes to her collection. She doesn't want to spend more than $75 on any one item. She nabbed the Fast sweatshirt off of eBay for $25.
Favorites of the collection are her Fyre Festival T-shirts.
She nabbed her shirts — still with the tags on — before the two documentaries ran and before overpriced, fake items hit eBay, a problem she said she is seeing a lot.
"The problem with this is that the more popular the failed companies become, the more fake counterfeit merchandise becomes available," she said. "I don't want the fake merchandise. I want it to be the real stuff."
It makes her hobby a bit difficult when she wants the big name things.
"My white whale, the thing I haven't been able to obtain yet, is something officially from Theranos," she said.
With the high-profile trial, podcasts, and now a new Hulu show, it's been impossible.
"I hope that someday I'll be able to get something, whether it's like a mug. I would even take a pen, you know, like a ballpoint pen," she said.
She's hoping old employees or people who saved freebies from Theranos events may have something legitimate she can grab to add to her ever-growing graveyard.
"There's some hope."
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/from-cnn-to-fyre-festival-this-collector-seeks-swag-from-companies-with-epic-ends | 2022-05-12T15:23:44Z |
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Germany has announced it will send anti-aircraft systems to Ukraine. The decision breaks with Berlin's traditional refusal to export heavy weapons to war zones. Chancellor Olaf Scholz faces harsh criticism for inaction and is under pressure to send more weapons. But as Esme Nicholson reports, there is still angst in Germany about provoking a wider conflict with Russia.
ESME NICHOLSON, BYLINE: Speaking after talks about Ukraine with military officials from 40 countries at the Ramstein Air Base yesterday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin made a point of acknowledging a last-minute pledge of support.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LLOYD AUSTIN: I wanted to especially welcome a major decision by our German host - announced just today that Germany will send Ukraine some 50 Cheetah anti-aircraft systems.
NICHOLSON: Austin refused to speculate on what else Germany might provide but stressed that any further decisions should be made quickly.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
AUSTIN: But we don't have any time to waste, so we've got to move at the speed of war.
NICHOLSON: In Berlin, the promise of military support is viewed as a rushed bid to save face on the global stage. On domestic television last night, Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht defaulted to Chancellor Scholz's more hesitant stance.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHRISTINE LAMBRECHT: (Through interpreter) Any potential decisions to deliver more heavy weapons cannot be rushed. We must take care that we do not become a party to the war.
NICHOLSON: But Scholz and co. are being forced to act. This week, the opposition proposed a parliamentary motion to approve the direct delivery of more weapons to Ukraine. Scholz's coalition has responded with a countermotion that still favors the so-called backfill option, in which Germany provides Ukraine with heavy weapons indirectly via Eastern European neighbors who pass on their old Soviet-era tanks in exchange for newer ones from Germany. Today, opposition leaders accepted this proposal, and parliament is due to vote on it tomorrow.
There is criticism of this roundabout policy, even from within Scholz's own government, most notably from the Greens. Anton Hofreiter is one of them.
ANTON HOFREITER: (Through interpreter) To suggest that the Ukrainian military isn't skilled enough to use modern weapons is, frankly, paternalistic nonsense considering the heroic fight it's put up against Russia so far.
NICHOLSON: Despite announcing a sea change in German security policy just days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Scholz is under fire for failing to deliver the goods. The German chancellor said last week that he's wary of sparking a nuclear war and announced military stocks are too depleted to spare any weapons. Many reject these arguments.
Cathryn Cluver Ashbrook is a fellow at the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin.
CATHRYN CLUVER ASHBROOK: He has gotten in public discourse - very dismissive of experts when it comes both to the discussion of a possible oil and gas embargo, but also when it comes to the idea of increased military aid. It's not a good look.
NICHOLSON: But when it comes to public opinion, not all agree. Sixty-eight-year-old Dagmar Hake from Berlin says she's impressed with Scholz's level-headedness, even though she didn't vote for him.
DAGMAR HAKE: (Through interpreter) Sure, we need to stop this war, but pouring oil on the fire by sending weapons is dangerous considering Russia's nuclear arsenal. We need to stop talking about victory and instead negotiate a cease-fire.
NICHOLSON: Ultimately though, industry often has the final say in Germany. While Scholz has caved to pressure from sectors heavily invested in Russia to dismiss prominent economists who say an immediate gas embargo is manageable, the arms industry is also driving policy by pushing the government for export permits.
For NPR News, I'm Esme Nicholson in Berlin.
(SOUNDBITE OF COCABONA, SOUL FOOD HORNS AND DESH'S "CYPRUS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/germany-to-send-anti-aircraft-systems-to-ukraine-despite-worry-of-provoking-conflict | 2022-05-12T15:23:50Z |
The Fierro family of Yuma, Ariz., had a string of bad medical luck that started in December 2020.
That's when Jesús Fierro Sr. was admitted to the hospital with a serious case of COVID-19. He spent 18 days at Yuma Regional Medical Center, where he lost 60 pounds. He came home weak and dependent on an oxygen tank.
Then, in June 2021, his wife, Claudia Fierro, fainted while waiting for a table at the local Olive Garden restaurant. She felt dizzy one minute and was in an ambulance on her way to the same medical center the next. She was told her magnesium levels were low and was sent home within 24 hours.
The family has health insurance through Jesús Sr.'s job, but it didn't protect the Fierros from owing thousands of dollars. So when their son Jesús Fierro Jr. dislocated his shoulder, the Fierros — who hadn't yet paid the bills for their own care — opted out of U.S. health care and headed south to the U.S.-Mexico border.
And no other bills came for at least one member of the family.
The patients: Jesús Fierro Sr., 48; Claudia Fierro, 51; and Jesús Fierro Jr., 17. The family has Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas health insurance through Jesús Sr.'s employment with NOV, formerly National Oilwell Varco, an American multinational oil company based in Houston.
Medical services: For Jesús Sr., 18 days of inpatient care for a severe case of COVID-19. For Claudia, fewer than 24 hours of emergency care after fainting. For Jesús Jr., a walk-in appointment for a dislocated shoulder.
Total bills: Jesús Sr. was charged $3,894.86. The total bill was $107,905.80 for COVID-19 treatment. Claudia was charged $3,252.74, including $202.36 for treatment from an out-of-network physician. The total bill was $13,429.50 for less than one day of treatment. Jesús Jr. was charged $5 (70 pesos) for an outpatient visit that the family paid in cash.
Service providers: Yuma Regional Medical Center, a 406-bed nonprofit hospital in Yuma, Ariz. It's in the Fierros' insurance network. And a private doctor's office in Mexicali, Mexico, which is not.
What gives: The Fierros were trapped in a situation in which more and more Americans find themselves. They are what some experts term "functionally uninsured." They have insurance — in this case, through Jesús Sr.'s job, which pays $72,000 a year. But their health plan is expensive, and they don't have the liquid savings to pay their share of the bill. The Fierros' plan says their out-of-pocket maximum is $8,500 a year for the family. And in a country where even a short stay in an emergency room is billed at a staggering sum, that means minor encounters with the medical system can take virtually all the family's disposable savings, year after year. And that's why the Fierros opted out of U.S. health care for their son.
According to the terms of the insurance plan, which has a $2,000 family deductible and 20% coinsurance, Jesús Sr. owed $3,894.86 out of a total bill of nearly $110,000 for his COVID-19 care in late 2020.
The Fierros are paying off that bill — $140 a month — and still owe more than $2,500. In 2020, most insurers agreed to waive cost-sharing payments for COVID-19 treatment after the passage of federal coronavirus relief packages that provided emergency funding to hospitals. But waiving treatment costs was optional under the law. And although Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas has a posted policy saying it would waive cost-sharing through the end of 2020, the insurer didn't do that for Jesús Sr.'s bill. Carrie Kraft, a spokesperson for the insurer, wouldn't discuss why his bill was not waived.
(More than two years into the coronavirus pandemic and with vaccines now widely available to reduce the risk of hospitalization and death, most insurers again charge patients their cost-sharing portion.)
