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PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Today we celebrate the triumph not of a candidate but of a cause.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
This moment, this familiar transfer of power from one president to the next, this whole moment was able to happen in part because of another moment, when a Republican lawyer in Michigan voted to certify the election for Joe Biden.
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AARON VAN LANGEVELDE: We must not attempt to exercise power we simply don't have.
CHANG: That is Aaron Van Langevelde. He was one of two Republicans on what's called the Michigan Board of State Canvassers.
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VAN LANGEVELDE: This board must do its part to uphold the rule of law and comply with our legal duty to certify this election.
CHANG: Now, in normal times, the job of a canvasser is so forgettable, so ministerial, some might even say so boring, that we wouldn't even be doing a story about it on NPR. But 2020 was not normal times. And that year, the job of canvasser, which is to certify election results in Michigan, was a fraught job, especially if you were a Republican. You see, after voting stopped in 2020, a lot of pressure came down on Republican canvassers - from the Michigan state party, from President Trump - to not hand Joe Biden a victory, even though Biden had won the state by 154,000 votes.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: As America awaits the outcome of this presidential election, all eyes are on battleground states; among them, Michigan...
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: The Trump campaign has filed lawsuits against multiple states, including Michigan.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #3: ...Alleging misconduct in the 2020 election.
CHANG: But despite all of that chaos, despite the relentless push to keep Trump in power, all the litigation, the Michigan Board of State Canvassers ultimately voted to certify the election for Joe Biden. And shortly after that vote, the formal transfer of power from the Trump administration to the Biden administration finally began.
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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #4: Some big breaking news to tell you about - the General Services Administration moments ago saying that President-elect Biden is the apparent winner...
CHANG: In the meantime, Aaron Van Langevelde would soon realize his decision to certify in Michigan came with consequences. You see, when his term as canvasser ended after the 2020 election, his fellow Michigan Republicans replaced him with someone else. And he wasn't the only Republican canvasser who met this fate. A Detroit News investigation found that in 8 of Michigan's 11 largest counties, Republicans replaced those canvassers who voted to certify Biden's 2020 win. And at least some of those new Republican canvassers have pushed debunked theories about election fraud or have said outright they would not have certified the 2020 election results. One of the Republicans who suddenly found herself without a job on a canvassing board was Michelle Voorheis.
It's so nice to meet you.
MICHELLE VOORHEIS: It's nice to meet you.
CHANG: She had served on the Genesee County Board of Canvassers. I met up with Voorheis at her property management office in Clio, Mich., about 20 miles north of Flint. The walls here are covered with photos that show all of her family's work in the Republican Party.
VOORHEIS: Of course, George Bush. And this was daddy Bush. He came to Flint...
CHANG: Oh, yeah. George H. W. right there.
VOORHEIS: ...To one of our Lincoln Day dinners once and did photo ops.
CHANG: Oh, wow - shaking hands with your husband. That's kind of cool.
VOORHEIS: I know. That was an inauguration picture. We're in there somewhere.
CHANG: Now, there is no question Voorheis is a really enthusiastic Republican.
VOORHEIS: I mean, the first election I voted in was George - Gerald Ford. Sorry. You get old and your brain doesn't work right - Gerald Ford, and I did vote for him.
CHANG: And so is her husband.
VOORHEIS: My husband got nominated to be a No. 1 Republican.
CHANG: He got nominated to be the No. 1...
VOORHEIS: A No. 1 Republican - every county has a No. 1 Republican.
CHANG: Ah.
You can tell Voorheis cares deeply about Republicans winning elections in Michigan, but she's also deeply committed to the oath she took to uphold the law as a canvasser. That job, she says, it's pretty straightforward.
VOORHEIS: The board of canvassers is kind of like the bank auditors. You know, we verify that the election results that came in on election night are accurate. Basically, what the board of canvassers does, it takes each and every poll book, each and every report that comes out of that machine and makes sure that they match.
CHANG: The job is basically like arithmetic. You compare the number of ballots cast to the number of voters who've been reported as having voted. There's nothing investigatory about this task. You don't get to launch a probe just because you don't like the numbers you see. And when Voorheis decided to certify Biden's win in Genesee County, it felt like a no-brainer. The numbers compelled her to do so, and so did the law.
Was there ever a moment of any doubt where you thought, hmm, maybe I shouldn't certify?
VOORHEIS: No, absolutely not.
CHANG: But in the days that followed, she got blowback from her fellow Republicans in a way she had never seen during her entire 13 years as a canvasser.
VOORHEIS: People started coming to me and saying that I shouldn't have certified. You shouldn't have certified. But it didn't become an issue until well after we certified.
CHANG: How did they articulate their reasons for saying why you shouldn't have certified?
VOORHEIS: Well, it was all of the alleged fraud that was - or the fraud that was being alleged. And people, again, they don't know what the board of canvassers does. I mean, we had observers. We had observers from the League of Women Voters, the Democrat Party, the Republican Party, and probably a few more. And they sat there and watched all of the work that we did. And none of them, to my knowledge, went back out in public and said, oh, my goodness, you know, this is a hot mess; they shouldn't have certified.
CHANG: And when it came time for the Genesee County Republican Party to figure out who they wanted to nominate to serve on the board of canvassers, your name, I understand, was not on that list.
VOORHEIS: No. Sadly, it was not.
CHANG: And why do you think your name didn't appear on that list after having served on this board for 13 years?
VOORHEIS: I think that people believed these allegations that were flying around. And I - well, just whatever election fraud, the fact that I wasn't buying into that didn't sit well with people.
CHANG: We reached out to the executive committee of the Genesee County Republican Party about how all of this went down. They're in charge of nominating Republican canvassers. And Amy Facchinello, the vice chair of the county GOP, told me that Voorheis' decision to certify had nothing to do with why she's not on the board of canvassers now.
AMY FACCHINELLO: Everybody on the executive committee is - almost all of them - new to the whole political process and politics in Genesee County. And she hasn't come to any of our meetings or anything, so when she showed up that night to put her name in to be elected, people didn't know her. So that's probably why she didn't get the votes.
CHANG: But it's hard to ignore the fact that Voorheis now joins a pretty sizable group of former Republican canvassers who have been replaced after they decided to certify Biden's 2020 victory.
VOORHEIS: I can't get inside someone else's head, but I do know that the meeting I was at where people were nominated, the people who cared to attend the meeting and stood up to introduce themselves and say why they wanted the position, every single one of them said because they wanted to stop election fraud. I can show you the board of canvassers manual. It says in a big paragraph that you're not allowed to investigate fraud.
CHANG: She walks over and pulls that manual right out.
VOORHEIS: OK. The investigation of alleged election law violations is not part of the canvass. Their duties are purely ministerial and clerical.
CHANG: Right there in the manual - ministerial and clerical.
VOORHEIS: That is it - right there in black and white. So there is no authority to not certify. If you've done your job properly, you need to certify.
CHANG: But what if a board of canvassers decides not to certify just because they don't like the results of a particular election? Can these bureaucratic positions inside our election machinery disrupt the process in such a way to defy the will of voters?
LAWRENCE NORDEN: If you want to know how important these positions are to our elections, all you have to do is look at what happened in 2020. There was a concerted effort from the top to try to overturn the outcome of that election, right?
CHANG: That is Lawrence Norden of the Brennan Center for Justice. He's been working on election security for years, and he says the results of the 2020 election stood in the end because the people operating the election system spoke up for the truth.
NORDEN: If those people had not stood up and told the truth, as bad as the aftermath of the 2020 election was and the insurrection, I think it would have been a lot worse. The system held in large part because the people that were involved in the kind of nuts-and-bolts job of running our elections refused to bend to the lie and told the truth.
CHANG: Even though Michelle Voorheis is not on the Genesee County Board of Canvassers anymore, she's offered to help train the new members on the board so that they know the rules for the next election. But she says no one has taken her up on that offer.
Do you feel like the people who run the county Republican Party here are still giving you the silent treatment?
VOORHEIS: No. I mean, I don't know what they think privately, but we just avoid the 2020 election topic because it's politics, and I can separate politics from personal. And I know I've seen so many things through the course of my political career, if you will - it's all like a cycle. But honestly, 36 years from now, they're going to be looking back and going, it's pretty much same. It's politics. It comes and goes. It ebbs and flows. That's what it does.
CHANG: Whether what happened in 2020 was the ebb and flow of politics or some fundamental change to how democracy works, who knows? What we do know, as Larry Norden points out, is that the system held in 2020 because in the end, people like Michelle Voorheis and Aaron Van Langevelde followed the law and did their jobs. And in 2022 and 2024, they won't have those jobs. Someone else will.
(SOUNDBITE OF JON HOPKINS' "LOST IN THOUGHT")
CHANG: In another part of the program, we explore another job in the election system - the job of poll worker. As with canvassing boards, people who have cast doubt on the outcome of the 2020 election are now seeking those jobs, too.
(SOUNDBITE OF JON HOPKINS' "LOST IN THOUGHT") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-02/they-played-a-crucial-role-in-confirming-bidens-2020-win-now-theyre-out-of-a-job | 2022-05-12T15:59:14Z |
ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
Most people who ran the Boston Marathon last month spent days before resting up and days after recovering - but not Jacky Hunt-Broersma. Boston was the 92nd marathon she had run in 92 days. The very next day, she ran another and then another and then another - 104 marathons in total in 104 days. If it's confirmed by Guinness World Records, that would be the new world record. And get this - she did it all with one leg and one prosthesis.
Jacky Hunt-Broersma joins me now. Welcome.
JACKY HUNT-BROERSMA: Thank you, and thank you for having me on.
FLORIDO: Well, first of all, congratulations. You ran your 104th and final marathon on Saturday. How are you feeling today?
HUNT-BROERSMA: I'm feeling really good. It feels a little strange not to be running because I've been doing it for so long.
FLORIDO: Yeah.
HUNT-BROERSMA: But it was a nice relief to kind of be done with it now. I think my body needs a break. My family needs me. They've all missed me a little bit.
FLORIDO: Well, you set the goal to break the previous world record of 100 consecutive marathons. You needed 101 to do that, but then you ran 104. How come?
HUNT-BROERSMA: I did because 104 was the end of April, so I just wanted to round it off. So I know that sounds really silly, but I'm like, oh, I might as well finish April on a marathon, and yeah, ended with 104.
FLORIDO: I understand you lost your left leg below the knee to cancer a decade ago. Tell me about the prosthetic you use.
HUNT-BROERSMA: I'm running in a Fillauer Obsidian blade, and I've been running with that now - because I've been running for, what, six years - so I switched probably about four years ago with it. I wasn't a runner before I lost my leg. And running truly has changed - just changed perception of how I see myself as an amputee. It makes me feel strong. It makes me feel fearless. And it's just been phenomenal.
FLORIDO: What made you start?
HUNT-BROERSMA: My husband's a runner, and I was always intrigued. To be honest, I thought runners were a little bit crazy. I'm like, why would you do that? And when you lose your leg as an - when you lose your leg, there's an element of you that you become a little bit more stubborn because people tell you - there's so many things that people tell you, you can't do. You can't do this. You can't do that. And running was one of those because it's really complicated. You need a running blade. You need a special device to be able to go out running. And I think the stubbornness in me kind of went down that journey just because I wanted to prove that I could do this that everyone else was doing.
FLORIDO: I mentioned that you ran the Boston Marathon last month. Of the 104, that was the only official marathon you ran. Most of these marathons, I understand, were run on a course near your house or on a treadmill.
HUNT-BROERSMA: On a treadmill (laughter). I mean, what's good about a treadmill is that it's a little bit softer. So when you're doing this, one of the main goals is to stay injury-free. And I feel like with adding in the treadmill a little bit because it's a little bit more bouncy, it's not beating up your body as much as it would if you're running outside. So kind of mixing the treadmill in just kind of kept it a little bit interesting. And on days that were really hard, it was quite nice to kind of put on Netflix and just binge-watch something just to distract yourself from the distance.
FLORIDO: And I've got to ask, what was your best time out of the 104?
HUNT-BROERSMA: Out of the 104, I managed a four-hour 20, which wasn't too bad actually. I can't remember which number that was. But yeah...
FLORIDO: Yeah, not bad at all.
HUNT-BROERSMA: ...So that wasn't too bad. I was quite happy with that.
FLORIDO: What's next for you, Jacky?
HUNT-BROERSMA: I have a 240-mile race in October.
FLORIDO: (Laughter).
HUNT-BROERSMA: It's a (laughter) - I don't do easy (laughter). So it's a 240-mile race out in Utah, Moab, Moab 240. So I will - I'm going to take two weeks off now - no running for two weeks - and then I'm going to get back into training and focus on Moab.
FLORIDO: Well, to each her own. I wish you the best of luck in that race.
HUNT-BROERSMA: Thank you. I've been told I'm a little crazy, too, so that's OK (laughter).
FLORIDO: That's Jacky Hunt-Broersma, an ultramarathoner. Thanks so much for being with us.
HUNT-BROERSMA: Thank you very much for having me on the show. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-02/to-break-a-world-record-one-woman-ran-102-marathons-in-102-days-and-kept-going | 2022-05-12T15:59:21Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
Good morning. I'm A Martinez. There's a new cafe catering to specific procrastinators opening in Tokyo. It's called the Manuscript Writing Cafe, and the staff won't let you leave until you've finished your assignment. Now, to get in, writers have to state their goal and deadline. Then every hour, the staff checks in. You could even select your preferred level of nagging. So to review - a place with plenty of coffee and people nagging you to finish your work. That's every single newsroom in America. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-02/tokyo-cafe-caters-to-people-who-have-put-off-their-writing-assignments | 2022-05-12T15:59:27Z |
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Donald Trump is weighing in on midterm elections like no former president before him, backing more than 140 Republican primary candidates so far. Tomorrow's the first big test of his power to persuade GOP voters this year. In Ohio, Trump backed author J.D. Vance for U.S. Senate.
And we wanted to know what these primaries may signal for Trump's influence, so we've brought in NPR congressional correspondent Susan Davis. Hey, Sue.
SUSAN DAVIS, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Just a few years ago, J.D. Vance was a sharp critic of Donald Trump. So how did the former president come to get behind him in this race?
DAVIS: I think a couple dynamics are at play in this race. I talked to Jessica Taylor. She's a nonpartisan election analyst for the Cook Political Report, and she made this point.
JESSICA TAYLOR: Trump likes celebrity. He likes people like him that sort of can command attention.
DAVIS: Vance has also done what a lot of former Trump critics have done - they have completely abandoned any and all opposition to the former president. He's transformed himself into an absolute loyalist, and he's dominated a lot of the conversation online about this race. And, you know, Trump has tended to welcome the converted.
Vance was not even the leading candidate in the polls when Trump got behind him just a few weeks ago. The endorsement does seem to have had some effect on the race. Vance has led in about three polls taken since Trump's endorsement.
SHAPIRO: This is a high-profile race. If Vance does not win tomorrow, how much impact could that have on the party?
DAVIS: You know, one of the key things to know about this primary - everyone in it is a Trump loyalist. I mean, the primary fight was mostly dominated by a debate over who would be the strongest Trump ally and who should get his endorsement. And that's been a common theme in most Republican primaries this year. So in that regard, Trump will get an ally in the Ohio race no matter who wins tomorrow.
SHAPIRO: Is there even such a thing as an anti-Trump wing of the Republican Party at this point?
DAVIS: Not in any dominant way. I don't think so. There are certainly a handful of Trump critics on the ballot this year that Trump is also targeting for defeat. There's that small camp of Republicans who voted for impeachment that Trump would love to see beaten. That includes people like Congresswoman Liz Cheney in Wyoming, Senator Lisa Murkowski in Alaska. They're going to face primaries later this summer. Trump just announced he's headed to Wyoming in a few weeks to campaign against Cheney.
He's also really focused on Republican officials who refused his efforts in their states to fraudulently overturn the 2020 presidential election. I think the best example of that is down in Georgia. It has a primary later this month as well. Trump's endorsed former senator David Perdue. He's running against incumbent Republican Governor Brian Kemp. Trump's also backing former Congressman Jody Hice against Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Both incumbents very famously rejected Trump's efforts to overturn Georgia's results.
You know, in Kemp's case, it's an example of where Trump's endorsement hasn't really moved the needle. Kemp's in a pretty good position to win his primary despite yearslong efforts by Trump to undermine him. But he's probably more an outlier than the norm in this election climate. Trump's attacks could also undermine the party, though in the big picture in states like Georgia come November. If he keeps these attacks up against Kemp, if he's the nominee, it could really affect Republican turnout. And that is certainly what Democrats would like to see happen.
SHAPIRO: How much should these endorsements be viewed as an indicator of Trump's influence over the party or even as a sign of whether he'll run again in 2024?