On Jan. 1, 2021, the Fierros' deductible and out-of-pocket maximum reset. So when Claudia fainted — a fairly common occurrence and rarely indicative of a serious problem — she was sent by ambulance to the emergency room, leaving the Fierros with another bill of more than $3,000. That kind of bill is a huge stress on many American families; fewer than half of U.S. adults have enough savings to cover a surprise $1,000 expense. In recent polling by the Kaiser Family Foundation, "unexpected medical bills" ranked second among family budget worries, behind gas prices and other transportation costs.
The new bill for the fainting spell destabilized the Fierros' household budget. "We thought about taking a second loan on our house," said Jesús Sr., a Los Angeles native. When he called the hospital to ask for financial assistance, he said, people he spoke with strongly discouraged him from applying. "They told me that I could apply but that it would only lower Claudia's bill by $100," he said.
So when Jesús Jr. dislocated his shoulder when boxing with his brother, the family headed south.
Jesús Sr. asked his son, "Can you bear the pain for an hour?" The teen replied, "Yes."
Father and son took the hourlong trip to Mexicali, Mexico, to Dr. Alfredo Acosta's office.
The Fierros don't consider themselves "health tourists." Jesús Sr. crosses the border into Mexicali every day for his work, and Mexicali is Claudia's hometown. They've been traveling to the neighborhood known as La Chinesca (Chinatown) for years to see Acosta, a general practitioner, who treats the asthma of their youngest son, Fernando, 15. Treatment for Jesús Jr.'s dislocated shoulder was the first time they had sought emergency care from the physician. The price was right, and the treatment effective.
A visit to a U.S. emergency room likely would have involved a facility fee, expensive X-rays and perhaps a specialist's evaluation — which would have generated thousands of dollars in bills. Acosta adjusted Jesús Jr.'s shoulder so that the bones aligned in the socket and prescribed him ibuprofen for soreness. The family paid cash on the spot.
Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesn't endorse traveling to another country for medical care, the Fierros are among millions of Americans each year who do. Many of them are fleeing expensive care in the U.S., even with health insurance.
Acosta, who is from the Mexican state of Sinaloa and is a graduate of the Autonomous University of Sinaloa, moved to Mexicali 20 years ago. He witnessed firsthand the growth of the medical tourism industry.
He sees about 14 patients a day (no appointment necessary), and 30% to 40% of them are from the United States. He charges $8 for typical visits.
In Mexicali, a mile from La Chinesca, where the family doctors have their modest offices, there are medical facilities that rival those in the United States. The facilities have international certification and are considered expensive, but they are still cheaper than hospitals in the United States.
Resolution: Both Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas and Yuma Regional Medical Center declined to discuss the Fierros' bills with KHN, even though Jesús Sr. and Claudia gave written permission for them to do so.
In a statement, Yuma Regional Medical Center spokesperson Machele Headington said, "Applying for financial support starts with an application — a service we extended, and still extend, to these patients."
In an email, Kraft, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas spokesperson, said: "We understand the frustration our members experience when they receive a bill containing COVID-19 charges that they do not understand, or feel may be inappropriate."
The Fierros are planning to apply to the hospital for financial support for their outstanding debts. But Claudia said never again: "I told Jesús, 'If I faint again, please drive me home,' " rather than call an ambulance.
"We pay $1,000 premium monthly for our employment-based insurance," added Jesús. "We should not have to live with this stress."
The takeaway: Be aware that your deductible "meter" starts over every year and that virtually any emergency care can generate a bill in the thousands of dollars and may leave you owing your deductible and most of your out-of-pocket maximum.
Also be aware that even if you seem not to qualify for financial assistance based on a hospital's policy, you can apply and explain your circumstances. Because of the high cost of care in the U.S., even many middle-income people qualify. And many hospitals give their finance departments leeway to adjust bills. Some patients discover that if they offer to pay cash on the spot, the bill can be reduced dramatically.
All nonprofit hospitals have a legal obligation to help patients: They pay no tax in exchange for providing "community benefit." Make a case for yourself, and ask for a supervisor if you get an initial no.
For elective procedures, patients can follow the Fierros' example, becoming savvy health care shoppers. Recently, Claudia needed an endoscopy to evaluate an ulcer. The family called different facilities and discovered a $500 difference in the cost of an endoscopy. They will soon drive to a medical center in Central Valley, California, two hours from home, for the procedure.
The Fierros didn't even consider going back to their local hospital. "I don't want to say, 'Hello' and receive a $3,000 bill," joked Jesús Sr.
Stephanie O'Neill contributed the audio portrait with this story.
Bill of the Month is a crowdsourced investigation by KHN and NPR that dissects and explains medical bills. Do you have an interesting medical bill you want to share with us? Tell us about it!
Copyright 2022 Kaiser Health News. To see more, visit Kaiser Health News. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/hit-with-7-146-for-two-hospital-bills-a-family-sought-health-care-in-mexico | 2022-05-12T15:23:56Z |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Investigators in New Mexico are offering new insights into the fatal shooting last October of a cinematographer on the set of the Western movie "Rust." The Santa Fe Sheriff's Office has now released dozens of photos, texts, videos and documents. NPR's Mandalit del Barco has more.
MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE: The stockpile of evidence includes witness statements and video from deputies responding to the shooting on the "Rust" set.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED DEPUTY: Thirty-two Santa Fe. One female shot in the chest, male shot in the stomach. Request an air flight.
DEL BARCO: There are clips of actor Alec Baldwin rehearsing a scene inside a small church at Bonanza Ranch. Wearing a cowboy hat, he pulls a gun from his coat and points toward the camera. It was during a rehearsal that the gun went off, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza. There's video of the medics attending to them before helicopter ambulances arrived.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MEDIC: Deep breath - deep breath, Halyna.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Inaudible) - the gun shot off (ph).
DEL BARCO: Other videos recorded hours later show Baldwin talking to investigators.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ALEC BALDWIN: It should have been a cold gun with no rounds inside or dummy rounds - cosmetic rounds, no flash. I take the gun out slowly. I try to cock the pistol. Bang. It goes off. She hits the ground. She goes down. He goes down screaming.
DEL BARCO: Santa Fe Sheriff Adan Mendoza says the evidence was released after a public records request. But he says investigators are still waiting for forensic and ballistics reports from the FBI crime lab. Mendoza told "The Today Show" they're still looking into who's ultimately responsible.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE TODAY SHOW")
ADAN MENDOZA: I think there is - was complacency on the set. There was disorganization and a degree of negligence.
DEL BARCO: At issue is how live rounds of ammunition ended up in the gun Baldwin used on the set of "Rust." The newly released evidence includes text messages from crew members about how some guns had been discharged on set before the shooting.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE TODAY SHOW")
MENDOZA: Right now no one's come forward and admitted to bringing the live rounds onto the movie set.
DEL BARCO: New Mexico safety regulators documented complaints from crew members. And last week, they fined the "Rust" production team nearly $137,000 for safety violations. Hutchins' husband has filed a wrongful death suit against Baldwin. The actor, who's also one of the film's producers, says he pointed the gun but didn't pull the trigger and didn't know it had live rounds.
On "The Today Show," Sheriff Mendoza was asked whether Baldwin could still face criminal charges.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE TODAY SHOW")
MENDOZA: It's too early to rule anything out right now. But I don't think anybody's off the hook when it comes to criminal charges.
DEL BARCO: Mendoza said that would be up to the district attorney's office.
Mandalit del Barco, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/investigators-offer-new-insight-into-the-fatal-shooting-on-the-rust-movie-set | 2022-05-12T15:24:02Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Major League Baseball fans continue to marvel at the Japanese pitching and hitting sensation Shohei Ohtani of the LA Angels. But there's already another next big thing emerging in Japanese baseball. He's a 20-year-old pitcher who stunned the baseball world this month. NPR's Tom Goldman has that story.
TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: Last Sunday, superhuman Roki Sasaki was merely human. He pitched five innings for his Chiba Lotte Marines. He struck out four, walked three, gave up two runs, but got the win. A solid effort, but compared to what he'd done the previous two weeks - utterly pedestrian.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: (Non-English language spoken).