DAVIS: One of the most important things to remember is that a candidate being on the ballot is treated very differently by voters than someone endorsed by that candidate. Think back to former President Barack Obama in the midterm elections, where he endorsed a ton of candidates, and Democrats just got absolutely shellacked in the 2010 midterms. But Obama went on to win reelection two years later, when he was the one on the ballot. So it's important not to read too much into what it might mean if Trump's endorsement scorecard, in the end, isn't filled with victories, especially if a lot of these candidates are pro-Trump anyway.
One other key dynamic we've talked about and always worth mentioning - nearly all of the Republican candidates that Trump is backing have actively supported, or at least don't contradict, Trump's ongoing false claims about the 2020 election. So there is a very good chance that there's going to be a considerable number of election deniers on the ballot this fall.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR congressional correspondent Susan Davis. Thank you, Sue.
DAVIS: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-02/upcoming-primaries-will-gauge-trumps-influence-over-gop-voters | 2022-05-12T15:59:33Z |
All politics are local — or at least they used to be.
Donald Trump isn’t on the Tarrant County primary ballot, but as national politics invade local elections, his opinion could influence key county positions. Out of 33 endorsements President Trump made in Texas races, two are local candidates – Tim O’Hare for county judge and Phil Sorrells for district attorney of Tarrant County.
Trump’s endorsement may have less to do with policy and more to do with the race itself, said Mark Jones, a fellow in political science at Rice University’s Baker Institute. Regardless, the success of Trump’s endorsement of Tarrant County candidates could be a bellwether for increasingly partisan local government campaigns in the future.
“The commissioners court begins to mirror the Texas Legislature, which has begun to mirror the US House – it’s increasingly polarized,” Jones said.
The trend has extended to other large counties, Jones said. In Harris County, where a more liberal county government dominates, discussions about the commissioners court are focused on partisanship rather than bread-and-butter local policy.
Trump’s endorsement is a part of that trend, said Carlos Rovelo, a professor of government at Tarrant County College.
“It’s a new phenomenon,” he said. “When we are involved at the local level, that’s where our investment is, what happens on the ground in our neighborhood. But now we are asked to align ourselves with views that have nothing to do with the local level.”
“I would also say there’s no such thing as a nonpartisan race anymore,” O’Hare said. “Would it be nice in many respects if everyone’s ideas were similar and everyone loved America? Or course it would … But that’s not where we are.”
But Deborah Peoples, the Democratic candidate for county judge, said Tarrant County voters don’t want hyper-partisanship in local election. When she ran for Fort Worth mayor, Peoples received high-profile endorsements from national political figures like Bernie Sanders and Beto O’Rourke.
“One of the things that make us unique is that Tarrant County has worked very hard not to get caught up in all the divisiveness,” Peoples said. “And that’s a lesson that I’ve had to learn.”
Trump’s endorsement is synonymous with divisiveness, Peoples argues, which will turn more moderate voters off in the general election. More importantly, though, partisanship has no place setting the agenda for the Tarrant County Commissioners Court, Peoples said.
“Partisanship can’t play a role in governance because we’re about a 50/50 county… You have to create opportunities for 100% of the residents, and that means you can’t do partisanship,” Peoples said.
How to secure a Trump endorsement
President Trump first endorsed a local candidate in 2021, when he supported Estaban Bovo Jr., for mayor in Hialeah, Florida, a city northwest of Miami. Bovo won the nonpartisan mayoral race.
Bovo is the first local candidate to be endorsed by Trump, Vito Fossella, a candidate for Staten Island borough president, was second, O’Hare and Sorrells are the third and fourth. The language of Trump’s endorsements is similar, but Trump’s singling out of these four candidates likely had less to do with issues, Jones said, and more to do with who has the president’s ear.
O’Hare isn’t sure why Trump chose to endorse candidates in Tarrant County. Republican leaders reached out to Trump on O’Hare’s behalf, he said, urging the former president to endorse in a race that is key to Texas’ political future, O’Hare said.
That is how endorsements typically happen, Jones explained. The profile of the race also matters, Tarrant County and Hialeah are just large enough to warrant the president’s attention.
“It would be strange for him to intervene in say, Rockwall County or any of the smaller counties,” Jones said. “At the same time, I think he wants to go into a place where the person he endorses has a good, if not great, chance of winning in November.”
Tarrant, Texas’ third-largest county, is not the slam dunk Republican seat it used to be, Rovelo said. As demographics change, the county is the bluest it has been in decades.
“That makes it more important that Tarrant stays conservative because if Tarrant keeps going in that (Democratic) direction, that will have tremendous implications for the Republican agenda in the very near future,” Rovelo said.
Donald Trump’s representatives did not respond to requests for comments about his decision to endorse Tarrant County candidates.
County judge race
After winning in the primary and avoiding a runoff with former Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price, O’Hare partially attributed the success of his campaign to Trump’s endorsement.
“I told President Trump, ‘Sir, if you endorse me, I don’t think there’ll be a runoff,’” O’Hare said to the crowd and received big applause. The Trump endorsement, while positive, does not define his campaign.
“I’m my own man, I make decisions that I think are best and I have a broad base of support,” O’Hare said.
O’Hare will reach out to all voters as he continues his campaign in the general election, he said. Trump remains very popular among Republican voters in Tarrant County. Trump is viewed favorably by 89% of Republican voters in Texas. He thinks the endorsement will remain an advantage going into the General Election.
“We still need Republicans to get out and vote… I think what Democrats should focus on is… Do they want good common sense government? and I think the answer is absolutely,” O’Hare said.
Trump is viewed unfavorably by 51% of Texas voters. Peoples argues that puts her at an advantage.
“I’m focused on reaching out to all the citizens of Tarrant County, not just some citizens in Tarrant County,” Peoples said. “That’s the kind of leader they want, not somebody who’s listening to a resident of Mar-a-Lago.”
O’Hare won by a fairly large margin in the primary, which Jones attributes to Trump’s endorsement. Price had higher name identification than O’Hare going into the race, but O’Hare also reaped the benefits of circumstances outside of Trump’s endorsement.
“The Trump endorsement reinforced O’Hare’s message that he was the true conservative in the race and that Betsy Price was not,” Jones said.
District attorney
The race for district attorney has a different dynamic entirely, Jones said. Based on Matt Krause’s record in the state Legislature, it would be difficult for the Trump-endorsed Sorrells to paint his opponent as anything but a true conservative. That’s why he isn’t campaigning on who is more conservative, Sorrells said.
“We agree on almost every issue… the biggest difference is that I have experience in the courthouse and he doesn’t,” Sorrells said.
Legislative and leadership experience are more important than trial experience, Krause argues.
“My experience and my skill set actually equip me better for the current needs and demands of the district attorney position than somebody who’s been a judge or a former prosecutor,” Krause said.
Trump issued his endorsement for Sorrells a week and a half before Election Day. His campaign will be able to better leverage the endorsement in the lead-up to the runoff, Sorrells said.
“I think it will have a positive impact on voters. He is very liked and respected,” Sorrells said.
Krause also boasts an endorsement from a national political figure, Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican. Cruz is viewed favorably by 81% of Republicans in Texas, which evens the score when it comes to national endorsements, Krause argues.
“We also have Sheriff Bill Waybourn as well, which I think is kind of a wild card in this race, because nobody works more closely with the district attorney than the sheriff’s office,” Krause said.
An endorsement from Trump may not have the same positive impact on voters in the General Election, Jones said.
“But without Trump’s endorsement, getting to November would have been much more difficult, if not impossible,” he added.
Sorrells is focused squarely on the runoff election with Krause, he said. Their Democratic opponent, Tiffany Burks, faced Albert Roberts and Larry Meyers in her primary race. Roberts was well-funded by a nationally backed political action committee. She avoided a runoff by winning the Democratic primary with over 60% of the vote.
Partisanship shouldn’t have a place in the county’s criminal justice system, Burks said.
“When it comes to everyday people being prosecuted for criminal acts… we have to be as fair, just, objective and unbiased as possible,” Burks said.
It’s a mistake to determine party favor based on how closely a candidate aligns with a national party platform, she added.
“The Tarrant County voter is smart enough to understand what qualifications are really important, and they’re going to be looking for candidates that they know are going to get the work done,” Burks said.
The Tarrant County District Attorney race is one of five races – two for statewide office and two in the Texas Legislature – across the state that includes a Trump-backed candidate heading to a runoff election.
The results of those runoffs could be illustrative of Trump’s impact on candidates’ success, Jones said. Among Texas Republicans at least, he remains a bellwether for the party.
“Donald Trump remains the most popular political figure among Texas Republicans,” Jones said, “so no endorsement is worth more among Texas Republican primary votes, than that of Donald Trump.” | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-02/when-washington-d-c-comes-to-tarrant-county-how-a-national-endorsement-could-change-local-races | 2022-05-12T15:59:39Z |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
OK. We're going to spend the next few minutes talking about the consequences of the foreign military aid going into Ukraine. And for that, I am joined by Barry Pavel. He is the director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council. He worked on the National Security Council under Presidents Bush and Obama.
Thanks so much for being with us this morning.
BARRY PAVEL: Thank you, my pleasure.
MARTIN: Where do you see U.S. military aid going into Ukraine making the most substantive difference on the ground right now?
PAVEL: Well, I think we're right now in what I would call sort of a manufacturing and resupply race at this point. The two sides are pretty entrenched. And to me, the key question is whether Russia can resupply and rearm its military forces faster than the United States, its NATO allies and others can supply, train, where it's necessary, and enable the transport of weapons and ammunition so the Ukrainian forces can use those weapons. The weapons are changing also as the warfare terrain is changing. And so this is really a different phase than the initial phase. This is really about resupply, training and ensuring that each side gets - is using the weapons that it needs in this new terrain.
MARTIN: Explain what is so complicated and challenging about just getting the weapons into Ukraine, about those transfers.
PAVEL: Well, it's a lot. And, you know, we don't know the details, and we shouldn't look to the details too much. But some of the systems the Ukrainians are already trained on, so they're - especially the Soviet-era systems. And the U.S. and NATO allies have been supplying a lot of that. But there are some other systems where they do need some training. So that training needs to be conducted somewhere. The supply needs to be given to the Ukrainian forces somewhere.
And then the transport across the vast expanse of western Ukraine, which one would assume - there's only a few options. It's by air, where that's necessary. But especially for heavy equipment, that's not possible. So then it's railway; and it's roads. And so for railway - you know, each side knows what's going on here. And so you're seeing them try to weaken the other side's efforts. You see Russia starting to attack railway hubs.
MARTIN: Yeah.
PAVEL: We've seen that over the last week. And to me, that's very, very concerning. You've seen some fuel depots go up - you know, explosions at fuel depots in Russia, where, to me, it looks like the Ukrainians are targeting, you know, critical logistics hubs and lines and supplies. So how does Ukraine protect its railway hubs?
MARTIN: Right.
PAVEL: Is it missile defenses? Is it air defenses? Is there - are there other routes? So I think that's really an important question going forward.
MARTIN: I want to ask - the U.K.'s Defense Ministry is out with a new assessment saying a quarter - 25% of Russian troops engaged in Ukraine are now, quote, "combat ineffective." How did that happen?
PAVEL: The Ukrainians are just mounting a valiant and very agile defense. In the first phase, they were moving forces where they were needed. They were countering these Russian offensives. And so I think it's just been a really effective - and no doubt, with some support from NATO and the West - but I think it's been a very, very effective defense effort that has really stymied the Russians. But it's - this is not over. And Russia has numerical superiority. But the Ukrainians, I think, have a lot more on their side. So I'm relatively optimistic that the Russians will not achieve their goals. And their goals are to push as far westward from where they are in the east as possible.
MARTIN: Let me ask you. Last week, Russia sent a letter to the U.S. And according to The Washington Post, the letter said that U.S. and NATO weapons shipments to Ukraine were, quote, "adding fuel to the conflict" and that there would be, quote, "unpredictable consequences." I mean, Putin has said as much since the beginning of this war. Are you surprised that Russia hasn't retaliated in a big way yet against countries militarily supporting Ukraine?
PAVEL: No, I'm not. I'm not one of those whose - there are many who are somewhat hysterical about all the Russian threats, including the nuclear threats. I'm not one of those. Putin knows what NATO military capabilities are. He respects NATO military capabilities. He's got his hands full with fighting Ukraine. He does not want another fight with a much, much, much larger and more capable set of forces. So I think we should take those threats seriously. Don't ignore them completely, but I don't consider them to be significant and meriting a new type of response.
MARTIN: Barry Pavel of the Atlantic Council, thank you so much.
PAVEL: My pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-02/where-is-the-u-s-military-aid-heading-to-ukraine-making-the-most-difference | 2022-05-12T15:59:45Z |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
In Ukraine, around a hundred civilians have been evacuated from the bunkers beneath a steel plant in the besieged city of Mariupol. They had been sheltered there for weeks. They are expected to reach the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia today. But reports say as soon as evacuations ended, Russian shelling resumed. Over the weekend, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders in Kyiv. Colorado Congressman Jason Crow traveled with the speaker.
JASON CROW: We talked about weapons issues, the current state of the battle in the south and the east, what weapons and equipment that they need to win.
MARTIN: NPR's Tim Mak spoke with us earlier about the situation in Mariupol.
TIM MAK, BYLINE: Ukrainian President Zelenskyy announced that those 100 civilians were able to evacuate after the United Nations helped mediate an arrangement. So for days, this idea of a humanitarian corridor where civilians could safely leave - that was discussed between Ukraine and Russia, but those talks repeatedly failed. Now, the fighting has been centered around that massive steel plant where some Ukrainian fighters still remain, along with several hundred civilians. According to the Ukrainian government, approximately 20 children remain in that steel mill. And they say that this morning, after an evacuation was completed, the Russian military began shelling their positions again.
Now, the humanitarian situation in the city continues to be abysmal. Most of Mariupol has been bombed to rubble. Fighting has gone on there now for months, and people still live without running water or electricity.
MARTIN: I mean, the same can be said for several different cities, in particular in the east. You just came back, I understand, from a city in the Donbas region near the front lines. What did you find?
MAK: Well, that city was called Kramatorsk, and it's nearly emptied out. Seventy-five percent of the prewar population has left, the mayor's office told us, and it's immediately obvious why. All through the day, you hear the sounds of explosions and artillery. In the city, you see bombed-out buildings. And at night, you see these flashes of bombardment on the horizon, the movement of vehicles in the distance. Many of those who have stayed don't really have the means to leave.
We met Elena Dolgeg (ph) waiting in line for humanitarian aid that was organized by local authorities. And it was a hectic scene as locals jockeyed for position outside what was once a school. They received some canned goods, a little milk, a little pasta. She needs it because most of the grocery stores in town are closed or have nothing left to sell. And she's been out of work since February 25, the day after the invasion.
ELENA DOLGEG: (Non-English language spoken).
MAK: She told us what she wanted most was peace, that she was concerned about her son, who's in the Kharkiv region, another area that's close to the front lines. She hasn't seen her son in six months, she said, and she wants her grandchildren to be able to visit.
MARTIN: I can't imagine that she's paying attention to a visit to Ukraine by Nancy Pelosi. Nevertheless, it's significant - right? - that the speaker of the House visited Kyiv.
MAK: That's right. Pelosi led this congressional delegation that met with Zelenskyy over the weekend, and that's the second senior U.S. delegation to do so, after the secretaries of state and defense visited about a week ago. Now, President Biden has requested $33 billion in funding from Congress to help aid Ukraine through the end of September. And Pelosi said they were already writing legislation to reflect those initiatives. Overnight, the White House announced that First Lady Jill Biden will be traveling to Romania and Slovakia to spend Mother's Day with Ukrainian refugees who have fled the country due to violence.
MARTIN: NPR's Tim Mak. Thanks so much, Tim. We appreciate your reporting as always.
MAK: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-02/while-a-hundred-people-escaped-a-ukrainian-steel-plant-more-are-still-trapped | 2022-05-12T15:59:51Z |
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
About a hundred years ago, a Japanese chemist named Dr. Kikunae Ikeda set out to solve a mystery - what made the taste of the soup stock dashi distinct from other tastes like salty, sweet, sour and bitter? He ultimately distilled a single compound from the stocks' seaweed. It was glutamate. Yet it was only recently that the taste associated with that compound was commonly acknowledged in the West. Chloee Weiner and Emily Kwong at NPR's science podcast Short Wave pick up the story.
EMILY KWONG, BYLINE: Glutamate is just an amino acid, a building block of protein. And Ikeda called the taste that comes from glutamate umami and, in 1909, published a paper in Japanese in the Journal of the Tokyo Chemical Society. He wrote...
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As Kikunae Ikeda) It is the peculiar taste which we feel as umai, meaning brothy, meaty or savory, arising from fish, meat and so forth. I propose to call this taste umami for convenience.
KWONG: Ikeda had discovered a fifth taste, but it would take nearly 100 years for umami to be accepted by the broader scientific community.
CHLOEE WEINER, BYLINE: It's kind of like a fable in the world of food and food journalism. It gets told a lot. But why the paper wasn't really recognized in the U.S. is complicated.
KWONG: It sounds like a science story.
WEINER: Yes. I mean, some of Ikeda's work was acknowledged in a really big way. After he isolated glutamate, he realized he had something delicious on his hands.
KWONG: Yeah.
WEINER: And then he founded a company called Ajinomoto and started mass producing a food additive called monosodium glutamate or, famously, MSG.
KWONG: Heart eyes - MSG. I didn't realize this for years, but MSG and umami are kind of the same thing.
WEINER: I didn't realize that until, like, a week ago.
KWONG: Chloee, we're such bad Asians.
WEINER: I know.
KWONG: We're bad Asians.
WEINER: I know. Anyway, here's how Sarah Tracy explains the MSG-umami relationship.
SARAH TRACY: Food scientists have talked for a long time about MSG as being the purest - most chemically pure, that is - specific, targeted way of stimulating what is now accepted as an umami taste response in the human body. So MSG is to umami what sucrose table sugar would be to sweetness.
WEINER: And there's this whole history of MSG's reception in the U.S. But the very short version is that MSG became really popular in Japan and the United States until this panic around MSG and so-called Chinese restaurant syndrome, which flared up in the 1960s and '70s.
KWONG: Yeah, I'm familiar with this. It's when, like, people dining at Chinese restaurants or eating foods high in MSG claim to feel ill afterward even though modern food scientists haven't been able to prove that there's any kind of link.
WEINER: Right. But back in the day, this idea was really widespread. And, you know, I think it was fueled in part by anti-Asian racism and xenophobia but also this movement against pesticides and a general wariness of chemicals.
KWONG: That's MSG's reputation a century ago. What was going on with Ikeda's umami research in all that time?
WEINER: Knowing how popular and controversial MSG was in the U.S., it seemed really strange to me that Ikeda's work on umami wasn't well-known.
KWONG: Yeah.
WEINER: I mean, one reason I can think of is that the 20th century was a really tense time between the United States and Japan. There was World War II, Japanese internment - a lot going on. But there were other factors, too, dating back even further. Victoria Lee, a history professor at Ohio University, told me that after World War I, nutrition research was booming in Japan, and flavor was a big part of it.
VICTORIA LEE: Fermented foods and seasonings like sake, soy sauce, miso were a large part of the diet in Japan and also a large part of the economy. And so research into the flavor components of those kinds of foods were an important part of rationalizing diet in Japan.
WEINER: By rationalizing the diet, Lee means that the Japanese government was trying to make sure they could produce enough food domestically in case of shortages.
LEE: There were a series of economic crises. There were concerns about self-sufficiency in the context of preparation for war. So all in all, the prominence of flavor in Japanese nutrition research comes from those kinds of concerns.
KWONG: OK, so research in umami was bound up in, like, this broader need for nutrition research that was tied to the economy and what was needed politically at the time.
WEINER: Yeah. Victoria Lee writes about that in her book. It's called "The Arts Of The Microbial World." And speaking of Japanese nationalism, she brought up another possible theory about why Ikeda's work didn't translate, literally. Lee actually told me that it was strategic for some Japanese nutrition researchers to focus on areas that would be specific to or culturally resonant in Japan.
KWONG: What does that mean?
WEINER: Well, for example, Japanese nutrition scientist Suzuki Umetaro - he has a story about going to Germany to work with the famous chemist Emil Fischer. And when he was about to return to Japan...
LEE: Apparently Emil Fischer told him, when you go back to Japan, work on something distinctive to the region like rice. Don't work on what everyone else is working on in Europe because labs in Japan wouldn't be able to compete with the labs in Europe that would be much better equipped.
WEINER: And back in the day, it took a while for scientific papers and materials from Europe to make their way to Japan. So focusing on local resources was one way to get around that.
TRACY: Other reasons that I've come across for why English-speaking scientists weren't compelled by the idea of glutamate representing a fifth taste is, one, just the enormous weight of millennia of tradition. The big four, you know, have had incredible resilience and cross-cultural consensus around those four. So to break with that, anyone would have needed a lot of evidence to overturn that.
KWONG: But the evidence needed to overturn that did come about around the turn of the century. How did American researchers finally begin to embrace umami?
WEINER: So a team at the University of Miami discovered that rats and eventually humans, too, have a specific glutamate receptor both in our brains and our tongues. And that hard biological evidence is what turned the tide.
KWONG: I hear this. And cool as it is, I can't help thinking, Chloee, that Ikeda discovered this a long, long time ago.
WEINER: Yeah. And it took a hundred years and a lot of corporate messaging and efforts from Ajinomoto, Ikeda's company, to work up enough research interest to get there. It's also important to point out that Ajinomoto was very motivated to dissuade the anti-MSG fears in the U.S. because they were hurting the company's bottom line. So shifting the focus to umami both scientifically and also culturally was part of that.
KWONG: That makes sense to me. Like, we like to think of science as independent when, actually, some research is only possible when social forces change, when the historical planets align and people are, like, ready or wanting an idea to be proven even if it was proven a long time ago.
WEINER: Yeah. And it made me think more generally about what other ideas or research is out there that we aren't ready to hear yet.
SHAPIRO: Chloee Weiner and Emily Kwong from NPR's daily science podcast, Short Wave, reporting on the origins of umami.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE CINEMATIC ORCHESTRA'S "THE AWAKENING OF A WOMAN") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-02/why-it-took-nearly-100-years-for-umami-to-be-globally-accepted-as-a-distinct-flavor | 2022-05-12T15:59:57Z |
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
It's been almost a year since the deadly condominium building collapse in Surfside, Fla., that killed 98 people. And 11 months later, survivors are caught up in a bitter fight over money and how best to honor those who died. From member station WLRN in Miami, Veronica Zaragovia reports on efforts in court and in this Florida town to chart a path forward and bring back unity.
VERONICA ZARAGOVIA, BYLINE: Surfside's elected officials themselves didn't get along much after the collapse. Two months ago, voters replaced almost all of them, including the mayor.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SHLOMO DANZINGER: I will faithfully discharge...
SANDRA MCCREADY: ...The duties of mayor...
DANZINGER: ...The duties of mayor...
MCCREADY: ...In which I am about to enter.
DANZINGER: ...Of which I am about to enter.
MCCREADY: Congratulations.
DANZINGER: Oh, thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
ZARAGOVIA: New mayor Shlomo Danzinger asked people to stop the bickering.
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DANZINGER: We came together and inspired the nation and the entire world. I'm asking the residents of Surfside to remember the unity and the bond that we shared during that time.
ZARAGOVIA: A federal investigation is still underway to determine why the towering beachfront condominium collapsed. Deferred maintenance, flawed inspections and faulty construction in the 40-year-old building may have all played a role. Now, at public meetings, debate continues about how to memorialize those who died. Again, Mayor Danzinger.
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DANZINGER: Something tasteful, with the names, so people understand what this site represents.
ZARAGOVIA: The mockup of a proposed banner had a line - 98 people lost their lives on June 24, 2021 - but even that has led to anger from family members.
EILEEN ROSENBERG: I think it would be nicer to write 98 souls - precious souls, loved souls.
ZARAGOVIA: Eileen Rosenberg's daughter, Malky Weisz, died in the collapse. So did Pablo Langesfeld's daughter, Nicole.
PABLO LANGESFELD: Maybe to put our loved ones, human beings, maybe persons, but people - it's - I don't think it's the right word.
ZARAGOVIA: From public meetings to the courthouse, people are showing how the pain is still raw. At a recent court hearing, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Michael Hanzman listened to their stories of the collapse.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MICHAEL HANZMAN: Everybody here welled up, including the court.
ZARAGOVIA: After months of mediation, the judge accepted a proposed settlement of $83 million. It would go to the people who lost their condos but survived the collapse. That money is bittersweet for people still struggling to cope. Raysa Rodriguez had a unit on the ninth floor.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RAYSA RODRIGUEZ: I live with this every night when I go to sleep, where I wake up, a lady saying, please help me. Don't leave me like this.
ZARAGOVIA: Rodriguez lived in the building for 18 years. Some of her very best friends died in the collapse, and she still wrestles with all of it.
Despite the judge's approval of the $83 million settlement, it's not a done deal. The property still needs to be sold and has to fetch at least $120 million. That's what a developer in Dubai offered as an opening bid. It could sell for more at an auction soon.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HANZMAN: Until and unless that happens, there will not be one penny distributed to the condominium owners.
ZARAGOVIA: The people whose family members died and filed wrongful death claims don't yet know how much they'll get from separate legal proceedings. Carlo Zeidenweber's family owned a unit on the first floor. He wanted to receive more in the settlement, but said everybody will gain if Florida tightens its building inspections.
CARLO ZEIDENWEBER: And hopefully the buildings will be safer.
ZARAGOVIA: The Florida Legislature adjourned this year without agreeing on how to improve condo safety. Lawmakers will return for a special session later this month, and this is among the topics they may consider.
For NPR News, I'm Veronica Zaragovia in Miami.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/11-months-after-surfside-condo-collapse-fight-to-pay-and-honor-victims-continues | 2022-05-12T16:00:03Z |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
There are primaries in 13 states this month. Today in Ohio, voters will decide nominees in a handful of races, including the gubernatorial race. Republican Governor Mike DeWine faces three challengers, each trying to attract voters frustrated by his pandemic response. Ohio Public Radio's Andy Chow reports.
ANDY CHOW, BYLINE: In his run for reelection, Republican Governor Mike DeWine is touting his record of handling the COVID-19 pandemic.
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MIKE DEWINE: I believe that we had a proper balance between public safety and also allowing people to make their livelihoods.
CHOW: DeWine was the first governor in the country to shut down K-12 schools as the coronavirus started to spread. He also issued health orders to shut down businesses and implement social distancing requirements.
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UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: (Chanting) Open Ohio now.
CHOW: While Ohio was lauded for keeping down the spread of COVID-19, animosity stirred among protesters calling for him to open businesses back up. Now DeWine is the first incumbent governor of Ohio to face a primary challenge since 1978. Republican Jim Renacci is running against the governor. The former congressman says DeWine went too far with his health orders.
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JIM RENACCI: When did we start taking away these rights? That's the real issue that I'm hearing as I travel around Ohio, and that's the concern I have, too.
CHOW: Joe Blystone is a farmer and businessman who says he never even thought about running for public office until DeWine's COVID-19 response, which included a statewide mask mandate.
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JOE BLYSTONE: You cover your face up. You stay away from people. Don't send your kids to school. Don't go to church. Our rights was severely stomped on.
CHOW: Former State Representative Ron Hood is also running in the race with a low-profile campaign, rarely doing interviews.
All three challengers are positioning themselves further to the right of DeWine and as the pro-Trump candidate. But former President Donald Trump hasn't endorsed anyone in the gubernatorial race. That's left the challengers splitting the anti-DeWine vote and turning their attacks on each other.
DeWine, who has spent more than 40 years in public service as a Republican, defends his conservative record. He notes that he's signed bills that lifted gun regulations and expanded abortion restrictions.
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DEWINE: So this has been, from a social conservative and a fiscal conservative point of view, a very, very conservative administration.
CHOW: The primary, overall, is expected to have a low turnout, with early voting already lagging behind 2018 numbers.
For NPR News, I'm Andy Chow in Columbus. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/3-republican-primary-candidates-are-challenging-ohio-gov-mike-dewine | 2022-05-12T16:00:09Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
Some of the families of those who died in two separate 737 Max plane crashes are asking a federal judge this morning to throw out the government's preferred prosecution agreement with Boeing. They say the agreement reached by the Trump administration last year lets Boeing off easy, but the Justice Department is defending the deal. NPR's David Schaper reports.
DAVID SCHAPER, BYLINE: The deferred prosecution agreement allows Boeing and its top executives to avoid further criminal prosecution by admitting they conspired to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration in the certification of the 737 Max. The company acknowledges deceiving and misleading federal regulators about an automated flight control system that played a major role in both plane crashes. The deal also requires Boeing to pay $2.5 billion in compensation and a fine. But the settlement blindsided the families of the 346 people who died in the crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia because they'd been told by the Justice Department there was no criminal investigation.
NAOISE RYAN: It was a sweetheart deal. It wasn't justice.
SCHAPER: Naoise Ryan's husband, Mick, was among those killed in the second 737 Max crash in Ethiopia in March of 2019.
RYAN: This was a slap on the wrist for Boeing. It was done in the dark of the night kind of thing that nobody knew about it, that we had been lied to.
SCHAPER: Ryan and the other crash victims' family members say that under the Crime Victims' Rights Act, they had a legal right to be consulted before the deal was cut. And now they want the agreement rescinded. Michael Stumo's 24-year-old daughter, Samya, was also killed in the Ethiopian plane crash.
MICHAEL STUMO: We want accountability. We want the judge to say that we are victims under the definition of the Crime Victims' Rights Act. It's clear what that law says.
SCHAPER: In court documents responding to the family's motion, the Justice Department apologizes for not meeting and conferring with them. But the government contends it had no legal obligation to do so because the crash victims are not crime victims under the law. Prosecutors say the evidence does not establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Boeing's conspiracy to defraud the FAA is what caused the crashes. But Michael Stumo vehemently disagrees.
STUMO: Boeing committed a fraud on the FAA, which caused for an unsafe plane. And that unsafe plane crashed and killed our daughter. It's pretty straightforward.
SCHAPER: The deferred prosecution agreement is being sharply criticized by some unlikely political bedfellows, including Senators Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, and Texas Republican Ted Cruz, who wrote an amicus brief in support of the family's motion, saying in part that the Justice Department's position is simply nonsensical. And some legal experts agree.
ANKUSH KHARDORI: I would characterize the deal as one of the worst corporate criminal settlements in modern history, if not the worst. It's one of the worst.
SCHAPER: Kush Khardori is a former federal prosecutor who worked in the financial fraud section of the DOJ.
KHARDORI: The terms are inexplicable in their totality. There are provisions in there that have no precedent.
SCHAPER: Khardori says even though Boeing admits to a two-year criminal conspiracy to commit fraud, it's extremely unusual that the Justice Department would include a provision stating that the misconduct was not pervasive and did not involve senior management.
KHARDORI: The government usually does not, in the course of these investigations, affirmatively exculpate anyone.
SCHAPER: But Khardori says even if the judge finds that the families are crime victims and should have been consulted, it's not clear what legal remedy there would be.
David Schaper, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/737-max-crash-victims-families-aim-to-reopen-boeings-deferred-prosecution-agreement | 2022-05-12T16:00:15Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
After more than two months of war in Ukraine, Russian forces have been deeply undermined. A quarter of Russian units have been rendered combat ineffective. Now, that's according to a new intelligence assessment from Britain's Ministry of Defense. The ministry also said it'll likely take years for Russia to reconstitute some of its most elite units, including the country's airborne forces. Now, the Pentagon is not echoing the British assessment, saying only that a number of units have been degraded from the fighting. But for some, Russian failures have altered what had been the common wisdom regarding Russia's military power with future implications for the U.S., NATO and Russia's neighbors. Jeff Edmonds is a senior analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses. He previously focused on Russia and Central Asia as a member of the National Security Council. Jeff, welcome to the show.
JEFF EDMONDS: Thanks so much for having me.
MARTINEZ: All right. The British say that a quarter of Russian units have been rendered combat ineffective. So if that's true, what does that mean for the war?
EDMONDS: I think what it means is that, you know, the operation that we're seeing now in the east, many military analysts believe that this is the last large operation that the Russian military is able to conduct right now. I mean, it really is staggering. You know, we often think that, you know, 10 to - you know, 20% to 30% losses, a unit is no longer able to conduct offensive operations, and that's where we think the Russian military is right now. And we're seeing this operation in the east, and it's really not producing a lot of results, and that's probably likely a result of these staggering losses.
MARTINEZ: So if this is a last operation for Russia, does it suggest that maybe their war in Ukraine, in particular, where it's focused in the east right now, might be something that they might dig in on?
EDMONDS: They might dig in on it, but there's a real solid chance that the Russian military will not be able to achieve even these revised strategic goals of taking over these two provinces in the east. It's not clear at all that they'll actually be able to, you know, break through and control both regions.
MARTINEZ: So it could be something that is not as prolonged as maybe we thought.