GOLDMAN: On April 10, Sasaki pitched the Japanese Major League's first perfect game in 28 years. He was breathtaking, in not allowing a single opponent to get on base, striking out 19 of the 27 batters he faced. Afterwards, Sasaki had a press conference on the field. His questioner asked, many fans are hoping there's more to come. What do you say to them?
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ROKI SASAKI: (Speaking Japanese).
(APPLAUSE)
GOLDMAN: "I'm going to keep trying my best," Sasaki said, "to pitch just as well the next time out." A young man of his word, a week later, Sasaki pitched perfectly again into the eighth inning. But opposing batters were making good contact and his pitch count was getting high. So his manager, who has protected Sasaki like a rare jewel, pulled him from the game.
Jim Allen lives in Japan and has written about baseball there for nearly 30 years.
JIM ALLEN: The thing that shocked me the most was the lack of outrage.
GOLDMAN: The outrage of sitting a pitcher when he's this close to a perfect game, considered a once-in-a-lifetime achievement. But in this case, it was taking out a pitcher on the cusp of a second perfect game in a row. With Sasaki, Allen says, the calculus of once in a lifetime has changed.
ALLEN: The way he pitched on April 10 - we got a sensation that this is not the end, that this is the beginning, and that this is something that is a very real possibility every time he pitches.
GOLDMAN: Sasaki has been on baseball's radar since he was a high school senior, throwing close to a hundred miles per hour. But managers and coaches have brought him along slowly, not wanting to burn him out or overwork a young man still physically developing. His first year professionally, he didn't pitch. His second year, appearances were limited. And now, Year 3...
ALLEN: I've been watching all his starts. They're just electric.
GOLDMAN: Allen says Japanese media want to know everything about Sasaki, including his sad past. His father and two other relatives died when their home was washed away in the 2011 tsunami.
ALLEN: He said, you know, it's something that will never be erased from my memory. And I want people to know that this is still a thing, you know, that people are still unable to return to their homes.
GOLDMAN: But Allen says Sasaki doesn't wear the tragedy on his sleeve and handles the constant questions about his dad in a calm and understated way, kind of the way he mows down opposing batters - with an effortless and efficient delivery that belies the ferocity of his blazing fastball and confounding split-finger pitch. It's unlikely he'll make the jump to the U.S. for several years, which is why Major League scouts are okay with a take-it-slowly approach. After Sunday's win, Sasaki was temporarily deactivated - more protection. But when he makes his next start, batters are sure to shudder while fans dream of what's next.
Tom Goldman, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF TOE'S "DUAL HARMONICS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/japanese-pitcher-roki-sasaki-could-be-baseballs-next-big-thing | 2022-05-12T15:24:08Z |
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In a hot dirt yard outside a police station in Kuwait, activists have set up camp. They spent nearly three weeks on hunger strike, asking the Kuwaiti government for citizenship, led by a 50-year-old computer engineer named Mohammad Bargash (ph).
MOHAMMAD BARGASH: (Speaking Arabic).
SHAPIRO: He says, "the government limits our right to an education, to health care, to an identity, to dignity."
Although Bargash has lived in Kuwait his whole life, he, his wife and seven children are officially stateless. The term is Bidoon, which means without.
BARGASH: (Speaking Arabic).
SHAPIRO: "The government is ignoring us," he says. "No one cares. No one is giving us a solution."
That's why he started his hunger strike, and other activists followed until there were six of them.
BARGASH: (Speaking Arabic).
SHAPIRO: He says it's a tragedy that Kuwait is a rich country that pretends it supports human rights. Kuwaiti citizens benefit from generous social spending made possible by the government's oil wealth. But there are an estimated 100,000 or more Bidoon people in Kuwait who cannot access those benefits. Many have lived in Kuwait their entire lives. Just today, Bargash had his first meeting with Kuwaiti political leaders, and he says he's putting the hunger strike on pause in hopes of a breakthrough.
Zahra Marwan supports this protest. She was born stateless, but her family managed to leave Kuwait when she was a child. She became a U.S. citizen and an illustrator and children's book author. One of those books tells her own story.
ZAHRA MARWAN: I was born stateless in Kuwait, in spite of my mom being a citizen. I was born stateless because my dad was born stateless because his dad didn't register in the 1940s.
SHAPIRO: You say his dad didn't register in the 1940s. We're going to need a bit of history here. Explain what happened.
MARWAN: Yeah. So three of my grandparents were Kuwaiti citizens, and only one wasn't. Citizenship was a new concept when it was introduced in Kuwait, and a lot of people didn't really see the importance of it since migration was so fluid. Both of my parents' families are from a larger historic migration of Southwest Iranians who went into the Arab Gulf in the early 1900s to work as sea laborers. So both sides of my families are from the same exact background, community and historic neighborhood, yet my mom's family are officially Kuwaiti, and my dad's undefined.
SHAPIRO: And what's incredible is that that decision that people made generations ago ripples down to folks living in Kuwait today.
MARWAN: Yeah. There's an argument over there that stateless people should go back to their countries of origin. But when I look at some of my cousins now, what business do they have going back to a country that our great-grandparents left 120 years ago?
SHAPIRO: Would you ever want Kuwaiti citizenship?
MARWAN: I think so, yes, just to maybe put it on my dad's grave.
SHAPIRO: How long ago did he die?
MARWAN: My father passed away in 2016. And I feel like my parents always planned on returning to Kuwait after we became citizens, which is counter to the narrative of stateless people over there.
SHAPIRO: How did he think of himself? Did he think of himself as Kuwaiti, even if he didn't have a piece of paper saying as much?
MARWAN: Yes. I feel like there are so many people like my family where my dad was Kuwaiti in speech, dress and culture. And he wanted to be buried among our family, yet two years after his burial, there was a warrant out for his arrest for not renewing his foreigner's visa from the grave.
SHAPIRO: I'm sorry, explain that detail. That sounds Orwellian. He needed a foreigner's visa his whole life, even though he was born and raised in Kuwait.
MARWAN: That's right. People are born in Kuwait as illegal residents now, and they don't get birth or death certificates or aren't allowed to marry or go to public school or leave the country, really, because no other country will accept them.
SHAPIRO: Do you remember how old you were when you learned the term Bidoon and understood what it meant for your life?
MARWAN: I think it came in waves. When I saw our cards here and it said birth place, Kuwait, nationality undefined, I didn't know what that meant. And my parents weren't very open about explaining what that meant. So it took me a long time to understand that even though I think of myself as Kuwaiti the way my parents thought of themselves as Kuwaiti, that people over there didn't see me in the same light.
SHAPIRO: In the U.S., people talk about undocumented immigrants or illegal immigrants - choose your phrase. Is this similar, or is this a little bit deeper?
MARWAN: I think a little bit deeper in that we have no citizenship in any country. I think in the 1960s, my dad tried to say he was Iranian and get papers and was denied that, too. So where can you belong if no government accepts you?
SHAPIRO: Do you imagine what your life would have been like if your family had not left Kuwait?
MARWAN: When I do, I imagine my life had I just received my rights. But when I sat with my Uncle Ahmed recently a few years ago at the fish market, he told me, I know your life isn't easy over there, but it's better than what it would have been over here. So I keep that in mind all the time.
SHAPIRO: Zahra Marwan is a children's book author and illustrator based in New Mexico. Thank you for talking with us.
MARWAN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/kuwaiti-bidoons-went-on-hunger-strike-for-19-days-has-anything-changed | 2022-05-12T15:24:14Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
In Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to five more years in jail, this time for alleged corruption. Suu Kyi was detained after last year's coup by Myanmar's military. She's faced multiple charges brought by the military regime. Michael Sullivan reports from neighboring Thailand.
MICHAEL SULLIVAN, BYLINE: Today's verdict was hardly unexpected. Suu Kyi is already serving a six-year term after being sentenced last year by a military-run court for violating COVID restrictions and illegally importing walkie-talkies. Today's verdict involved allegations she accepted both cash and gold from a government minister.
Phil Robertson is deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch.