EDMONDS: It may not be. I mean, one big question is what do the Ukrainians want to do? Do they want to try to push the Russians completely out of the east? Or do they want to just push the Russians back to, you know, kind of where they were when they came into this conflict, which would actually be a staggering defeat for the Russians?
MARTINEZ: But if - OK, so Russia still has missiles and rockets. So couldn't Russia just still pummel cities in Ukraine and maybe force these places to surrender, even if its troops can't hold the ground?
EDMONDS: It can still target cities. One, it's, you know, fairly low on its reserve of long-range strike systems. And two, you know, the more the Ukrainians push them back from the cities, the less range their artillery has to actually target those cities. So they can't maintain that indefinitely if they're not close to the cities.
MARTINEZ: My uncle, Jeff, was a marine. And he would always say that a war is won once the boots are on the ground - won or lost. Is that something that kind of holds water in this case?
EDMONDS: I think it did. I mean, I think that - well, the Russians - you know, the - Putin and the military leadership clearly believed that they could drive into Kyiv in a couple of days, have boots on the ground, as you said, and the resistance of the military would just fall apart, and the political, you know, regime would just go away. And that's clearly not the case. And so if the Russians can't maintain boots on the ground, it's not clear what they're actually - there's - it's not clear what he can claim as a victory in this conflict.
MARTINEZ: Now, there was a brief cease-fire and an evacuation of civilians in Mariupol this weekend. What do those developments maybe suggest about Russia's control of that port city?
EDMONDS: So I think - so Mariupol is important for the Russians in that it's geographically located along that strip that goes from Russia to Crimea. This - a lot of people call it the land bridge from Russia to Crimea. And so I don't think the Russians care who's actually in that city as long as they control it. And I think that's why they're allowing this - you know, this evacuation, even though previous evacuations, they've targeted those, and they've targeted civilians there. So I think that, you know, in a real sense, the Russians just want to hold on geographically to the city and have little concern for who's inside of it.
MARTINEZ: If Vladimir Putin feels that his strength is being questioned as a result of, you know, these recent military failures and in traditional war fighting, I mean, how significant, then, do you think is the threat, maybe as an act of desperation, that he might escalate to chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons?
EDMONDS: So I don't think he's going to use - I mean, he might use chemical and biological weapons in this conflict in order to, like, clear areas or clear parts of a city. We haven't - I don't think we've seen that or verified that yet. I don't think he's going to use a nuclear weapon. I do think a real danger here is that if he continues to lose, he might try to escalate this into a Russia-NATO kind of war. And the point there would not be to, like, invade the Baltics or invade Poland; it would just be to kind of call our bluff in a sense and say, hey, I know you guys don't want a Russia-NATO war. If you don't stop supporting Ukraine and take off some of these economic, you know, sanctions on the Russian economy, I'm going to turn this into the very thing that you don't want.
MARTINEZ: But he'd have to. Wouldn't he have to invade a NATO territory to do that?
EDMONDS: Not really. Not really. I think what he could do is, say, a long-range strike with some of these missiles into, say, Poland, for example. And he could claim that, well, I'm just targeting weapons shipments that are inbound to Ukraine. And so he's literally - you know, he's attacking a NATO partner, but not, you know, a big ground war, say.
MARTINEZ: Yeah. But it still would be crossing a line at that point.
EDMONDS: It would definitely be crossing a line. And, you know, any strike into a NATO country would definitely warrant an Article 5 response. And that's what he would be looking for.
MARTINEZ: One last thing - I mean, with this potential weakened military, what are the implications for Vladimir Putin's leadership and his hold on Russia?
EDMONDS: It's not clear. I think, that, you know, the truth of the conflict is going to eventually come out, and I think it will eventually weaken his position. But for right now, he actually has a fair amount of domestic support for this.
MARTINEZ: Jeff Edmonds is senior analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses. Jeff, thanks a lot.
EDMONDS: Thanks so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/a-closer-look-at-some-of-russias-military-failures-in-the-war-on-ukraine | 2022-05-12T16:00:21Z |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
There has been swift reaction to the leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe vs. Wade, the landmark abortion rights decision. It was reported by Politico. NPR has not independently verified the document. The leaked opinion also could change before the court issues a final decision on the issue. Nevertheless, protesters have gathered on the steps of the Supreme Court to oppose or cheer the possibility of Roe being overturned. NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben joins us now from the steps of the court. Danielle, just describe what you're seeing there.
DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Well, you might be able to hear some of it. There is - there has been chanting going on for a while. Producer Barbara Sprunt and I got here at 8 this morning. And you have had both pro-abortion rights and anti-abortion rights groups really growing since then. It started out at a few, and now the sidewalk in front of the Supreme Court isn't totally covered, but it's getting there. You got, you know, maybe a couple hundred folks and, you know, it's getting pretty loud. The - and I will say that the group that is opposing abortion rights has been perhaps probably the more vocal of the two. They're being quite loud.
MARTIN: Well, let's hear more about what they're actually telling you. When you speak to those who are supportive of Roe v. Wade and fearful that it would be overturned, what are they telling you?
KURTZLEBEN: Well, that's exactly it. They're very fearful. They're very upset. One woman is Rachel Rawlings. She and her wife drove down from Philadelphia today. They said they just couldn't sleep last night after the news. And here is what Rachel told me about having lived her whole life in a country with Roe v. Wade in effect.
RACHEL RAWLINGS: I am a little over 50. OK. So Roe v. Wade was decided when I was 5. So I've - and my first memories were of Watergate. So I've kind of always known that things could change.
KURTZLEBEN: So there is a sense among a lot of the pro-abortion rights folks that, you know, they knew this could come. And now it's finally here. And she also said she's worried about her marriage to a woman. She's afraid that Obergefell could eventually be struck down as well. Now, you do have...
MARTIN: This is the Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage.
KURTZLEBEN: Yes, absolutely. Now, interestingly, you do have people here who are supportive of abortion rights who do have complicated feelings about abortion, though. One of those is Sarah Garland. She considers herself a Christian, and she told me more about that.
SARAH GARLAND: It's heartbreaking to think of a woman having an abortion. And I think sometimes the pro-choice movement can take that emotional side out. Just the reality of if you make abortion illegal, women are still going to get abortions. It's just going to become harder. And specifically, that's going to negatively impact lower class women, our Black and brown sisters. Like, I haven't always been pro-abortion. I even wouldn't say that I am. But I'm just hoping that people can realize that it's more complicated than pro-life, pro-choice.
MARTIN: So those are some voices representing those who support Roe vs. Wade. What about those on the other side of this, the folks who are there who oppose abortion rights?
KURTZLEBEN: Right. Well, you do have a couple of groups out here who are opposing abortion rights. You have Students for Life. There's also a group called Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising. So this is people on the left who oppose abortion. And I spoke to one woman from that group. Her name is Kristen Monahan. And she - I asked her how she felt when she heard the news last night. Here's what she said.
KRISTEN MONAHAN: I was a little bit surprised because I tend to be a bit skeptical with conservative justices because a lot of times conservative politicians tend to pay lip service to the pro-life movement to gain votes. So I've always kind of been like, I don't know if they'll really overturn Roe, but this was, like, a sign that they're actually thinking about it.
KURTZLEBEN: And I do want to add there that she said that, you know, they're celebrating and they're out here, but they're also out here to show the conservative justices that they want that to be the opinion, that they want the conservative justices to stick to their guns on this.
MARTIN: NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben outside of the U.S. Supreme Court, thank you.
KURTZLEBEN: Yeah, thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/abortion-rights-advocates-and-opponents-gather-outside-the-supreme-court | 2022-05-12T16:00:27Z |
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
We now know that a leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade is authentic. Chief Justice Roberts confirmed that today after Politico published the document. He noted that it's not a final opinion, but if it holds, it would allow states to prohibit abortion. NPR correspondent Sarah McCammon covers reproductive rights and joins us again. Hi, Sarah.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: As we said, this opinion is a draft, but it does give us a window into what the justices are thinking. Tell us about what you've learned so far.
MCCAMMON: Right. I mean, it appears to confirm months of predictions from legal experts and others really across the political spectrum that the court was poised to seriously roll back abortion rights, if not overturn Roe v. Wade altogether. Just by agreeing to take this case, the justices appeared to signal that. It is a challenge to a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks, so before viability. Chief Justice John Roberts is thought to favor a more incremental approach to change. He asked some questions last fall during the oral arguments that suggested he might have been looking for a way to uphold the Mississippi law without entirely overturning Roe. But Michele Bratcher Goodwin, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, says the draft opinion would overturn Roe in one fell swoop.
MICHELE BRATCHER GOODWIN: It is an opinion that dismantles Roe full-scale, not the dismantling by a thousand strikes. It is a very strong punch to the gut of that opinion.
MCCAMMON: And as a result, according to some estimates, about half of states may be poised to ban abortion under such a decision.
SHAPIRO: And so as the news sinks in today, what are advocates on both sides telling you?
MCCAMMON: Well, abortion-rights opponents are pleased, as you might expect, and hoping that this sticks. This is what they've been working toward at every level of government for decades. Steve Aden with Americans United for Life says his group is asking states to actually come back and call special sessions to pass legislation banning abortion in response to this decision.
STEVE ADEN: If this opinion holds, it means that the question of abortion has been returned to where it belongs, to the states and the people, and that will result in a vigorous political debate in a place where it belongs - in the state houses.
MCCAMMON: Now, abortion-rights advocates say this will be disastrous for low-income people, people of color and others who are disproportionately affected by abortion restrictions. And they're warning that overturning long-standing precedent could have ramifications for other rights that are protected under Supreme Court decisions such as a right to contraception, same-sex marriage. And that's a worry that we heard President Biden raise today.
SHAPIRO: So what is the next move for abortion-rights advocates?
MCCAMMON: Well, polls suggest that a majority of Americans want Roe to remain in effect and support abortion rights in most cases. So advocates are hoping this will galvanize voters to turn out for the midterm elections. Fatima Goss Graves is with National Women's Law Center.
FATIMA GOSS GRAVES: We have been warning for decades about what is happening in this country in terms of abortion access and the attack on Roe. I think this draft opinion leaked last night is making it real for people.
MCCAMMON: Naral Pro-Choice America and other groups, Ari, are investing $150 million on the midterms, focusing on battleground states. And even as many states have rushed to pass restrictions on abortion, what we're also seeing some taking steps to expand abortion access. But increasingly, the way the country seems to be going is toward a very patchwork set of abortion policies.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Sarah McCammon, thank you very much.
MCCAMMON: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/abortion-rights-advocates-and-opponents-react-to-possibility-of-abortion-restrictions | 2022-05-12T16:00:34Z |
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
This month the U.S. is chairing the United Nations Security Council. It is planning to keep the spotlight on Russia's war in Ukraine but also address something on the minds of many nations around the world - how the war is affecting the price of food. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: Even countries unwilling to criticize Russia's war in Ukraine are worried about the ripple effects. So the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, plans to focus on that.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LINDA THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Ukraine used to be a breadbasket for the developing world. But since Russia blocked crucial ports and destroyed civilian infrastructure and grain silos, desperate hunger situations in Africa and the Middle East are getting even more dire.
KELEMEN: She laid out the U.S. priorities at the U.N. today. Anjali Dayal, a U.N. watcher who teaches international politics at Fordham University, says this focus makes sense.
ANJALI DAYAL: Even before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the World Food Program and the FAO noted that this was likely to be the most food-insecure year on record globally.
KELEMEN: Dayal says much of the world depends on food, fertilizer and agricultural supplies that come out of Russia and Ukraine.
DAYAL: The war in Ukraine, essentially - that is a crisis that the most vulnerable people in the world will pay for in lost calories and in lost agricultural production.
KELEMEN: And the U.S. needs to be seen as doing something about that, says Richard Gowan, who tracks the U.N. for the International Crisis Group.
RICHARD GOWAN: The key goal for the U.S. is to show that it is the big power that can manage the global food crisis, and it's not going to be China or Russia that leads the way in dealing with these global shocks.
KELEMEN: The U.S. also wants to keep up the pressure on Russia. The U.S. ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, says she's had some success in the Security Council on that.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Russia is isolated in the Security Council. And every time we have a discussion in the Security Council as it relates to Russia, they are on the defensive. And we will continue to keep them on the defensive until they end their brutal attack on the Ukrainian people.
KELEMEN: But in the General Assembly, many countries abstained from a vote condemning Russia's war. Thomas-Greenfield says she spent a lot of time talking to African diplomats to reassure them this is not a war between the U.S. and Russia. She says this is about one country, Russia, violating the U.N. charter. Gowan of the International Crisis Group says the U.S. has a balancing act at the U.N.
GOWAN: It's a place where the big powers can come, even during periods of intense crisis, to try and talk about their remaining common interests. And the U.S. is trying to juggle keeping pressure on Russia at the U.N. with finding a minimum of common ground on other concerns, be it Libya or Somalia.
KELEMEN: The Security Council debate on global food security is set for May 19. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, the State Department.
(SOUNDBITE OF TREMOR'S "CARACOL") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/as-unsc-chair-u-s-plans-to-focus-on-russias-war-in-ukraine-and-rising-food-prices | 2022-05-12T16:00:40Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
Good morning. I'm A Martinez. Authorities in Washington, D.C., are currently searching for a wild turkey that's been chasing people around the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail for months. The attacks are so foul that signs have been put up warning walkers not to interact with the wildlife. Recently, authorities were right on its tail feathers. Before they could catch it, though, the bird crossed the D.C. border into Maryland and is still on the run. Personally, I hope they lock it up and throw away the tur-key (ph). It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/d-c-authorities-are-searching-for-a-wild-turkey-thats-been-chasing-people | 2022-05-12T16:00:46Z |
ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
An exhibit on display now in Connecticut showcases the work of Adger Cowans. He's a Black photographer and painter whose subjects range from civil rights marches to Hollywood movie sets. Connecticut Public Radio's Ryan Caron King brings us to Cowans' studio, where the artist reflects on his life's work.
RYAN CARON KING, BYLINE: Adger Cowans shuffles through a stack of prints. Sketches, collages and paintings cover almost every surface in his studio.
ADGER COWANS: Let me see. What else?
CARON KING: There's a photo of Sarah Vaughan performing at the Newport Jazz Fest and a picture of Mick Jagger relaxing in a hammock. Cowans pulls out a photo of a small girl silhouetted against the piercing beams of the sun. She looks like she's falling towards the ground.
COWANS: This is Icarus. They were throwing a little girl up with a blanket on the beach, and I'd just gotten a 21-millimeter lens. And I got real close to the edge of the blanket, and I shot this picture. And it reminded me of Icarus.
CARON KING: That's after the Greek mythological figure who flew too close to the sun.
Cowans, who's 85, was one of the first Black students to earn a degree in photography from Ohio University in the late 1950s. He says, growing up, he often listened to what the older men around him were talking about.
COWANS: I was a news carrier. I was a paper boy, so I was reading papers while I was carrying them. So I was pretty up on what was going on in the world. And the things that upset me was about racism - it still upsets me - about Black people getting hung and killed and shot at. It got me. It gets me today.
CARON KING: Cowans says he faced a lot of racism working in a predominantly white industry. He got his big break when celebrated photojournalist Gordon Parks, who was the first Black staff photographer at Life magazine, hired Cowans as his assistant.
COWANS: So I took all that racism and rejection and everything, and I put it in my work. That was one of the big things I learned from Gordon Parks - was to take negative energy and turn it into positive power.
CARON KING: Cowans was also the first Black still photographer in Hollywood, working with directors like Spike Lee and Francis Ford Coppola. He didn't let the movie stars faze him. He wanted to get to know the people he photographed.
COWANS: I wanted those moments of life flowing past me, whether it was movie stars, whether it was people walking down the street, whether it was an abstract. No matter what it was, if I had a feeling here in my heart, then it was important to me to do it.
CARON KING: Halima Taha is the curator for Cowans' new exhibition at the Fairfield University Art Museum in Connecticut. She says she poured through hundreds of his images to select the right ones with him for the gallery - some pictures that have been published before and many that hadn't.
HALIMA TAHA: One of the things that happens to many artists, and particularly artists of African descent, is that the same images keep being reproduced or exhibited because people are familiar with them.
CARON KING: Taha says Cowans got a lot of support from his family and community growing up in Columbus, Ohio, and it gave him the conviction and confidence to handle the prejudice he faced later.
TAHA: I think that because he came out of that kind of environment, he was able to focus on developing himself as a human being, as a visual artist and in particular as a photographer.
(SOUNDBITE OF PAINTBRUSH AGAINST CANVAS)
CARON KING: Back in his studio, Cowans is painting. That's what he spends most of his time doing now, and he's not thinking of stopping anytime soon. He says he didn't put out a book of his photography until he was 80.
COWANS: People say, well, what do you want your legacy to be? I don't know anything about legacy. You know, it'll be what it is. It'll be what the people make it. I can't make my legacy. I don't even know what that is. All I want to do is the work, and it'll be whatever it'll be.
CARON KING: For NPR News, I'm Ryan Caron King.
(SOUNDBITE OF GRAMATIK'S "MUY TRANQUILO") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/encore-exhibit-shows-photographer-adger-cowans-range-from-civil-rights-to-celebs | 2022-05-12T16:00:52Z |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Will big audiences ever return to movie theaters? That was the big question hovering over a recent meeting of theater owners in Las Vegas - their first full convention in three years. Here's John Horn of Southern California Public Radio.
JOHN HORN, BYLINE: It felt a little like a reunion of Titanic survivors, and the setting fit - The Colosseum at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, where Celine Dion, who sang the blockbuster film's famous ballad, played for years. The thousands streaming into the arena were talking about different blockbusters - those that didn't yet exist. They had come to Las Vegas for CinemaCon, an annual convention for movie theater owners who are looking for hit films to bring customers back to their multiplexes. Few national businesses were as decimated by COVID as movie theaters.
Tom Rothman is the chairman and CEO of Sony Picture Entertainment's Motion Picture Group.
TOM ROTHMAN: We went through a near-death experience.
HORN: Three years ago, domestic box office receipts totaled $11.4 billion. In 2020 and 2021, the combined ticket sales were just a bit more than half of that. Entire chains and mom and pop venues closed for good. Thousands lost their jobs.
Ponci Gallegos is a national sales manager for American Licorice, the makers of Red Vines. Theaters and vending machines account for a little less than two-thirds of all American Licorice sales.
PONCI GALLEGOS: It's been kind of dismal.
HORN: And all the while, movie fans bolted to streaming sites by the millions.
At CinemaCon, movie studios bring in stars and show hours of film clips and sometimes entire movies, like the new "Top Gun" sequel, for theater owners, hopeful their upcoming releases will lure audiences back to the multiplex.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "TOP GUN: MAVERICK")
TOM CRUISE: (As Maverick) In three, two, one.
HORN: Spoiler alert - Tom Cruise's Maverick survives. And people are returning to theaters, even if attendance remains well below pre-pandemic levels.
JOHN FITHIAN: The attitude in the hallways, the conversations with the members who operate motion picture theaters around the country and around the world then versus now, is dramatically different.
HORN: John Fithian is the president and CEO of the National Association of Theater Owners, which stages CinemaCon.
FITHIAN: There's optimism about the coming movie slate, and there's optimism about our patrons coming back out to cinemas. Those are two things that we thrive on.
HORN: On December 17 last year, in the middle of the omicron surge, Sony Pictures released "Spider-Man: No Way Home."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME")
TOM HOLLAND: (As Peter Parker) But how do you tell someone that you're Spider-Man?
HORN: The Sony Marvel movie has grossed more than $800 million in domestic theaters so far. Without adjusting for inflation, that makes "Spider-Man" the third-highest grossing domestic release ever.
ROTHMAN: I would say that business doesn't survive. It actually thrives. Not only can it survive, it can overcome a global pandemic, which it's in the process of doing.
HORN: Unlike most other studios, Sony preserved what's known as a theatrical window. That's the time, historically around three months, from when a film hits the multiplex to when it premieres on places like Netflix or HBO Max. At CinemaCon, the studios pledged they would open their movies exclusively in theaters going forward.
But movie-going habits might be irrevocably transformed. Well before the pandemic, theater owners were steadily losing customers. And even if Netflix just reported its first subscriber loss in a decade, overall streaming growth is staggering - up some 18% from a year ago, according to one new study.
For NPR News, I'm John Horn in Las Vegas.
(SOUNDBITE OF MICHAEL GIACCHINO'S "ARACHNOVERTURE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/encore-movie-theater-owners-are-optimistic-big-audiences-will-return | 2022-05-12T16:00:58Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
When it comes to climate change, some Arizona cities are preparing for worst-case scenarios. One would be a massive power grid failure. Anthony Wallace from member station KJZZ reports on the resilience hubs being developed.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Good morning, everyone. Just to tell you real quick, we've got a raffle for two...
ANTHONY WALLACE, BYLINE: On a cool Saturday morning in Tempe, a suburb of Phoenix, people cluster in a parking lot surrounded by strip malls. At information booths and under shade canopies, they're talking about what they'd like to see in the vacant building at the center of the event.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Bill assistance, utility assistance and help for homeless and mentally ill - just a place where people can go for help.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Information on where to get food pantry - is that going to be available here?
WALLACE: Today's weather is nice, but many here agree that when it gets hot, the neighborhood needs a place people can go to cool down. Phoenix regularly sees a hundred days each year of triple-digit temperatures.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: There's no shade around here. Look at these trees. That's not a shading tree. That's not a shading tree.
WALLACE: The city of Tempe's director of sustainability is Braden Kay.
BRADEN KAY: So we have about a 1,600-square-foot building. We're looking at a sign here - at Cafe Istanbul. It used to be a Middle Eastern cafe.
WALLACE: Kay and his colleagues plan to transform the cafe into the city's first resilience hub, a year-round community center that can act as a refuge in a climate disaster. He says the concept is catching on across the country.
KAY: There are several cities, like Austin and Baltimore and Minneapolis, that we've had consult with us, and now that we've seen crises like the one in Texas and in the Pacific Northwest, there's really an understanding of this heightened need for these emergency response centers in every neighborhood in the country.
WALLACE: The city is investing $2.3 million in mostly federal funds in the center, part of it COVID-19 relief money. Today, Kay and his colleagues are trying to learn how the center can best offer services like housing and job assistance, but Kay hopes they will also learn...
KAY: What's going to make you trust this building in order to come here at 9 o'clock at night if it's 112 degrees and your air conditioning has gone out?
MELISSA GUARDARO: I think anybody who works in this extreme heat space is not worried that it's going to happen so much as it's going to happen; it's just a matter of when.
WALLACE: Melissa Guardaro is a heat researcher at Arizona State University. And some experts warn of a so-called Hurricane Katrina of extreme heat in Phoenix. Imagine - an historic heat wave pushes temperatures to 110 degrees or more for five days straight, straining the power grid and causing outages all over town. No air conditioning.
GUARDARO: We like to call that a cascading disaster. And it's not just the heat and the power, but your water will go out, too.
WALLACE: One study estimated that such a catastrophic event in Phoenix could leave 1.6 million people injured or dead. Tempe's sustainability director Braden Kay says they aim to open the Tempe resilience hub this May and, eventually, add backup power so its air conditioning can continue running if the grid fails.
KAY: Our idea is that, eventually, you should be able to be in a five- to 10-minute walk of a resilience hub, no matter where you are. But we got to start somewhere.
WALLACE: An argument for resilience hubs is that having a place to go and people you trust nearby can be the key to survival in a disaster. Research from the 1995 Chicago heat wave shows more socially isolated communities suffered higher death rates than those with greater social connection. Dominique Parks, who's 58, relies on power for more than just air conditioning.
DOMINIQUE PARKS: It would be a very good plus. I would be in trouble 'cause I have to have oxygen. So that would even be double trouble for me if my electricity went out.
WALLACE: This project in Tempe is an attempt to flip the script on disaster relief and aid in general, which can be top-down, very costly, chaotic and reactive, not preventive and community-based. The idea is to better understand what people really need. The city is looking toward scouting locations for future resilience hubs. It anticipates adding one to two hubs a year, creating more places more people can go to come together, where the AC can always run.
For NPR News, I'm Anthony Wallace in Phoenix.
(SOUNDBITE OF ROB LEVIT'S "FORGOTTEN SONG") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/encore-tempe-creates-emergency-response-center-to-be-a-climate-disaster-refuge | 2022-05-12T16:01:04Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
The leak of a draft Supreme Court majority opinion to overturn legalized abortion, a political earthquake, is now making its way through Washington. Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed the authenticity of the draft and ordered an investigation of the leak, which he said in a statement is a betrayal. President Biden said this morning he's worried about broader threats to issues such as marriage equality. Top Democratic leaders in Congress have taken aim at conservative justices who they say lied to Congress that Roe v. Wade was settled precedent. Here's Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer taking aim at Republicans and their leaders, who he accused as the enablers.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHUCK SCHUMER: Every Republican senator who supported Senator McConnell and voted for Trump justices, pretending that this day would never come, will now have to explain themselves to the American people.
MARTINEZ: This comes after Politico published what appears to be an initial draft majority opinion led by Justice Samuel Alito, which, we should say, could change before a final decision is released. Joining us to discuss is NPR congressional reporter Claudia Grisales. What are we hearing from congressional Democrats this morning?
CLAUDIA GRISALES, BYLINE: We're hearing just utter fury. Schumer was the first to address it on the Senate floor today, calling this a dark and disturbing morning.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SCHUMER: The Supreme Court is poised to inflict the greatest restriction of rights in the past 50 years, not just on women but on all Americans. Under this decision, our children will have less rights than their parents.
GRISALES: Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a joint statement last night saying, quote, "Several of these conservative justices who are in no way accountable to the American people have lied to the U.S. Senate, ripped up the Constitution and defiled both precedent and the Supreme Court's reputation." Now, again, we should note NPR has not independently confirmed Politico's reporting here, and if this is a legitimate draft, the opinion could change before it's finalized in the coming weeks.
MARTINEZ: All right, so that's Democrats. Where do Republicans stand on last night's leak?
GRISALES: You know, that's not as clear. For now, they're diverting attention to the leak itself, such as Senate Majority - I'm sorry, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is pushing for a Justice Department investigation into this leak. But as we know, this was not illegal to share this draft opinion. And as we also know, Chief Justice Roberts did order a probe into how this happened. That all said, this makes for an unpopular decision politically when we look at the polling on this issue out there, and it will be tricky how Republicans will be able to play this in the coming months before the midterm election.
MARTINEZ: Yeah, it's just six months away. What do you think this means for that?
GRISALES: There is some talk that this could energize voters who disagree with this opinion, and for certain, it reshapes the debate. For example, Democrats now have a clear-cut rallying cry to get voters to the polls, and Republicans could now find themselves in a new defensive position to fend off alarm over this opinion among the electorate. But it could turn the tide - in terms of whether it could turn the tide when it comes to expectations that, for example, Republicans could take over the House next year - maybe not, but still, that remains to be seen.
MARTINEZ: And what, if anything, can Congress do this year?
GRISALES: Schumer said the Senate could vote to codify a woman's right to abortion access, and every American is going to see where every senator stands on this issue. But let's be clear. Senate Democrats - their hands are tied when it comes to moving such legislation forward or to blow up the filibuster requirements that limit their ability to do so. And that leaves the House without much recourse here as well, even if they have the votes there to approve new bills.
MARTINEZ: That's NPR congressional reporter Claudia Grisales. Thanks a lot.
GRISALES: Thank you much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/executive-and-legislative-branch-members-react-to-roe-v-wade-threats | 2022-05-12T16:01:10Z |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
A new law in Alabama, which goes into effect this weekend, makes it a felony to provide gender-affirming care for transgender minors. As Kyra Miles, from member station WBHM reports, it's forcing some families to make tough choices.
KYRA MILES, BYLINE: There's a special garden in the backyard of Erin Georgia's (ph) home in suburban Birmingham.
ERIN GEORGIA: I got a blackberry bush in here that has tons of blooms, so we're going to have Jay's (ph) jam this year, I think.
MILES: It's a memorial garden for her firstborn, Jay.
E GEORGIA: Unfortunately, our oldest child, Jay, died by suicide. It'll be five years next month.
MILES: Jay was transgender and died at the age of 13. When Jay came out, the family used the right pronouns, they got him new clothes. But Erin wasn't sure about hormone treatments.
E GEORGIA: Well, let's wait a while before we do any kind of hormone treatment. I thought, you're just a kid.
MILES: After Jay's death, her second child, Alex (ph), also came out as transgender and nonbinary. This time, Erin said yes to hormone treatment.
E GEORGIA: Then you look at my other child that's had those gender-affirming treatments, and it is night and day.
MILES: Alex was assigned female at birth but came out as trans in sixth grade. After years of monitoring by doctors and psychologists, they started hormone therapy.
ALEX GEORGIA: I've been on testosterone for 2 1/2 months now, and it's going great. I'm very excited.
(LAUGHTER)
ALEX: I mean, it's been nothing but positives.
MILES: But the shadow looming over Alex's excitement is a new law in Alabama that makes it illegal for Alex to receive those hormones.
MORISSA LADINSKY: This law puts physicians in the space to have to choose between their Hippocratic oath to do no harm, to not risk a felony conviction.
MILES: Dr. Morissa Ladinsky co-leads the multidisciplinary gender health team at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospitals. She could face up to 10 years in prison. And she says if her clinic gets shut down...
LADINSKY: There is nowhere for an entire region of physicians to send their gender dysphoric youth.
MILES: Significant evidence shows that denying gender-affirming care does real harm. The LGBTQ advocacy group Trevor Project found 40% of transgender and nonbinary youth self-harm or seriously contemplate suicide. Still, Alabama politicians believe gender-affirming care for minors is child abuse. Governor Kay Ivey declined interview requests but in a public appearance said this law is defending Alabama values.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KAY IVEY: If the good Lord makes you a boy when you were born, you're a boy.
KAITLIN WELBORN: So best-case scenario, people move; worst-case scenario, children die.
MILES: Kaitlin Welborn is a staff attorney at the ACLU of Alabama. The civil rights group filed a lawsuit to block the law, saying the state's ban on trans care violates equal protection and does irreparable harm.
WELBORN: They are risking federal funding. The legislature has known all of this. They're well aware of exactly how illegal this bill is, and they passed it anyway.
MILES: A judge will hear arguments in the case later this week.
ALEX: I got a really nice dress. I'm so excited. Oh, she's going to pull it out.
MILES: Back at their home, Erin Georgia is helping 15-year-old Alex get ready for prom.
E GEORGIA: I've lost one son that died by suicide, and I have another thriving transgender child. Like, who would make my family suffer more after what we've been through?
MILES: Erin loves Alabama and wants to stay. But she says Alex will continue hormone treatments even if the law forces the family to move.
For NPR News, I'm Kyra Miles in Birmingham.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MARTIN: If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Line at 1-800-273-8255. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/families-of-transgender-youth-in-alabama-face-some-difficult-choices | 2022-05-12T16:01:16Z |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The legacy of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol looms over America's upcoming elections. A new report says that the number of active, self-styled militia groups in the U.S. thinned out last year. Politically driven protests declined, as well. But the study says these groups have shifted tactics in ways that may mean increased political violence around this year's midterm elections. NPR's Odette Yousef covers domestic extremism, and she joins us this morning. Hey, Odette.
ODETTE YOUSEF, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: Lay out the findings of this report, if you could.
YOUSEF: Well, the report looks at protest activity in the U.S. in 2021, Rachel, which, as you note, started with a violent riot at the U.S. Capitol. And as you said, overall, there was a decline, but I want to share what Roudabeh Kishi told me. She's the director of research and innovation at ACLED, the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, which put out the report.
ROUDABEH KISHI: Just because we saw a decline, it doesn't mean that the underlying problems are resolved. And it can, in fact, distract from early warning signs that can point to where these problems might only be metastasizing.
YOUSEF: So while some groups like the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters did decrease activity, others actually increased activity, most notably the far-right Proud Boys. We also saw some movements that we might have expected to wane, like QAnon, that were just as strong as they had been the previous year. And, Rachel, one of the more concerning trends was increased activity by groups with an explicit white nationalist or white supremacist agenda.
MARTIN: So despite some of these downward trends, sounds like you and the report are saying there is some cause to be worried as we look towards the midterms.
YOUSEF: That's right because of how these groups shifted tactics last year. You know, one concern is that they found new ways to recruit by kind of cross-pollinating with other groups or causes like anti-vax or anti-masking events. The data also showed an increase in armed demonstrations at state capitols and a rise in violent or destructive counterdemonstrations. So all together, conflict scholars are looking at this and thinking it won't take very much to light a fuse around some flashpoint issue in this year.
MARTIN: Say more about flashpoint issues. What are those?
YOUSEF: Well, we've been talking about the midterms, but the truth is, you know, even people who track this stuff closely know you can't make predictions. You know, think about 2020. I don't think anyone would have guessed that the police killing of George Floyd would reignite a season of social justice demonstrations. So the best they can do is track what's motivating violent actors to mobilize. Right now, a big one is anti-LGBTQ rights. And we're also seeing violence now at abortion-related demonstrations that we hadn't seen in 2020.
MARTIN: So given how amorphous the risk is, what can anyone do to head off the possibility of political violence?