PHIL ROBERTSON: It's quite clear that they are aiming to put her away forever. She's 76 years old. They don't want to see her again. They view her as being the embodiment of Myanmar democracy. And by putting her away, it makes their lives easier to try to crush what is the ongoing people's resistance and demands for a wider democratic future in Burma.
SULLIVAN: Suu Kyi's trial was held in the capital, Naypyidaw, and was closed to the media, diplomats and the public. Her lawyers are forbidden from speaking to the press. If convicted of all the charges against her, she could face more than a hundred years in jail. Suu Kyi has denied all the charges. Her National League for Democracy won a landslide victory in the November 2020 general election. But the military coup prevented lawmakers from taking office. Myanmar has been wracked by violence since the coup as the military tries to stamp out opposition to its rule.
Again, Phil Robertson.
ROBERTSON: A significant number of the people who are resisting the junta are strong supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy. And so they will be even further angered by this action to throw her another five years in prison. And they will not accept it. And I think this will redouble the anger that the people of Myanmar feel against this military junta.
SULLIVAN: The watchdog group the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners says roughly 1,800 civilians have been killed by the military since it seized power.
For NPR News, I'm Michael Sullivan in Bangkok.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE CINEMATIC ORCHESTRA'S "DAWN") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/myanmar-court-sentences-aung-san-suu-kyi-to-5-years-in-prison-for-corruption | 2022-05-12T15:24:20Z |
TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. Two new limited series take new approaches to very familiar stories. "Gaslit," which premiered Sunday on Starz, is an eight-part comedy drama about the Watergate scandal. "The Offer," which premieres tomorrow on Paramount+, is a 10-part comedy drama about the making of the movie "The Godfather." Our TV critic David Bianculli reviews them both.
DAVID BIANCULLI, BYLINE: "Gaslit" and "The Offer," it turns out, have an awful lot in common. Both are scheduled around golden anniversaries. Last month was the 50th anniversary of the release of Francis Ford Coppola's original "Godfather" movie. And in June, it'll be 50 years since the Watergate break-in that ended up toppling a presidency. Both of these new TV productions, in telling their stories, focus on relatively minor figures and take a mostly light touch. Both TV shows also boast at least a few actors and performances enjoyable enough to make these new treatments worth sitting through.
"Gaslit" is based on the Slate podcast "Slow Burn" from 2017, which already inspired a documentary series on the Epix network two years ago. The early emphasis in "Gaslit" is on Martha Mitchell, the infamously outspoken Washington wife of John Mitchell, who was President Richard Nixon's attorney general, and before that, his campaign manager. The Mitchells are played by this show's biggest stars, Julia Roberts, and a heavily-but-effectively disguised Sean Penn. In the opening episode, John Mitchell comes home to find Martha entertaining a magazine reporter. He throws the visitor out, mixes a drink and begins to complain. But Martha holds her own.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "GASLIT")
SEAN PENN: (As John Mitchell) I told you no more print interviews.
JULIA ROBERTS: (As Martha Mitchell) Oh, it's a ladies' magazine. Ask me about the (inaudible) for Christ's sake.
PENN: (As John Mitchell) I know exactly what you're doing. You're just trying to take the spotlight from Pat Nixon.
ROBERTS: (As Martha Mitchell) I would never. Let me do this.
(SOUNDBITE OF ICE CUBES RATTLING)
PENN: (As John Mitchell) Do you really think that she, in a million years, would plan her concert just to be on the same night as your party?
ROBERTS: (As Martha Mitchell) It's a fundraiser for her husband's campaign, by the way. And yes, I think she absolutely meant to do it.
PENN: (As John Mitchell) It was a misunderstanding.
ROBERTS: (As Martha Mitchell) The Bay of Pigs was a misunderstanding. This is an encroachment.
BIANCULLI: Roberts and Penn very good together, even in later episodes, when scenes between them get much darker and even violent. Another scene-stealer is Dan Stevens from "Downton Abbey" and "Legion" as White House counsel John Dean. He's called into John Mitchell's office early on, and Dean fears he's being fired. Instead, while Mitchell sits quietly in his squeaky leather chair, another White House staffer, Hamish Linklater as Jeb Magruder, explains what the president has in mind for him.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "GASLIT")
HAMISH LINKLATER: (As Jeb Magruder) I assume you're aware of the intelligence unit that was set up in the Oval after this whole Pentagon Papers...
DAN STEVENS: (As John Dean) Right...
LINKLATER: (As Jeb Magruder) ...Fiasco - yes?
STEVENS: (As John Dean) ...The plumber.
LINKLATER: (As Jeb Magruder) Yeah, that's right. There's a CIA reject named Howard Hunt. He's the main guy over there. And they're currently graduating from rooting out leaks to rat******* the Democrats. And there is a desire to enact a similar operation on the campaign side of things.
STEVENS: (As John Dean) You mean you want to set up an espionage unit here inside the Committee to Re-Elect to spy on the Democrats.
LINKLATER: (As Jeb Magruder) Oh, heavens, no, no, no. Espionage - that's a big - that's a serious word. No, we're talking about simple intelligence gathering.
STEVENS: (As John Dean) I see. Nixon has 19 points on the Dems. The election is practically in the bag. Why would we risk that kind of legal exposure?
LINKLATER: (As Jeb Magruder) It's not our job to ask why.
BIANCULLI: John Dean has been the focus of TV miniseries before, most notably in 1979's "Blind Ambition," played by Martin Sheen. But while Dean is central to the story being told here, this adaptation by Robbie Pickering from "Mr. Robot" skips many of the most dramatic potential opportunities - for example, when Watergate prosecutors revealed to Dean that all Oval Office conversations secretly had been recorded by Nixon himself. And "Gaslit" spends way too much time on loose cannon Watergate operative G. Gordon Liddy, played by Shea Whigham. His performance is strong, but many of his scenes are weak.
"The Offer," which tells about the making of the first "Godfather" movie, also nibbles around the periphery of a well-known story. Director Francis Coppola and novelist Mario Puzo are characters here but not the major ones. This 10-part miniseries is billed as being based on Albert S. Ruddy's experience in making "The Godfather." Ruddy was a Hollywood newcomer whose credits as a producer before getting a job working for Paramount studio chief Robert Evans were topped by the CBS sitcom "Hogan's Heroes." Miles Teller plays Ruddy, and he's a very likable protagonist here. But "The Offer" is dominated throughout by Matthew Goode, who was in "The Crown" and "The Good Wife." He has a blast playing Robert Evans. And in this early scene, Ruddy crashes the Paramount lot and approaches Evans, who doesn't brush him off but starts a conversation instead.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE OFFER")
MATTHEW GOODE: (As Robert Evans) You know what a producer does, Mr. Ruddy? They do whatever it takes to get their movie made. Now, what makes you think that you're qualified to do that?
MILES TELLER: (As Albert S. Ruddy) You know, I read an article in Variety that said that you started out selling ladies slacks and doing bit parts in movies, but you still figured it out.
GOODE: (As Robert Evans) So unknown (ph) computer guy creates CBS' hit comedy about Nazis. Go figure. All right. All right. You do remind me of me, and I'm a sentimental guy. And you caught me on a good day. Let's set a lunch, Mr. Ruddy.
BIANCULLI: Michael Tolkin is the creator of "The Offer." And he and Nikki Toscano from "Hunters" are the primary writers. It's a better constructed narrative than "Gaslit," although a lot more could have been done here if the story had focused more on Coppola and Marlon Brando and certain others. But with both these new TV series, I hope they inspire some additional viewings. The original "Godfather" movies are available on Paramount+, so start there. And for the best ever movie about Watergate, find and watch "All The President's Men" from 1976 starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman. Come to think of it, I'd love to see a dramatization of the making of that classic movie or of Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," Steven Spielberg's "Jaws" and George Lucas' "Star Wars." How about it, Hollywood? Making more shows like "The Offer" is an offer you shouldn't refuse.
GROSS: David Bianculli is a professor of television studies at Rowan University. He reviewed the Starz series "Gaslit" and the Paramount+ series "The Offer." Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, we'll talk about new laws and regulations banning books and prohibiting speech in the classroom, including in Florida where there are now limits on discussion of race, gender and sexual orientation. And dozens of math textbooks have been rejected for incorporating what's described as critical race theory. Our guest will be New York Times reporter Dana Goldstein, who covers education. I hope you'll join us.