YOUSEF: I spoke with Shannon Hiller about this. She runs the Bridging Divides Initiative at Princeton University, which tries to track and mitigate political violence in the U.S. They're looking at what can be done in advance at a local level - so helping civic organizations and faith groups, for example, get de-escalation training and become aware of what local paramilitary groups operate in their area. She frames this as a, you know, as building community resilience.
SHANNON HILLER: We ramp up to these moments of the election, and then we ramp down again this capacity. But this is something that needs to be an ongoing process and isn't something that we should only do around elections.
YOUSEF: You know, I should note, though, it's hard to say when advance work has successfully kept political violence from happening.
MARTIN: NPR's Odette Yousef, thank you.
YOUSEF: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/far-right-militant-groups-align-with-issue-oriented-groups-ahead-of-midterms | 2022-05-12T16:01:22Z |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Good morning. I'm Rachel Martin. The state of Louisiana isn't known for earthquakes, but when Garth Brooks comes to town and plays this song...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CALLIN' BATON ROUGE")
GARTH BROOKS: (Singing) Send my love down to Baton Rouge.
MARTIN: ..."Callin' Baton Rouge," hold on to your hats. During Brooks' Saturday night concert at LSU's Tiger Stadium, over a hundred thousand fans danced and sang so hard a seismograph on campus actually registered a small earthquake. That's a lot of power for a country music star, but I won't be blown away until he sings "Thunder Rolls" and then it does. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/garth-brooks-fans-in-louisiana-cause-a-small-earthquake | 2022-05-12T16:01:29Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Now to a story about a man who's a bit of a celebrity in the world of Legos. Russell Cassevah set a Guinness world record by walking on Legos barefoot for more than two miles.
RUSSELL CASSEVAH: I ended up going to the hospital and had over a hundred microabrasions on both feet. I had no feeling in my feet for weeks. It was insane.
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
Insane? Well, yeah, probably - but not pointless. That's because Cassevah used the attention to raise money to buy Legos and donate them to hospitals across the country, an idea that he got from an organization in the U.K. called Fairy Bricks. So in 2019, he quit his job to start his own nonprofit called Little Bricks Charity.
CASSEVAH: I cashed out my 401(k), and I have been traveling the nation helping these amazing families.
FADEL: Cassevah documents his efforts on TikTok, which is where Mike Lorenzo found out about him.
MIKE LORENZO: So I reached out to him, and I said, hey, my son has been in and out of Mass General Hospital the past almost three years now.
FADEL: Lorenzo and his wife, Nicole, are from North Attleboro, Mass., and they had a suggestion.
LORENZO: I was wondering if he would come down to Mass. General Hospital for Little Bricks Charity and donate to the kids at the hospital. And he's like, absolutely.
MARTINEZ: The Lorenzos, who are known on TikTok for their extreme deal-finding abilities, helped cash about by 5,000 bucks' worth Legos.
LORENZO: When I pulled up to the front of Mass. General Children, I was just floored at the amount of love that their team was just showering upon us.
MARTINEZ: Now the Lorenzos are hoping to continue to help Cassevah with his work. Their message - they might not be going through the same difficulties as the kids, but they can help them forget about their worries one brick toy at a time.
(SOUNDBITE OF TINGVALL TRIO'S "CIRKLAR") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/guinness-world-record-holder-donates-5-000-worth-of-legos-to-hospital | 2022-05-12T16:01:35Z |
ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
If the decision to overturn Roe is ultimately handed down from the court, the political implications could be monumental. Last night's leak has already triggered a political earthquake. We're joined now by NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson, NPR's Kelsey Snell on Capitol Hill and NPR's Sarah McCammon, who covers abortion. Welcome to all of you.
KELSEY SNELL, BYLINE: Hello.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: Hi.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Happy to be here.
FLORIDO: Mara, let's start with you. Chief Justice John Roberts today confirmed that this draft decision was authentic. He said it is not final. President Biden had a pretty strong reaction after the chief justice announced that. He called this draft decision radical before taking off in Air Force One today.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: If the rationale of the decision as released were to be sustained, a whole range of rights are in question - a whole range of rights. And the idea we're letting the states make those decisions, localities make those decisions would be a fundamental shift in what we've done.
FLORIDO: What do you make of that reaction, Mara?
LIASSON: Well, he talked about two things - what's at stake, meaning all these other things that would fall under the right to privacy, which that draft questioned, the right to marry, gay marriage, the right to use contraception. That would also be in the balance. So the president was focusing on what's at stake other than just the right to abortion, and then he also talked about the remedy. He said it's up to voters to elect pro-abortion rights legislators at every level - Senate, House, also state legislatures.
And this is the big question for Democrats. They've never been seized with the importance of the courts like conservatives have, who have focused for 50 years on overturning Roe. Democrats haven't done that. And now the question is, does this ruling, assuming it becomes a ruling, have a boomerang effect? Will liberal voters feel like their rights are under threat? Will they be more energized to come out to vote? Or will this take a second or third place behind inflation, crime and immigration as issues for the midterms? We don't know that yet.
FLORIDO: Well, Kelsey, now that Democrats in Congress know that this draft opinion could become final in the coming months, do they have any plans to act on abortion protections?
SNELL: Well, the vast majority of them said they're outraged. They say these are the kinds of actions Democrats have warned voters could happen since way back during the 2016 presidential election, when Republicans held up former President Obama's nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia after he died. You know, Democrats generally promised today to fight to protect Roe. And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer promised that there will be votes even if they fail.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHUCK SCHUMER: It's a different world now. The tectonic plates of our politics on women's choice and on rights in general are changing. Every senator now under the real glare of Roe v. Wade being repealed by the courts is going to have to show which side they're on.
SNELL: But, you know, in reality, Democrats do not have the votes to pass federal abortion protections right now. And putting people on the record might be the best they can hope for. They would need either 60 votes to overcome a filibuster or a feasible plan to end the filibuster. I will note that Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia told reporters today that he still supports the filibuster.
FLORIDO: Well, that's Democrats. I want to ask you about two Republican senators, though, Kelsey - Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine. They have both supported abortion rights in the past.
SNELL: Right. And they both said the decision would be inconsistent with what they were told by justices during their confirmation processes. Collins specifically named Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. Murkowski went further, and she told a group of reporters that a draft decision rocked her confidence in the court. A little bit later, she added this.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LISA MURKOWSKI: It was not the direction that I believed that the court would take based on statements that have been made about Roe being settled and being precedent.
SNELL: Now, you know, they both pointed to a narrow bill that they've supported and sponsored that talks about prohibiting states from imposing what they call an undue burden on the ability of a woman to obtain an abortion. But that would allow states to impose some restrictions still. And, you know, that plan might win their support. But two Republicans and 48 or 50 Democrats still does not equal the 60 votes they would need for the bill to pass.
FLORIDO: Sarah McCammon, I'd like to bring you in here. You're going to be reporting on this elsewhere in the program. But briefly, what are abortion rights advocates saying about this Supreme Court leak?
MCCAMMON: Well, as you might expect, even though this was somewhat expected, they're saying it's devastating, especially for people who already struggle to get access to abortion disproportionately - people of color, people in rural areas. But they are expressing some optimism that this could galvanize Democratic voters in the 2022 midterms as well as in '24. Mini Timmaraju, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, believes that this is going to be a wake up-call, as she put it, that will turn out progressive voters even more than, for example, after the 2016 election, which did lead to a blue wave in 2018.
MINI TIMMARAJU: We are seeing a ton of support and energy from our advocates, our donors, our voters, our volunteers to mobilize. Sometimes you need that extra push. And unfortunately, as horrific as this is, this is probably it. And we're going to invest significantly to make it so.
MCCAMMON: And on that note, a coalition of major reproductive rights groups, including NARAL, announced that they're spending $150 million this year toward voter mobilization efforts. They're targeting congressional races, of course, along with governors' races given the increasing importance of state legislation.
FLORIDO: And what about abortion opponents, Sarah? They've been wanting to overturn Roe v. Wade for a long time. If the court does, in fact, follow through, where do they go from here?
MCCAMMON: Well, they've been a little cautious in their response given that this is a leaked draft. But this has been a decades-long goal if this holds. A coalition largely made up of conservative Catholics and evangelical Protestants have been working strategically toward this goal at every level of government for decades, trying to pass state laws that could soon ban most abortions in about half of U.S. states. I talked to Kristan Hawkins with Students for Life today. She says her group is working to pass more early abortion bans around six weeks or earlier.
KRISTAN HAWKINS: We need to be talking about a law that bans abortions when children can - children's hearts begin to be detected or laws that protect life at conception.
MCCAMMON: And her group and others are working toward the idea of a national abortion ban. That, of course, would take a majority in Congress as well as the White House, but it is one of their longer-term goals.
FLORIDO: Kelsey, is that something that Republicans in Congress are talking about?
SNELL: Republicans I talked to today - and I talked to many - they really didn't engage with the substance of the decision or discuss whether they would go further to pass federal abortion restrictions if they do take majorities in the House and the Senate. You know, instead, they mostly focused on the leaker. They called for an investigation, and some called for eventual prosecution of the leaker. I should point out, though, that, you know, polls have consistently shown that a majority of Americans oppose overturning Roe v. Wade. The latest Gallup data has 58% of Americans against overturning it. And an NPR poll last month gave Republicans a broad advantage in the midterms but also indicated that voters feel Democrats would do a better job on the issue of abortion by 11 points.
FLORIDO: Mara, a quick final word goes to you. The Supreme Court prides itself on the idea that it's not a political body. So what are the implications of the court making such a major ruling and potentially breaking with public opinion on an issue that stirs up such strong feelings?
LIASSON: Well, historically, the Supreme Court has been on the opposite side of majority public opinion many, many times. But what's happening now is that there's a much bigger debate that's starting. A majority of the Supreme Court justices were appointed by presidents who became president despite losing the popular vote. And the senators who confirmed some of those justices represented a minority of Americans. So we're moving from a system where the founders wanted minority party rights to be protected to a system that is looking a lot more like minority rule. And the big question is, does the majority of Americans want this to continue or not?
FLORIDO: That was NPR national correspondent Mara Liasson, national correspondent Sarah McCammon and congressional correspondent Kelsey Snell. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/how-the-draft-supreme-court-opinion-overturning-roe-v-wade-could-impact-midterms | 2022-05-12T16:01:41Z |
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In South Korea, concerts and sporting events came back this year with a caveat - to keep people from yelling coronaviruses into the air, no cheering was allowed.
ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
That meant baseball without crowds making noise or K-pop without fan chants.
KAYLA BALBA: I think originally, it was created by the fans to show the members and the group support during songs. But now a lot of groups actually do, like, fan chant guides so that you know exactly, like, what to say and when.
FLORIDO: That's Kayla Balba. K-pop fans like her have dedicated scripts they chant together during specific songs. Here's the BTS Army, the supporters of the band BTS, chanting each member's name at a concert.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE #1: (Chanting) Kim Nam-joon. Kim Seok-jin. Min Yoon-gi. Jung Ho-seok. Park Ji-min. Kim Tae-hyung. Jeon Jung-kook. BTS.
BALBA: And it's mostly so that, like, the fans can be involved in the performance but is also - it also contributes to the atmosphere of, like, the overall concerts.
SHAPIRO: Balba went to a few concerts earlier this year, and there was lots of clapping and noisemakers, but...
BALBA: It was like, absolutely no screaming, singing along or dancing or standing up.
SHAPIRO: Then this past weekend, she got tickets to see the boy band Stray Kids.
BALBA: So I just got to the venue, and so there's so much going on. Like, there's people taking pictures. There's people, like, running for freebies. It's, like, a whole free-for-all. And then there's people, like, trying to buy slogans and stuff. But other than that, there's just a lot of fans excited.
FLORIDO: Excited for merch and the music and one more thing.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE #2: (Chanting, inaudible).
FLORIDO: Masks are still required, but the screaming ban has been lifted, and so cheering is back in Korea.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CHARMER")
STRAY KIDS: (Rapping in Korean).
(Rapping) I'm saucy, living in big Seoul city.
(Rapping in Korean). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/in-south-korea-k-pop-fans-have-something-to-cheer-about | 2022-05-12T16:01:47Z |
LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: A warning that this next story centers on sexual violence and war crimes.
In Ukraine, the spotlight is on executions of civilians and targeting of residential neighborhoods. But one type of war crime seems to always get less attention and virtually no accountability - rape and other forms of sexual violence as a weapon. It's pervasive. It's been a staple of war and ethnic cleansing for centuries on both sides of the conflict.
ARMINKA HELIC: The bottom line is they always say to me, you know, am I not worth anything? Is my life not worth anything? Is that why I can't get justice?
FADEL: That's Arminka Helic. She has been campaigning to create a permanent, independent and international body to investigate and prosecute rape and sexual violence as war crimes. There are horrific reports of rape in Ukraine, including that Russian troops kept 25 women in a basement outside Kyiv and repeatedly sexually assaulted them. We spoke with Helic last week.
HELIC: It is not something that is just happening in Ukraine now; It's something that happened in Bosnia, in DRC, in Iraq, in Syria, in Myanmar, in Central African Republic. You name it, there is hardly a conflict where we haven't seen violence being used, particularly against women and girls, in some cases against men and boys as well.
FADEL: And yet it's the least prosecuted.
HELIC: It is the least prosecuted. And the number of successful international prosecutions for sexual violence in conflict remains in the low single digits. Now, we are kind of at a crossroads here. If we had a body that is funded, in existence, that has forensic trauma and medical experts already available to be deployed or to be approached by the investigators in Ukraine, we would have by now had an opportunity to collect this evidence, either from the internally displaced people or from the people who have crossed the border. And there are so many women that I have met over the years who, actually, in the first couple of days were on the verge of reporting this crime, but as the conflict goes on and worse, as their families get affected, as they lose their husbands or their children get injured, women weigh it, like what is more important? Is it more important that I go and report someone who has assaulted me or that I go and have my child taken to a hospital so they get a new prosthetic leg? But in so many cases, women who have tried to forget it, they never move on.
FADEL: Yeah.
HELIC: It's so difficult because this trauma stays and lingers.
FADEL: You were a refugee from Bosnia, where Serbian forces maintained rape camps with tens of thousands of people, systemically...
HELIC: That's correct.
FADEL: ...Raped. And that led to the U.N.'s first prosecution of rape as a war crime. Is this what led you to take up this cause, this history?
HELIC: So I want to tell you, when I was listening to the reports of the 25 women who were kept imprisoned, it kind of brought back to me reports of what was happening in eastern Bosnia, where the same things were happening. Their women were kept until they got impregnated. And also, they were violated so much that the same message was given to them, that they would be violated so much that they will never want to have children with anyone else. And - because this is a deliberate tactic...
FADEL: Right.
HELIC: ...A way in which you dehumanize, demoralize, terrify and destroy your opponents or an entire ethnic group. You know, when soldiers rape women, they are deliberately inflicting trauma on civilians, creating scars that last across generations. We should stop talking about consequences of the crime, but we should start creating deterrents so that we never, or in very few cases, have these discussions because if we don't find a way of prosecuting this crime, if we don't find a way of flipping it from impunity to accountability...
FADEL: Yeah.
HELIC: ...In years to come, we will have another interview and another summit and another meeting and another communique, another U.N. Security Council resolution, and we will be just talking about something that can actually be addressed. There is no accountability.
FADEL: We discussed the women we've met, sexually violated in war only to return to their communities with shame. Many stay silent.
HELIC: We have managed to get a vaccine for COVID-19 in six months, and that is amazing. The fact that in today's world, where we have technology, we have reporting, we have social media, we have every single tool that can help us, where we couldn't have that help 20 years or 30 years ago and that we cannot do much about it shows me that there is a lack of political will. It's not that it is impossible. Everything is possible. It hasn't been given the importance that it deserves. I think it's a difficult issue to discuss. Quite a few countries don't want to have anything to do with it. On the other hand, there is certain level of population that has been so damaged and traumatized that they are left behind, and I think the success of every peace should be measured by the number of prosecutions, not only for war crimes that we have seen over the last kind of 30, 40 years for the International War Crimes Tribunal for former Yugoslavia or Rwanda, but also what kind of justice has been achieved and given to the victims of sexual violence because they kind of always remain the last in a row when it comes to delivering justice.
FADEL: Before this war started in Ukraine, at a February news conference Vladimir Putin made a rape joke. He quoted lyrics from a Soviet-era punk song that referenced rape and necrophilia. And I just wonder if you - when you're watching what's unfolding that if you think this rape and sexual violence are being ordered from the top to Russian troops and how unusual that is, if it's unusual at all?
HELIC: Well, it wouldn't be unusual. It's so effective because it's not expensive. It is easy to order and easy to do, and the effect that it has, it is immeasurable because you will never see a woman who is a victim of rape going around with a medal. But you will see someone who has been at the battlefield going around with a medal.
FADEL: Yeah.
HELIC: It is kind of like a crime that is a silent crime that creates circumstances on the ground where the populations, ethnic groups disappear overnight, either because they have heard about that happening in their neighborhood, or it has happened to them, and the whole family leaves.
FADEL: Yeah. Arminka Helic, thank you so much for joining us.
HELIC: Thank you. Thank you for picking up this topic. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/in-the-war-on-ukraine-rape-has-been-used-as-a-weapon | 2022-05-12T16:01:53Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
We begin with news of a legal and political earthquake at the Supreme Court. A leaked opinion suggests the court intends to strike down Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion ruling. That's according to Politico, which last night published what appeared to be an initial draft of a majority written opinion by Justice Samuel Alito. NPR has not independently verified the opinion. Still, though, the news has created shock waves. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg joined us this morning to discuss the leaked document.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: It looks totally legitimate. It's very long. It's in this framework of a Supreme Court opinion. It has something like over a hundred footnotes that are appropriate footnotes. If this is a fake, it's a very masterful fake. But it really smells like, looks like and feels like the real thing.
MARTINEZ: Is there any thought at all that the purported opinion has a chance of changing?
TOTENBERG: You know, there's always that chance; it's happened numerous times. But the Politico story said - Politico said it had, I think, four sources to - in authenticating this document who said that there were five votes to sign on to this opinion or something very roughly like it. Now, it also said it was unclear whether the chief justice would sign on to the opinion, since, at least in oral argument, his view seemed very different than the other conservative members of the court. His view was to - seemed to suggest that he wanted to go slowly, uphold the Mississippi law that's at issue here which bans abortions after 15 weeks and leaves the basic framework otherwise intact of Roe v. Wade for now and perhaps slowly chip away at it. But he got no takers at oral argument.
So the question in my mind is whether he even assigned this opinion. The chief justice assigns opinions when he's in the majority. And he might well have assigned this opinion, and he may well sign on to this opinion. Or he may well have said, I don't think this is the right way to go. And in which case the senior member in the majority assigns who will write the opinion, and that would be Justice Clarence Thomas. And I can't think of any reason why Thomas wouldn't give himself this opinion. So there are still some mysteries to this, but I would be shocked if this were not an early draft of the opinion that will eventually come out. I'm also completely shocked that this happened at all.
MARTINEZ: And so now that it seems like the cat's out of the bag, so to speak, I mean, what's the court likely to do now?
TOTENBERG: Well, they're going to have to do what they normally do, which is work out what the opinion is going to say, refine it, take things out that are offensive to some people in the majority or strengthen other things. But I would think this is a bomb at the court - really, a bomb. And it undermines everything the court stands for internally and institutionally - that they trust their law clerks, that they trust each other, that they work on things jointly. And there has never been a leak, a compromise like this at the court, at least in modern times. No fully formed draft opinion has been leaked to the press or outside the court. Once or twice, there have been leaks that say how a something's going to turn out or after the fact that somebody may have changed his or her mind. But this is a full-flown Pentagon Papers-type compromise of the court's work. And they won't be able to trust each other for a very long time. And they won't be able to trust their law clerks in the same way, either.
MARTINEZ: What's the court likely to do now? Will they launch an investigation?
TOTENBERG: Well, they may. But as - you know, I can't imagine that the court would turn outside of itself - to the FBI, for example - to investigate who did this. And after all, a leak like this is not a crime. So how could you turn to a law investigative agency for that? The court, I think, will try to figure out who did this internally. It's a career-ender for whoever did.
MARTINEZ: That's NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg. And once again, NPR has not independently verified this reporting. Nina, as always, thank you.
TOTENBERG: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/leaked-document-suggests-the-supreme-court-intends-to-strike-down-roe-v-wade | 2022-05-12T16:01:59Z |
ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
A massive leak tonight. Politico is reporting that the Supreme Court has voted to strike down Roe vs. Wade, the decision that legalized abortion in the United States. The publication obtained what appears to be an initial draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito circulated inside the court. Now, NPR has not independently verified the opinion. Joining us now to discuss all of this is NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg. Nina, welcome.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: Nice to be here.
FLORIDO: Nina, what is this document that Politico has obtained? And does it look legitimate? Does it look like the real thing?
TOTENBERG: It looks entirely legitimate. It looks completely like the real thing. It even has 119 footnotes. It's styled the way Supreme Court opinions are styled. And it has all kinds of earmarks of a Supreme Court opinion. I suppose it could be a massive hoax, but it certainly looks like the real thing. And Politico says that it has at least one source who says that there are four other justices willing to, more or less, join this opinion. Of course, Adrian, you know, justices do change their minds in the course of deliberations, but this apparent draft would seem to reflect what we saw in the courtroom when the case was argued last - I guess it was December. And so I would say, although I haven't been able to find anybody or talk to anybody tonight who can say to me, yes, this is the - an actual draft that I have seen, I would bet the farm on it.
FLORIDO: Could an opinion like this still change?
TOTENBERG: They can always change. And, you know, the Politico story quotes only one source as saying there are apparently five votes for it with the chief justice - it's unclear what position the chief justice would take and the three liberals in dissent. But everything about this is going to be really bad for the court, I have to say, because I have never seen in the time that I've been covering the court, which is a very long time - and I would have to say I know of no other case in which a draft majority opinion has become public. I suppose this may be the result of the fact that we now have computer copies of everything, and it was much more difficult to do this 20, 30, 40 years ago. But you can be sure there's going to be some major inquiry inside the court. I don't know what kind of security the chief justice will be looking at to try to figure out who compromised this draft opinion.
And we should suggest, say repeatedly, this is a draft opinion, assuming it is correct, and I do assume it's correct. But there will be massive consequences inside the court with a lot of suspicion among the justices and among the - particularly among the law clerks, with a complete lockdown and sort of inability to - an effort to deal with the court - with how the court is going to deal with this complete compromise of its own security.
FLORIDO: Well, certainly a highly unusual development. We should note again that NPR has not independently verified this reporting from Politico. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg with news on the leak of an apparent draft Supreme Court opinion seeming to show that the court has voted to overturn Roe vs. Wade, the landmark decision that legalized abortion in the United States. Nina, thanks for your reporting and for joining us this evening.
TOTENBERG: Thanks, Adrian. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/leaked-draft-opinion-suggests-supreme-court-will-overturn-roe-v-wade-report-says | 2022-05-12T16:02:05Z |
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
We know the pandemic has taken an immense toll on frontline health care workers. A new report by the Department of Health and Human Services confirms that and reveals the depth of distress throughout the health care system.
NPR health correspondent Rhitu Chatterjee is here to tell us more. Hi, Rhitu.
RHITU CHATTERJEE, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: So depths of distress - what exactly does this report show?
CHATTERJEE: You know, we've heard so much about health care workers being burned out, but this report really shows that it's way beyond burnout. Many of frontline health care providers are reporting symptoms of depression, anxiety, PTSD, especially those who spent more time treating COVID patients.
And I spoke with Health Secretary Xavier Becerra. He said he was recently in Jacksonville, Fla., meeting with some health care workers, and here's what he heard.
XAVIER BECERRA: We heard from a nurse who said that twice he suffered strokes during the pandemic. He never really stopped working except, of course, to take care of the strokes. But this is the type of load that health care workers had.
CHATTERJEE: And, you know, providers are still reeling from two years of this, and many have quit their jobs.
SHAPIRO: And, of course, those staffing shortages made the experience for those still working on the front lines even more difficult.
CHATTERJEE: Exactly. Exactly. And the report talks about it quite a bit. First of all, it acknowledges that the staffing shortage was serious even before the pandemic. And throughout these past couple of years, it's just gotten worse, reaching a peak last January when 22% of hospitals reported critical staffing shortages. And we know that the nursing homes and long-term care facilities, of course, have been very badly hit. But the health secretary also pointed out that while many providers have quit their jobs, a significant number were either furloughed, had their hours cut back or were just let go.
BECERRA: I think over 10-, 15% of those who were reported being unable to work, it was because it was their employer who had closed or lost business due to the pandemic back in 2020.
CHATTERJEE: Now, you know, employment levels have improved since then, but health care workers are still very much struggling.
SHAPIRO: And so how are people in health care receiving this report?
CHATTERJEE: So I asked that question of Dr. Jessica Gold. She's a psychiatrist at Washington University, St. Louis, and she works a lot with health care workers. And Gold says that frontline providers feel like their concerns, their mental health issues are being dismissed by those in positions of power in their industry and society at large. So this report from the government is a good thing.
JESSICA GOLD: I think it's validating for people to see a government say, this is a problem; you're not making it up; it has been hard for you, and we see it.
CHATTERJEE: And, you know, Gold herself received a federal grant recently to address the problem, to connect doctors and nurses at her hospital system - to connect them more easily to mental health care. But she says ultimately, it's really lawmakers and health care systems that really have to take this up seriously and address those underlying causes - underlying systemic causes of stress like the staffing shortages.
SHAPIRO: So what does the report say about solutions?
CHATTERJEE: So it lists the investments the government has made already in addressing the problem, like the grant money that's gone to, you know, researchers and professionals like Dr. Gold. It talks about pandemic relief money that's gone directly to providers.
And I asked the health secretary about what he's prioritizing. And he said HHS is taking up the staffing issue and starting with nursing homes, which were particularly hard hit by the pandemic.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Rhitu Chatterjee. Thank you.
CHATTERJEE: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOSE GONZALEZ'S "INSTR.") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/new-report-reveals-covids-toll-on-the-mental-health-of-frontline-doctors-and-nurses | 2022-05-12T16:02:11Z |
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Two months ago, in a Polish border town, I met a new father named Alex Spektor. He goes by Sasha, and on that day, he told me he believed his life was finally about to become a little less intense.
SASHA SPEKTOR: So my friends, they're like, welcome - finally, welcome to the normal fatherhood, and I'm like, OK, thank God.
SHAPIRO: Sasha and his partner Irma are parents to baby boys named Lenny and Moishe. The twins were born prematurely to a surrogate mother in Kyiv just as Russia began its war on Ukraine. Rescuers exfiltrated the babies and the surrogate in a dramatic mission called Operation Gemini. They dodged Russian artillery fire, drove through a snowstorm and finally arrived at a Polish hospital, where Sasha met his boys for the first time.
SPEKTOR: Like, real life begins now. And this was the surreal life. You know, the twins - just, I had to look at them and, you know, be saturated with their presence.
SHAPIRO: That was two months ago. So I was shocked to get a text from Sasha recently saying the family was not back home in Chicago, as I had assumed. They were still in Poland, stuck in bureaucratic limbo.
IRMA NUNEZ: My name is Irma Nunez. I'm Sasha's partner, and I'm mother to Moishe and Lenny, and I'm going to cry saying that. It's been a very long journey.
SHAPIRO: You thought that getting the kids out of the war zone would be the hardest part.
SPEKTOR: Right, of course. Yeah.
SHAPIRO: But...
SPEKTOR: This is harder.
SHAPIRO: Here's what happened. Irma flew to Poland soon after I met Sasha in early March. She had stayed in Chicago to get the family's legal paperwork in order.
And Irma, did you go straight to the hospital to see the boys?
NUNEZ: No. We arrived late at night. But the very next - the next day, that was the first place we got. We have to book an appointment to see our kids, like, a day in advance.
SPEKTOR: And back then, there were COVID protocols.
NUNEZ: Right.
SHAPIRO: So do you remember the first time you saw them?
NUNEZ: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I described it to a friend as, you know, like Marcia Brady, when she falls in love on "The Brady Bunch," and she puts her schoolbooks in the refrigerator. It's like, I finally understood what people mean when they say, like, I was on cloud nine. I was just floating. Like, everything else disappeared. And it was just amazing. I actually didn't cry that day 'cause it was just this blast of, like, unreal happiness.
SHAPIRO: The hospital only let them experience that happiness with their twins for one hour each day. Sasha and Irma spent the rest of the time fighting bureaucracy.
SPEKTOR: So eventually, the hospital said, we need to prove your paternity in order to discharge the kids to you. But how do we - and then, American embassy in Warsaw said, in order for us to give the kids passports, we need you to bring the kids to Warsaw. So there was this catch - wonderful Catch-22 where, in order to release the kids, the hospital needed passports. To get the passports, we had to take the kids to Warsaw.
SHAPIRO: The case even went to court, where Sasha says the judge was less than helpful.
SPEKTOR: They wouldn't really tell us what exactly we need. They would just say, we still don't have all the documents.
SHAPIRO: Eventually, officials said they needed to see birth certificates that were in Ukraine. Remember, these kids had been rescued from a hospital while the city of Kyiv was under Russian assault. And so Sasha actually left the Polish city of Rzeszow to cross back over the border and retrieve the documents from the Ukrainian city of Lviv.
Can you just tell me about the moment you realized you would have to cross the border and go into Ukraine to solve this problem?
SPEKTOR: You know, the funny thing is that, for me, like, just sitting in Rzeszow without able to do anything was just the worst thing possible. And so - but in order to collect all the proper documents to go to Ukraine, it was another huge task.
SHAPIRO: When I recorded this conversation with them on Friday, Sasha and Irma were in a hotel room in Rzeszow. Sasha said it was his 14th hotel since he'd arrived in Poland two months ago for what he thought would be a short trip.
SPEKTOR: You know, I (laughter) - today was the hardest. Today was just excruciating because at this point, we submitted everything that can possibly be submitted. And when I called the court this morning, the secretary said, the decision has been made; the judge has to sign it, and then we'll fax it to the hospital. And I said, but what's the decision? And she says, I'm sorry, but I cannot tell you.
SHAPIRO: Where do things stand right now?
SPEKTOR: They actually - the things are actually - well, the two boys are laying down just...
SHAPIRO: They're there in the room with you.
SPEKTOR: Yeah. You want to see?
SHAPIRO: They're there in the hotel room.
SPEKTOR: I'll show you.
NUNEZ: (Laughter).
SHAPIRO: Ah. Oh, in two months, this is the first time you've actually...
SPEKTOR: I know.
SHAPIRO: ...Had them in your own space, not in a hospital.
SPEKTOR: That's right. That's right.
SHAPIRO: I suddenly feel like I should be talking quietly so I don't wake them up.
SPEKTOR: That's what I was doing, but Irma said, no, we have to speak loudly so they learn.
NUNEZ: (Laughter) That's not what...
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
NUNEZ: They have been living in a little nursery for the past two months, and...
SPEKTOR: The nurses don't keep quiet.
NUNEZ: They don't, and they play pop music and drop things, and there's monitors beeping all the time.
SHAPIRO: I didn't realize this whole time we've been talking, they are right there behind you, sleeping.
NUNEZ: Yeah.
SHAPIRO: That's amazing.
SPEKTOR: It is amazing, yeah. I - you know, when we came in, I dropped my bag. And I thought, oh, my God, what an idiot 'cause they are sleeping. But I'm still in the middle of not knowing what to do.
NUNEZ: But also, these babies were born in a war zone, so...
SHAPIRO: Oh, is one of them crying?
SPEKTOR: One of them coughed.
SHAPIRO: I see Irma rushing off.
SPEKTOR: He coughed.
NUNEZ: He coughed. I'm a mother in the "Steel Magnolias" vein (laughter). You just, like, stand up and make sure they're breathing.
SHAPIRO: Sasha was actually born in Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet Union. His family came to the U.S. as Jewish refugees. He says this experience has made him feel closer to the place of his birth.
One of their friends in Chicago who helped them get the boys to safety created a network to provide similar assistance to others who need it. They call the new organization Ukraine TrustChain.
NUNEZ: We benefited so much from individuals who were willing to just step up and do something. And it's really incredible. And being here in Rzeszow, we've also met a lot of other people who are experiencing difficult things, and we're trying to...
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY COOING)
NUNEZ: ...Connect people who we trust with other people we trust and build - help build these networks.
SHAPIRO: They have teams of volunteers in the U.S. and Ukraine providing a pipeline of medical supplies, baby formula, food and other essentials to people in the war.
SPEKTOR: And so my friend and his team in Chicago are getting donations, and they found a way to immediately channel it to the volunteers. And the volunteers are doing the hard work, of course.
SHAPIRO: So that conversation was Friday. And yesterday...
SPEKTOR: So we just feel very lucky - lucky to be home.
SHAPIRO: Sasha called me from Chicago. He said Lenny and Moishe cried the entire flight from Poland.
SPEKTOR: Yeah, everybody was very helpful, though. Yeah, you just have to say magic word - these kids were born in Ukraine (laughter) on the second day of the war - and everybody just goes out of their way to help.