(SOUNDBITE OF NINO ROTA AND CARLO SAVINA'S "LOVE THEME FROM THE GODFATHER")
GROSS: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director is our Audrey Bentham. Our engineer today is Adam Staniszewski. 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. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/new-tv-series-revisit-watergate-and-the-original-godfather | 2022-05-12T15:24:26Z |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Russia has had a whole lot of leverage over Europe in the form of energy. It is the biggest supplier of natural gas to the EU.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
And now Russian President Vladimir Putin is using that leverage as payback for Europe's support of Ukraine in the war. Russia's national energy company released a statement saying they've cut off natural gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria. Meanwhile, heavy fighting continues in the east and the south of Ukraine. After a meeting with Putin, the U.N. secretary general said he was hopeful civilians will be able to escape safely.
MARTIN: NPR's Brian Mann is in the port city of Odesa on the Black Sea, and he joins us now. Good morning, Brian.
BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: Hi, Rachel.
MARTIN: What is this aggressive move by Russia when it comes to oil and gas shipments to Europe? Tell us about where the diplomacy is right now.
MANN: Yeah, look - I mean, Moscow is playing hardball here. They rejected a call for a cease-fire, and as you say, they're cutting these oil and gas supplies to punish European countries helping Ukraine. Natural gas futures shot up as a consequence. U.N. officials say they did get an agreement in principle to some kind of evacuation plan, but, Rachel, we've seen this kind of statement repeatedly, and it's never come to anything. Russian attacks on an industrial site in Mariupol, where Ukrainians are still fighting, those attacks have continued and been intense.
MARTIN: So as mentioned, you're in Odesa. There are a million people who live in that city. You've had missile attacks there. What's the situation at this point?
MANN: It's tense. The Russian army is about 3 hours away to the east. There was another cruise missile strike here over the weekend that killed a young mother and her 3-month-old child. Their funeral is being held today. And for the first time in weeks, we are seeing some people deciding to evacuate.
MARTIN: Odesa is a city that is largely Russian-speaking, right? And now there is a discussion over what that means and what to do about prominent Russian statues and monuments. Can you explain what's happening there?
MANN: Yeah, this is so complicated and fascinating. In addition to the language here, a lot of people have deep family and historical ties to Russia. There's this big statue here to the Russian Empress Catherine the Great, who is now viewed by many Ukrainians as an oppressor. I spoke about all this with Atem Dorokhov (ph). He's a young Russian speaker involved in this debate. He says with Russia's army on their doorstep, it's time to reevaluate these Russian monuments. He compares the debate here to the fight over Confederate monuments in the American South.
ATEM DOROKHOV: The U.S. example was very good - very good. The history is very complicated with a lot of oppression, a lot of mass killings - same here. Ukrainian culture has been oppressed by Russia over hundreds of years.
MANN: And what struck me as astonishing about this, Rachel, is that Ukrainians are managing to ask these questions and have this debate while they're in the middle of this war.
FADEL: Right.
MANN: I spoke about this with Volodymyr Yermolenko. He's one of Ukraine's leading journalists and philosophers. His first language is Russian. But he told me, yeah, it's time for cities like Odesa to begin shifting away from Russia's cultural influences.
VOLODYMYR YERMOLENKO: They should be in the Ukrainian cultural information space and not in the Russian cultural information space, you know? That means the music that you listen to, that means the movies that you watch, the books that you read.
MANN: And, you know, that may sound harsh, rejecting Russian culture in that way, but people tell me this is another unintended consequence of Vladimir Putin's invasion. A city like Odesa, with these deep, long ties to Russia, could well wind up far more deeply integrated into Ukrainian society.
MARTIN: NPR's Brian Mann. Brian, thank you for all your reporting this morning. We appreciate it.
MANN: Thank you, Rachel.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MARTIN: OK, new CDC data shows 3 out of every 4 children in this country have had COVID-19.
FADEL: The study comes as Pfizer and BioNTech request authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for the first booster for children ages 5 to 11. A two-dose Pfizer vaccine was authorized for kids in that age group back in October. And Moderna is also expected to seek authorization for the first vaccine for children younger than 5 any day now.
MARTIN: Any day now. NPR health correspondent Rob Stein joins us to talk about all these things. Hey, Rob.
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: Hey. Good morning, Rachel.
MARTIN: All right. Before we get to the vaccine news, let's start with this new data from the CDC about how many people, including kids, have been infected with the virus at this point. What does it say?
STEIN: You know, Rachel, does it feel like almost everyone you know has gotten COVID-19 by now? Well, you know, this...
MARTIN: A lot (laughter).
STEIN: Yeah, totally. Well, this data is the reason - that says that there's a good reason for that. The CDC says that the omicron variant spread so fast this winter that almost 60% of everyone in the U.S. has antibodies to the virus in their blood. And that number is even higher for kids, almost 75% of kids ages 11 and younger. And that means a lot of people have at least some immunity at this point and helps explain why the U.S. hasn't experienced yet another big surge yet.
MARTIN: OK. So 75% of kids have antibodies. So what does that mean? Do these kids really need to get vaccinated or boosted?
STEIN: You know, the CDC says yes, absolutely. First of all, one-quarter of kids still don't have any immunity. And the CDC says vaccination provides even stronger, perhaps broader protection for those who have already gotten infected. So the CDC is frustrated that most parents still haven't got their kids vaccinated or boosted.
MARTIN: All right, let's talk about boosters. Kids ages 12 and older are already eligible. But now Pfizer and BioNTech want the FDA to OK a booster for younger kids, too, right?
STEIN: Yeah, yeah. The companies say a third shot six months after the second shot looks safe for kids ages 5 to 11 and can pump up antibodies sharply, especially antibodies that can fight off the omicron variant. Now, there's a bit of mixed opinion among independent experts about whether kids ages 5 to 11 need a booster yet. Some say, look - protection from two shots clearly weakens as the months go by, especially against omicron. And while kids don't tend to get as sick as adults, COVID can still pose a danger to kids. So we should do everything possible to protect them, especially now that no one's wearing masks, and the numbers are creeping up again. But others argue two shots are still keeping kids from getting seriously ill. And the evidence boosters are definitely needed now just isn't there yet. So the FDA will have to decide who's right.
MARTIN: So I made a quip at the top because parents of really young kids have just been waiting for so long.
STEIN: Yeah.
MARTIN: And the news headlines for months have been like, it's almost going to happen; it's almost going to happen.
STEIN: Yeah.
MARTIN: So now the latest incremental move here - Moderna is expected to ask the FDA to authorize a vaccine for kids younger than 5. Is this really going to happen, Rob?
STEIN: Yeah, you know, the low-dose pediatric vaccine looks safe and can boost antibodies to levels equivalent to the adult vaccine for kids as young as 6 months old. That said, the evidence Moderna has released so far indicates that the protection is still not that great against omicron. So that's raised questions about whether three doses are really needed. Like, you know, that's what happened with the Pfizer-BioNTech pediatric vaccine. So while officials had been hoping to get a vaccine for these youngest kids by this month, it now looks like the FDA isn't going to take this up until June. So, you know, we're going to have to wait and see now, still.
MARTIN: NPR health correspondent Rob Stein. Thanks, Rob.
STEIN: Sure thing, Rachel.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MARTIN: North Carolina Congressman Madison Cawthorn was stopped at the airport in Charlotte yesterday after authorities found a loaded handgun in his bag.
FADEL: Cawthorn got a citation for possession of a dangerous weapon on city property and then released. And it's not the first time Cawthorn has been stopped by the TSA for bringing a gun to an airport. The freshman Republican has been involved in several public safety violations since taking office.
MARTIN: Jeanne Davis of member station WFAE in Charlotte joins us this morning. Hey, Jeanne.
JEANNE DAVIS, BYLINE: Hi.
MARTIN: Just tell us what went down.
DAVIS: Yeah, so he was going through security at the Charlotte airport on Tuesday, you know, dropped his bag onto the X-ray conveyor belt. And, you know, that's when a TSA officer spied a loaded 9 mm handgun. And so typically when this happens, you know, a TSA agent will summon a police officer at the, you know, security checkpoint to inspect the bag. And in this case, the officer found the gun, and Representative Cawthorn was - he was given a citation, like you said, but was not arrested, though police did confiscate the gun, and he was allowed to continue on his way. Yeah, in a news release, the police department said anyone who brings a weapon to the airport is just cited for a misdemeanor rather than being arrested. And that's unless, you know, there's outstanding warrants or other extenuating circumstances. And so far, we haven't heard from the congressman directly about what happened, and his spokesman has not replied with a comment.
MARTIN: Huh. I mean, yeah, we know - I mean, I guess I'm struggling with the fact that we all know the rules, right?
DAVIS: (Laughter).
MARTIN: I mean, I can't even take peanut butter through the TSA screening machines, let alone a weapon. This is not the first time Cawthorn has tried to take a gun through airport security, and there have been other incidents involving public safety, as Leila noted. Can you tell us about those?
DAVIS: Yeah. So in Asheville last year at the airport there in western North Carolina, where his district is, we don't know if it's the same gun in this case, but, you know, unlike in Charlotte, he wasn't cited, and it's not really clear why. Also, last fall, he brought knives to two different school board meetings, a North Carolina college and a private K-12 school, all in the span of under a month. And since he's, you know, taken office last year, he's gotten three speeding tickets.
MARTIN: I mean, maybe speeding tickets aside, but these other instances of bringing weapons - I mean, is he trying to make a point? I mean, how much of this is political? He's got a primary next month, right?
DAVIS: Yeah. North Carolina's 11th District - that's the one he represents - they have a primary in three weeks. And, you know, this is a rural district. There's not a lot of polling. So it's hard to tell how this has impacted it. And - but it's been one event after another producing these sort of, like, negative headlines. He is running against seven other people in the GOP primary. He's, you know, an outspoken supporter of President Trump and has been endorsed by him for reelection. The goal for his opponents, though, will be to keep him under that 30% to put him in a runoff and beat him later this summer. You know, Republican U.S. Senator Thom Tillis is backing one of his competitors in this race. But I will say Congressman Cawthorn has done something, you know, few Republican House members are able to do, and that's get name recognition and a lot of media attention, though not always for the best reasons.
MARTIN: Jeanne Davis, a reporter with member station WFAE in Charlotte. Thanks. We appreciate your reporting on this.
DAVIS: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/news-brief-kids-covid-vaccines-russia-ukraine-war-rep-cawthorn-cited | 2022-05-12T15:24:32Z |
ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
After 12 years at the helm of the NCAA, Mark Emmert, the organization's president, has announced he plans to step down by June 30 of 2023. This comes just one year after he signed an extension to lead the NCAA through 2025. During Emmert's time in leadership, the NCAA's revenue exceeded $1 billion a year through television contracts. But his tenure has also been marked by several controversies and major changes in the ways student athletes are treated.
Nicole Auerbach is a senior writer with The Athletic, and she joins us now to talk about this. Hey, Nicole.
NICOLE AUERBACH: Hey. Thanks for having me.
SCHMITZ: So Nicole, I'm curious. Why has the NCAA reached this agreement on his resignation now? I mean, last year around this time, the inequity between the men's and women's basketball tournaments came to light. Was that the final straw, or was it something else?
AUERBACH: Well, I think that a lot of this has just been building. And, you know, one administrator put it this way - he lost the locker room. And there have been a lot of athletic directors and commissioners who have been very disappointed with his lack of leadership and also just reactive ways to changing issues. I mean, name, image and likeness - the NCAA was so far behind on and not proactive at all, and the courts ended up deciding, you know, basically what the framework can be for athlete compensation related to academic benefits, which paved the way for a largely unregulated space in name, image and likeness right now. And I think there's a number of issues. The women's basketball tournament is absolutely one.
But the phrase, losing a locker room, I think is a really good way to think about this because when people have lost faith in you as a leader, it becomes really hard to lead. And I think there's so many changes going on with NCAA governance and what the future of college sports will be, I think there were a lot of people who felt like this was a natural breaking point and a good time to have somebody else who can actually lead this organization.
SCHMITZ: You mentioned the name, image and likeness controversy. And, you know, his critics - as you say, he stood in the way of progress on this front. You know, as you've covered the NCAA, how do you see it? I mean, was he, in any way, a catalyst for change? I mean, we've - you just mentioned how he was a big barrier to it.
AUERBACH: Well, there were different times, I think, where, you know, he has tried to lead an organization to certain points. And it's a membership organization, so you need buy-ins. So whether or not that was related to cost-of-attendance stipends that help bring athlete scholarships basically up to the full cost of attendance that other scholarships bring regular students on campus - I mean, he has pushed for different things over the years. But I think, you know, we saw overreach in terms of sanctions in response to Penn State. We have seen, you know, kind of him put his foot in his mouth on a number of different issues.
He's talked a lot about existential crises facing college sports, and he's used that term so many different times I think it's lost a little bit of its bite. But I think the legal strategy in relation to the Alston case, which was - ended up going all the way up the Supreme Court. And again, just the lack of leadership in getting people behind and working together on various issues to get out in front on the name, image and likeness issue - those are things that people have constantly talked about, and it's just gotten worse and worse, again, as we've seen how unregulated it is.
SCHMITZ: What do you think the NCAA will be looking for in its next president?
AUERBACH: Well, I think it's going to be either - you know, we're going have to figure out what the organization looks like. Is it just about running championships and certifying eligibility? That would lead to a certain candidate. Or is it about getting people to work together, working with the Power Five commissioners?
You know, there were a couple of names that continue to come up, and it's a lot of university presidents who really understand athletics, like a Jim Clements at Clemson, I think is a really strong candidate for that reason. But you have to be able to marry the academic mission with athletic experience, but also lived athletic experience.
SCHMITZ: That's Nicole Auerbach of The Athletic.
(SOUNDBITE OF MODERAT SONG, "INTRUDER") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/over-12-years-mark-emmert-helped-the-ncaa-make-billions-but-whats-his-legacy | 2022-05-12T15:24:39Z |
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
When there's a huge line at your local coffee shop because maybe they're short-staffed, it can be annoying. Well, our next guest argues that for his industry, staff shortages are more than an annoyance. They can be life-threatening. Christopher White is CEO of Road to Responsibility. That is a Massachusetts company that provides care and services for adults with disabilities. They are struggling to find workers because they can't match the starting wage being offered by other businesses - businesses like Target, say, or Bank of America.
Christopher White, welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
CHRISTOPHER WHITE: Thanks for having me, Mary Louise.
KELLY: Just in a sentence or two, would you tell me a little bit more about the people you are serving? Who comes to a company like Road to Responsibility?
WHITE: So we serve adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, including autism and acquired brain injuries. They are as young as 22, and our oldest person that we support is, I believe, 97.
KELLY: Wow. OK. So quite a range. And when you say you're short-staffed, how short-staffed? What's the gap?
WHITE: We have 260 vacant positions right now...
KELLY: Wow.
WHITE: ...Which represents about 27% of our total workforce.
KELLY: What is your understanding of why? Why can't you hire these people?
WHITE: It's - to keep it really simple, there's three big factors. There's demographics that - COVID drove a lot of boomers to retire a lot sooner than was predicted. A vast immigrant population has for many years been a Band-Aid for human service staffing woes. That's really no longer available. And the big one now is just the pay rates. The employment market has changed radically in the - I guess we're in a sort of post-COVID world right now.
KELLY: Yeah, the transitioning out of COVID world.
WHITE: Yeah.
KELLY: Yeah. How big is the gap? I said you can't match wages being offered elsewhere.
WHITE: The state contracts we have will support entry level wages of between $15 an hour and $16.79 an hour for our direct care staff. We increased that rate using one-time dollars this year to $17 an hour. And thankfully, that, plus generous recruitment and retention bonuses, stopped the hemorrhaging of staff leaving the workforce, but it hasn't really allowed us to gain any ground, whereas people can go down the street and work for Dunkin' Donuts for $18 an hour. We can't compete with it.
KELLY: What does it mean to be trying to run a company and have 27% fewer staff than you need to be fully staffed? What are the consequences of that? Like, what isn't getting done?
WHITE: Well, we're getting things done, but quality isn't what it was, and people are exhausted. You know, I've got staff who are routinely working a hundred hours a week.
KELLY: A hundred hours a week?
WHITE: Yep.
KELLY: Routinely?
WHITE: Routinely. You know, so when people are working that much and are tired, mistakes get made. And again, we're not alone. This is happening everywhere.
KELLY: Sounds like you're dealing with a really vulnerable population, and what you're saying is there are delays in their care and their treatments that they need.
WHITE: Yeah. And for many people, it means they're not getting services at all. People that were participating in our day services - either employment or a therapeutic day service for people who are more medically compromised and older - we've only been able to get about 60% of the people we were serving pre-COVID back into service. And the folks that we have been able to get back into service, we've seen really major declines in their skills and abilities because they haven't been getting the support they need.
KELLY: Christopher White, thank you.
WHITE: Thank you.
KELLY: He is CEO of Road to Responsibility in Massachusetts. And we called the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services to allow them to respond. We have not heard back. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/pandemic-staffing-crisis-leaves-adult-care-facilities-scrambling-for-support | 2022-05-12T15:24:45Z |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
North Carolina Congressman Madison Cawthorn was stopped at the airport in Charlotte yesterday after authorities found a loaded handgun in his bag. Cawthorn was issued a citation for possession of a dangerous weapon on city property and then released. It's not the first time Cawthorn has been stopped by the TSA for bringing a gun to the airport. The freshman Republican has also been involved in several other public safety violations since taking office. Jeanne Davis of member station WFAE in Charlotte is following the story, and I talked to her earlier this morning.
Just tell us what went down.
JEANNE DAVIS, BYLINE: Yeah, so he was going through security at the Charlotte airport on Tuesday - you know, dropped his bag onto the X-ray conveyor belt. And, you know, that's when a TSA officer spied a loaded 9 mm handgun. And so typically, when this happens, you know, a TSA agent will summon a police officer at the, you know, security checkpoint to inspect the bag. And in this case, the officer found the gun. And Representative Cawthorn was - he was given a citation, like you said, but was not arrested, though police did confiscate the gun. And he was allowed to continue on his way.
Yeah, in a news release, the police department said anyone who brings a weapon to the airport is just cited for a misdemeanor rather than being arrested. And that's unless, you know, there's outstanding warrants or other extenuating circumstances. And so far, we haven't heard from the congressman directly about what happened, and his spokesman has not replied with a comment.
MARTIN: Huh. I mean, yeah, we know - I mean, I guess I'm struggling with the fact that we all know the rules, right? I mean...
DAVIS: (Laughter).
MARTIN: ...I can't even take peanut butter through the TSA screening machines, let alone a weapon. This is not the first time Cawthorn has tried to take a gun through airport security, and there have been other incidents involving public safety. Can you tell us about those?
DAVIS: Yeah. So in Asheville last year, at the airport there in western North Carolina, where his district is - we don't know if it's the same gun in this case. But, you know, unlike in Charlotte, he wasn't cited, and it's not really clear why. Also, last fall, he brought knives to two different school board meetings - a North Carolina college and a private K-12 school - all in the span of under a month. And since he's, you know, taken office last year, he's gotten three speeding tickets.
MARTIN: I mean, maybe speeding tickets aside, but these other instances of bringing weapons - I mean, is he trying to make a point? I mean, how much of this is political? He is - he's got a primary next month, right?
DAVIS: Yeah. North Carolina's 11th District - that's the one he represents. They have a primary in three weeks. And, you know, this is a rural district. There's not a lot of polling, so it's hard to tell how this has impacted it. And - but it's been one event after another producing these sort of, like, negative headlines. He is running against seven other people in the GOP primary. He's, you know, an outspoken supporter of President Trump and has been endorsed by him for reelection. The goal for his opponents, though, will be to keep him under that 30%, to put him in a runoff and beat him later this summer.
You know, Republican U.S. Senator Thom Tillis is backing one of his competitors in this race. But I will say, Congressman Cawthorn has done something, you know, few Republican House members are able to do, and that's get name recognition and a lot of media attention, though not always for the best reasons.
MARTIN: Jeanne Davis, reporter with member station WFAE in Charlotte, thanks. We appreciate your reporting on this.
DAVIS: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/rep-madison-cawthorn-is-caught-again-with-a-gun-at-a-north-carolina-airport | 2022-05-12T15:24:51Z |
ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
Much of Europe's natural gas comes from fields in Siberia, traveling thousands of miles across Russia in pipelines. But now, Russia's state-run gas company, Gazprom, has cut supplies to two countries in Eastern Europe - Poland and Bulgaria. At the heart of this move, the war in Ukraine, the sanctions imposed by the West, and Russia's attempts to try and wriggle free of them.
We're joined by two correspondents who have been following all of this closely for months now. From Lviv in Ukraine, NPR's Joanna Kakissis, and from Moscow, NPR's Charles Maynes - welcome to you both.
CHARLES MAYNES, BYLINE: Hi there.
JOANNA KAKISSIS, BYLINE: Hi, Rob.
SCHMITZ: Charles, we'll start with you. Why has Gazprom done this?
MAYNES: Well, last month, President Vladimir Putin ordered countries deemed unfriendly to Moscow to shift their payments to rubles. It was payback, really, for the sanctions they've imposed on Russia over its actions in Ukraine. And Gazprom is, in effect, implementing Putin's orders. You know, another issue, though, is what the move to ruble payments actually accomplishes. You know, the immediate intent seemed to be to pump up the value of the currency, the ruble.
But I spoke with Sergei Pikin from the Energy Development Fund here in Moscow, and he argues the other objective was to protect Gazprom's revenues from Western sanctions. Let's listen in.
SERGEI PIKIN: (Speaking Russian).
MAYNES: So the goal, Pikin says, was to ensure payments to Gazprom went to banks under Russian jurisdiction so the money wouldn't be subject to seizure - simple as that. Now, the problem is these contracts are in euros and dollars, so Pikin says Gazprom worked out a compromise of sorts. You know, Europe can pay in euros to, say, Gazprom's own banks. Gazprom transfers the payments into rubles, and that pleases the Kremlin. But, of course, that only applies to those who decide to play ball, which, of course, Poland and Bulgaria refused.
SCHMITZ: Aha. So let's pivot to Joanna. Why did these countries refuse?
KAKISSIS: Both Poland and Bulgaria don't want to accommodate a country that has started an unprovoked war against a sovereign nation, Ukraine. They are also challenging the Russian stoppage. They say Gazprom can't change the terms of contracts that were signed years ago. But both the Polish and Bulgarian government say they are also prepared to go without Russian fuel. They've assured their citizens that everything will be fine, that the countries have alternative fuel sources, as well as fuel in storage and access to the EU energy market.
I spoke about all this with Polish energy analyst Agata Loskot-Strachota. She says Poland and Bulgaria are sounding the alarm about Gazprom.
AGATA LOSKOT-STRACHOTA: Unfortunately, Russia will be playing its games with gas supplies to Europe, and we cannot really avoid that. Everyone in Europe is actually preparing for disruption in Russian gas flows. And the key issue here is to stay united.
KAKISSIS: And she says Russia is trying to divide the EU by using energy as a weapon.
SCHMITZ: So Charles, this has long been a fear, that Russia would cut supplies to Europe. But isn't this a risky move on the part of the Russian government?
MAYNES: Well, yeah. I mean, keep in mind that throughout the late Soviet period, at the height of the Cold War, you know, Europe and Moscow managed to have a pretty good business relationship with gas despite all the political tensions. And, you know, Putin, when he came to power, essentially followed that pattern, not always so convincingly, though, I think, to a lot of people.
You know, today's decision, it certainly gives ammunition, as Joanna is pointing out, to these voices in Europe who've long argued that their reliance on Russian oil and gas undermines their security and leaves, you know, EU countries open to Russian blackmail. You know, to them, it looks political because it is political. You know, today we heard from the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, who said that that's not the case. He says that, you know, essentially for those European countries who are willing to pay in rubles - and there are some who seem to indicate that they are willing - that it's business as usual, that essentially nothing's changed. But, of course, a lot of Europeans aren't, you know, blind to the optics of giving Putin what he wants.
Now, the problem is, what happens if Europe doesn't want to pay gas? You know, Russia says it'll take its gas elsewhere, to buyers like China or India. But the hard truth is that you can't just redirect these supplies. I mean, there are literally physical pipelines connecting these countries together, and moving away from that is going to take time.
SCHMITZ: Joanna, does this mean that the lights are going to go off in Poland and Bulgaria?
KAKISSIS: No. The lights are going to stay on, at least for now.
SCHMITZ: Good to hear.
KAKISSIS: (Laughter) Yes. It's spring, so, you know, you don't need to burn fuel to keep people warm. That's a big plus. And it will be warm for the next few months, so there is some breathing room. But in the long term, you know, Bulgaria is in the more precarious position. It's a small country. It's not very rich. Much of its fuel until now came from Russia. Bulgaria has some options, including importing gas from neighboring countries like Turkey or Greece. Greece has already offered, actually, to export gas to Bulgaria.
Poland, meanwhile, has been moving for years to cut itself from Russian fuel imports. Earlier this month, the Polish government declared that it was phasing out all Russian imports by the end of the year, and they're looking to the U.S., to Qatar and to Norway to fill the gap, to fill - for new fuel resources.
SCHMITZ: So Joanna, it looks like Poland is trying to figure things out, but EU-wide, what are the alternatives?
KAKISSIS: Well, you know, the EU has been thinking about life after Gazprom for some time. There is a plan to drastically cut Russian gas imports by 2030. In the short term, though, you know, LNG, liquefied natural gas, is an option, though supplies are limited. There's also coal, and that's another short-term solution because it's very unpopular with environmentalists, and the EU is trying to cut its carbon emissions.
And I talked this all over with Julian Popov, who's a former environment minister from Bulgaria, and he sees this crisis as an opportunity to speed up getting renewable energy sources online finally at the EU. And he says that this is going to take a while, so in the meantime, expect pain because this is a war, an energy war with Moscow, and that the EU must accept that.
SCHMITZ: Aha. So expect pain. That's NPR's Joanna Kakissis and Charles Maynes. Thanks to you both.
MAYNES: Thank you.
KAKISSIS: Thanks for having us, Rob. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/russia-cuts-gas-supplies-to-poland-and-bulgaria | 2022-05-12T15:24:57Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
European leaders say Russia's decision to cut off natural gas supplies amounts to blackmail. Russia's national energy company announced it was turning off the tap to Poland and Bulgaria because they refused to pay for supplies in rubles. The move shows Moscow's leverage over Europe. It's the biggest supplier of natural gas to the union, and it comes as European nations step up military support to Ukraine and more European nations join the U.S. in its mounting sanctions on Russia.
Joining us now to discuss all this is Henning Gloystein. He's the director of energy, climate and resources at the Eurasia Group, based in London. Good morning.
HENNING GLOYSTEIN: Good morning. Thank you for having me.
FADEL: So this seems like a big move, cutting off gas supplies. How significant is it in terms of possible impact here?
GLOYSTEIN: It is indeed a big move. It's a further escalation of the conflict between Russia and the EU as well. Russia is essentially signaling all its customers in the EU that it is willing to cut off its supply if these clients in Europe are not willing to switch their payment currency from euros or dollars into ruble, as Gazprom is demanding. So there is a significant risk of further cut-offs because there are dozens of supply contracts that Russia still has in the EU and which will all be under review right now.
FADEL: Is this really about rubles and dollars, or is it about - is this Russia's answer to sanctions, their form of sanctions?
GLOYSTEIN: Yeah, it's probably a bit of both. I mean, Poland earlier this week has announced a new round of sanctions against Russia, so there is the possibility that it's in response to that. But Russia does also need to support the ruble, its currency. And, you know, if it manages to switch all its payments for the natural gas it sends to Europe, which is a lot, that would give the ruble some significant support. So it's probably mostly to support the currency, but also a convenient tool to punish the EU for sanctions. It's economic warfare, effectively.
FADEL: Yeah. As you mentioned, President Vladimir Putin said, quote, "unfriendly foreign buyers would have to pay in rubles instead of dollars and euros." But no country except Hungary has actually agreed to this. And you mentioned Poland has announced sanctions, but why are Poland and Bulgaria specifically being singled out maybe beyond that?
GLOYSTEIN: Well, I mean, there is, of course, the slight notion that they are weaker links within the EU. It is - and they are not overall massive customers for Gazprom, so cutting them off - it's 10 billion cubic meters from Poland and three from Bulgaria. It's not huge for Gazprom. It's not a big loss of revenue for them, whereas if it, say, cut off Italy or Germany, it would be a massive loss of revenue for Gazprom. So it is a gradual escalation, showing all the big customers in Europe that Russia is willing to act if they don't, you know, bow to the blackmail that essentially is happening here.
FADEL: Do you expect Russia to escalate, to go after bigger countries? Is this a tit for tat at this point?
GLOYSTEIN: It's possible. I mean, it's mostly actually with companies rather than governments, but it's the big importers, of course. And in Germany and Italy and elsewhere in the Netherlands, they will be looking at their supply contracts. They will be talking to their national governments to see whether they are allowed to pay in ruble or whether they're even willing to give in to this form of blackmail because it is a breach of existing contracts or whether they can find alternative supply sources. So it's very hard to say, I mean, whether Russia is willing to further cut off bigger supply deals because it would be incredibly painful for Russia as well. But it's a bad sign. I mean, it's not a good situation Europe is in here because it is entirely possible that Russia cuts supply. This isn't as bad as now in May and as we're heading into summer, where gas demand and heating demand is really low. But it is a risk for next winter, when things get cold again, and people might freeze at home if there is no gas.
FADEL: Now, Germany says it's already preparing for the fallout. A gas lobby group there says it needs to immediately start stockpiling for next winter and reduce consumptions. Will other European countries, you think, start to do the same?
GLOYSTEIN: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Actually, I'm in Berlin right now. And we've been speaking to the energy industry for the last day or two. Everyone in Europe who has Russian supply contracts - so Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Austria, Czech Republic - they're all looking at any form of alternatives they can access just to ensure that the inventories are filled up ahead of next winter and in case of a major Russian supply disruption. They're all in emergency mode now.
FADEL: And this decision - what is the larger economic impact across Europe? What might it look like beyond Poland and Bulgaria?
GLOYSTEIN: I mean, it's another flame in a fire to the inflationary pressure that's happening across Europe. I mean, gas prices are really high. Gas is needed not just for heating. It's an industrial feedstock for fertilizer. There's a fertilizer shortage in the world already. It's needed to make additives for diesel in trucks as a fuel. So it adds inflationary pressure that is already high, I mean, in the EU and around the world. EU inflation levels have hit multi-decade highs, and this is just going to add to that problem. And of course, if there is massive supply cuts from Russia later this year, we might even have to see energy rationing in some parts of Europe. And energy rationing means demand curtailments of industry, and that would then, you know, be a massive blow to the EU's economic growth and maybe even cause a recession.
FADEL: So it sounds like it could have larger implications even beyond Europe.
GLOYSTEIN: Absolutely. I mean, the EU will now try and access any form of gas that it can, that is not Russian, and that means mostly liquefied natural gas or LNG tankers. And they will bid the price for those up really significantly, as they have in the past. They did this already last December, when they were first fearing an interruption of Russian gas. And this, of course, means that gas buyers across the world, as far away as Japan and China and South Korea, will have to pay more for gas because the Europeans are entering this global market and driving up the price.
FADEL: Henning Gloystein with the Eurasia Group, thank you so much.
GLOYSTEIN: Thank you very much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-27/russias-national-energy-company-cuts-off-natural-gas-to-poland-and-bulgaria | 2022-05-12T15:24:58Z |
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