SHAPIRO: The American pediatrician who'd had months of consultations by phone finally met the twins for the first time yesterday. She said they're both good babies. And now, Sasha and Irma are surrounded by family and friends to help them.
SPEKTOR: There's an army of people who love them.
SHAPIRO: Very different from the army that surrounded them on the first day of their lives in Kyiv.
(SOUNDBITE OF THOSE WHO RIDE WITH GIANTS' "THE SAFETY OF THE SLEEPY MOONLIGHT") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/newborn-twins-were-rescued-from-a-warzone-now-theyre-stuck-in-bureaucratic-limbo | 2022-05-12T16:02:18Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
The U.S. Supreme Court appears poised to strike down Roe v. Wade, the precedent that has guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion for 50 years.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We know this because Politico got their hands on a leaked draft opinion written by conservative Justice Samuel Alito. It shows that a majority of the justices believe Roe should be overturned. Hundreds of abortion rights supporters demonstrated in front of the Supreme Court last night.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Chanting) Abortion is health care. Abortion is health care. Abortion is health care.
MARTINEZ: NPR's Sarah McCammon covers reproductive rights. Sarah, what do we know about this document and what it means?
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: Well, first, I want to be clear that NPR has not independently obtained this document, which is labeled as a first draft. But court watchers say it does appear to be genuine. I talked to Amy Howe, the co-founder of SCOTUSblog, which covers the Supreme Court. She sees no reason to doubt its authenticity. And she says a leak like this is highly unusual.
AMY HOWE: I think the justices are going to regard this as an enormous breach. To have this kind of leak not only of the results but the opinion itself, you know, really is extraordinary.
MCCAMMON: And that opinion, if the court ultimately issues something similar to it, describes Roe as, quote, "egregiously wrong from the start" and says there is no constitutional right to an abortion, so it would allow states to severely restrict abortion, as many have been preparing to do.
MARTINEZ: All right, so there's a lot to react to. What have you seen and heard so far?
MCCAMMON: Well, because this is a leaked draft, groups on both sides are being a bit cautious about what they say right now, but the news is certainly reverberating across the spectrum. Steve Aden is with Americans United for Life, which has sought to ban abortion in state legislatures nationwide. He's liking what he's seen so far.
STEVE ADEN: It means simply that state lawmakers have to get to work to enact strong state laws and a policy to protect life across the country.
MCCAMMON: And, A, some abortion rights opponents are expressing concern about why this leak happened, what might have motivated someone to do it. But of course, we don't know that. We don't know the source or their reasons. And from abortion rights advocates, there's a lot of anger and sadness about what they fear will be the court's decision. And, you know, this comes after months and years, really, of warning against exactly such a potential turn of events. The Women's March, for example, is calling for nationwide protests this evening in response.
MARTINEZ: Are these abortion rights groups at all hopeful that when the Supreme Court has its final opinion that it'll be different?
MCCAMMON: You know, I'm not hearing a lot of that kind of optimism. Reproductive rights groups are reminding people that, at least for now, abortion is still legal across the U.S., at least officially, and they're watching to see what the official opinion will say. Now, this is in line with what a lot of people have predicted, that this conservative court with three justices chosen by former President Trump would do. I spoke to Michelle Colon of reproductive rights advocate with SHERo Mississippi, which is where this case originates from. She says access to the procedure is now seriously threatened.
MICHELLE COLON: It's the reality - you know what I'm saying? - which we've been preparing for. We're not surprised. This will open up a floodgate to many, many of the other standing, you know, laws that have been argued and won at the Supreme Court in regards to freedoms for Americans.
MCCAMMON: She says this will hit lower-income people especially hard but that activists will try to help patients get abortions, whether through travel or, in some cases, abortion pills.
MARTINEZ: And Sarah, assuming these reports are correct, what happens next?
MCCAMMON: Well, according to some estimates, more than half of states are poised to ban most or all abortions. And this will be a campaign issue. Groups are preparing to make this an opportunity to catalyze voters in the midterms.
MARTINEZ: That's NPR's Sarah McCammon. Thanks a lot, Sarah.
MCCAMMON: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MARTINEZ: The Supreme Court news may end up influencing voters ahead of the November midterms.
MARTIN: Thirteen states are holding primaries this month, and voters in Ohio and Indiana head to the polls today for primaries. Key congressional races are up for grabs. How much weight do former President Trump's endorsements carry in those states?
MARTINEZ: NPR senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro is watching all of it. So first off, how might this Supreme Court news that we just heard about play into voter turnout this year?
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: Well, it really has the potential to be an earthquake in this election. I mean, we're likely to see mass protests from women and men who are in favor of abortion rights. It could fire them up to vote in a year when Democrats are facing enormous headwinds. This is also going to raise the pressure on Democratic congressional leaders to get rid of the filibuster and pass legislation that codifies abortion rights in this country. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer released a statement last night saying the conservative justices have lied to the American people because, during their confirmation hearings, they repeatedly said that Roe v. Wade is precedent and the law of the land. Republicans, by the way, have used the culture war issues to fire up their base. No issue is more central to that than abortion. But our latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll - it's worth pointing out - found that Democrats had an 11-point advantage on the question of which party Americans think is better at dealing with abortion as an issue. And an ABC News poll out this week also had similar numbers. So not an outlier there.
MARTINEZ: All right, now to Ohio. What's going on with the key Senate races there?
MONTANARO: Yeah, there's a race to replace Republican Senator Rob Portman, who's retiring. Trump has endorsed J.D. Vance over several others who are trying hard for Trump's endorsement. Vance wrote the book "Hillbilly Elegy." But it was a surprise that Trump did this because Vance had been hotly critical of Trump before he became president. Vance has gotten a bump in the polls. But there are lots of undecided voters. Trump's endorsement did not, by the way, go down exactly well with his base. Before it, the top contenders were seen as state treasurer Josh Mandel and investment banker Mike Gibbons. It's been a pretty nasty fight, with Mandel and Gibbons nearly getting into a fistfight, literally, at a debate not that long ago.
MARTINEZ: I saw that. I saw that.
MONTANARO: (Laughter).
MARTINEZ: What about - yeah, it was wild. What about the Democrats, then? Do they have a shot in this race?
MONTANARO: Well, Ohio's a bit of a longer shot for Democrats than some other places, but they hope that this GOP tension can potentially open up a path for their likely nominee, Congressman Tim Ryan. He's got a pretty centrist profile in Washington. And remember - Ohio used to be a swing state, but that's just not the case anymore. It's trended more Republican, and it is a sign of just where the politics are in this state. When Ryan was asked if he wanted Biden to campaign with him, President Biden to campaign with him, he said that he's running his own race.
MARTINEZ: All right. Now, we mentioned Donald Trump's endorsements. Where else are you watching where his backing might matter?
MONTANARO: Well, this month, some pretty key races. We're looking at Pennsylvania and North Carolina, where there are some key Senate races. In Georgia, which is a hotbed of political activity, there's a governor's race and secretary of state race, and there, Trump has endorsed challengers to Republican incumbents, and those challengers have all backed his election lies and attempts to overturn the presidential election there. So lots to watch in the coming month, and it's really going to be a critical month as we kick off these primary elections.
MARTINEZ: That's NPR's Domenico Montanaro. Domenico, thanks.
MONTANARO: You're welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MARTINEZ: Turning now to South Asia, where more than a billion people could face heat-related health problems due to scorching temperatures.
MARTIN: The brutal heat wave is what scientists have been predicting for countries that are on the front lines of climate change. April and March were both the hottest in more than a century in India. Some schools have closed early for the summer. Hospitals are on watch for heatstroke.
MARTINEZ: Joining us now from sweltering Mumbai is NPR's Lauren Frayer. Lauren, what are people doing to try their best to cope with the hot and humid temperatures in Mumbai?
LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: Well, I've got my ceiling fan on, which you can probably hear behind me.
MARTINEZ: Yeah.
FRAYER: Thanks for allowing me to keep that on here. The line at my local ice cream parlor was 40 minutes long the other night, if that's any indication. People are trying to hydrate. They're trying to stay indoors if they can. Only a tiny fraction of Indians have air conditioning, though. Instead, people soak rags in water and hang them from doors and windows. Two-thirds of Indians live in rural areas. Many of those folks work out in farm fields or in construction, so literally out in the sun, in the elements all day.
MARTINEZ: I saw 120 over the weekend. I mean, are these extreme temperatures pushing the limits of what folks can survive?
FRAYER: Absolutely. And this is not just some threat for the future. This is what's happening right now. At least 25 people died of heatstroke in my state of Maharashtra this year. I talked to Ulka Kelkar. She's an economist and climate change expert. She describes what we're experiencing in humid cities like Mumbai, where I live.
ULKA KELKAR: Heat plus humidity. At some stage, it becomes almost impossible for the human body's organs to function normally. Basically, the body just cannot cool itself.
FRAYER: So the temperature here in Mumbai is only - only - in the 90s today, but the humidity makes it just as dangerous as those 120 degrees that we're seeing in the deserts of northwest India or in southern Pakistan right now.
MARTINEZ: Now, you mentioned your ceiling fan that we can hear in the background there.
FRAYER: Yeah.
MARTINEZ: And I can assume that air conditioners, as much as possible, are being used. How much is this heat pushing up this demand for electricity?
FRAYER: So there are rolling blackouts across several Indian states right now, and that's hurting industrial input - output, rather. The government is canceling passenger trains, converting them to cargo for coal. Seventy percent of India's electricity comes from coal. So in the short term, India has no choice but to burn more coal during this heat wave. Of course, doing that exacerbates the warming, which is exactly what we're trying to avoid by running all these fans and AC. So it's a vicious circle. And scientists say we're going to reach a breaking point pretty soon.
MARTINEZ: So these rolling blackouts, these hot temperatures, I mean, are they a sign of things to come with climate change all over the world?
FRAYER: Totally. And like I said, it's already happening. I mean, we've covered - you guys have covered people fleeing California because of wildfires. Well, that's happening on a much bigger scale in South Asia. We've got rising sea levels, extreme heat, erratic weather. It impacts the food supply. I mean, what happens when a harvest fails and India has 1.4 billion people to feed? This heat wave right now has hit in the middle of the wheat harvest. The grain is coming out all shriveled. And India was actually hoping to boost grain exports this year to make up the shortfall from the war in Ukraine, and that looks like it might not happen now.
MARTINEZ: NPR's Lauren Frayer. Thanks a lot.
FRAYER: You're welcome. Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/news-brief-leaked-draft-opinion-2-state-primaries-south-asia-heatwave | 2022-05-12T16:02:24Z |
ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
It's been more than 50 years since the Supreme Court established that there was a constitutional right to abortion in the case of Roe v. Wade. Now, the court appears to be on the precipice of overturning that landmark ruling. A draft opinion that would strike down Roe was leaked to Politico last night.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
It was written by Justice Samuel Alito, and the authenticity was confirmed today by Chief Justice John Roberts. He called the leak a betrayal and ordered an investigation. While the opinion isn't final, the potential decision is already having far-reaching implications, many of which we're discussing today on the program. At the Supreme Court, different groups of people spent the day both protesting and cheering the likelihood of Roe being struck down.
I spoke with NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben from in front of the court earlier this evening. And Danielle, after being there all day, tell us about what you've heard and seen.
DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: I've heard and seen a lot of very upset abortion rights advocates as well as opponents here celebrating. You can hear a lot of those protesters probably right now. Both sides have been very vocal.
Now, on the advocate side for abortion rights, the mood is not surprise. They saw this coming - a lot of people did - but they're still very sad and scared. One person is Robin Galbraith from Maryland. She has two adult children. Here's what she said.
ROBIN GALBRAITH: I would definitely have had an abortion when I was 40 if I got pregnant because it is a tremendous responsibility raising children, and, you know, I want to do it right. And I'm not going to bring children into the world that I wouldn't be able to care for properly.
KURTZLEBEN: And really, the broad feeling among the abortion rights advocates is that they've been talking about this possibility since Trump was elected; they've been warning the country, and someone should've done something.
SHAPIRO: Now, this is only a draft opinion, but are the people you're speaking to today treating the ruling as though it's final?
KURTZLEBEN: No, and that goes especially for people opposed to abortion rights who told me about their concerns that conservative justices might still get cold feet. One is Jocabed Torres. She came from California. She says she's happy, but she's cautious given that this information was leaked.
JOCABED TORRES: We also want to celebrate, but we want the justices to stay firm on their decision 'cause we know that the reason the documents were leaked was to try to pressure them to change their decision.
KURTZLEBEN: Now, again, we don't know who leaked the decision or why, but this is one strand of the speculation about that.
SHAPIRO: Now, lawmakers who support abortion rights and President Biden have spoken today about plans to maintain and expand reproductive rights through legislation. Are the advocates there who you're talking to who support abortion rights hopeful that that will actually happen?
KURTZLEBEN: Sort of is the short answer. I mean, we've had lawmakers show up today - Democratic senators, including Klobuchar, Blumenthal, Markey - saying that they want to codify Roe v. Wade and eliminate the filibuster to do so.
But advocates are skeptical given that they just haven't seen action on this so far. One is Renee Bracey Sherman. She's the founder of abortion rights group We Testify.
RENEE BRACEY SHERMAN: We need to see all of the leadership of every pro-choice politician out there talking about what they are going to do because this is a crisis. This has been a national emergency. No, not in the United States, and if they consider themselves pro-choice leaders, they need to act like it.
KURTZLEBEN: And look, the reality is Democrats don't have the votes in the Senate to do that. So unless they could blow up the filibuster or expand their majority this fall - both of which don't seem terribly likely - it's hard to see how this would happen.
SHAPIRO: But we've also heard a lot of talk from Democrats that maybe this could be a wake-up call ahead of the November midterms.
KURTZLEBEN: Sure. But of course, if and when Roe is overturned, 13 states have trigger laws set to go into effect that would restrict abortion. So for Americans seeking abortions until then, November would be too late. Here's Robin Galbraith again saying that she is angry and that that is driving her ahead of November, though.
GALBRAITH: I usually wake up at, like, 10 in the morning. I woke up at 5 to get ready and get over here. And I am dedicated to getting out the vote until November. I mean, this - it has woken a volcano in me. I mean, I'm just livid.
KURTZLEBEN: So it will energize some people, sure.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben at the Supreme Court. Thank you.
KURTZLEBEN: Yes, thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/protesters-and-some-supporters-of-draft-opinion-gather-outside-the-supreme-court | 2022-05-12T16:02:30Z |
ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
The right to an abortion in the United States appears closer than ever to being eliminated. Last night shortly after 8 o'clock, Politico published a leaked draft of a majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito that would overturn Roe v. Wade.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Chanting) Abortion is health care. Abortion is health care.
FLORIDO: As the news spread, a crowd started to form outside the Supreme Court.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Chanting) My body, my choice, my body, my choice.
FLORIDO: Juliet Moats (ph) was among the first people to show up. She plopped herself cross-legged in front of the marble steps. She said she had to come.
JULIET MOATS: Because a week ago, I had a pregnancy scare; because a week ago, I thought I might be pregnant, and I didn't know what to do. And I'm not. But to hear this a moment later, I was terrified.
FLORIDO: Terrified for herself, she said, and for anyone who might soon be unable to end an unwanted pregnancy. The court's draft ruling, if it becomes final, would not ban abortion nationwide. It would leave that up to each state. Many Republican-led states are ready to enact their own bans. Morgan McFarlane's (ph) voice quivered at that prospect.
MORGAN MCFARLANE: I have friends that aren't in blue states that are at risk right now, and I don't think that they deserve to be at any greater risk than I do just because of where they live. They still live in the United States.
FLORIDO: Kira Thorson (ph) said she has been dreading this moment but also preparing for it.
KIRA THORSON: I just got an IUD because I was scared that this was going to happen so that I could be protected for five more years. And I was right.
FLORIDO: Most of the hundreds of people who flocked to the court steps last night were abortion rights supporters. But abortion opponents also came. Katrina Fee (ph) came with a group of classmates.
KATRINA FEE: I came out here because it is so important that the nation see that there are young people like me across America that are so hopeful for the future of this country now that the court has potentially decided to overturn Roe.
FLORIDO: Why does she feel so strongly about this?
FEE: I was a triplet. My parents' doctors suggested that I be aborted for convenience. Thank God my parents chose life.
FLORIDO: Herb Geraghty leads an anti-abortion group and said that if the Supreme Court does overturn Roe, abortion opponents should start to focus in part on discouraging illegal abortions and on supporting mothers and their new babies.
HERB GERAGHTY: For so many pregnant people, they feel as though abortion is their only option, and there's nothing pro-choice about that. I hope that we can unite and work together to meet the needs of young families. Those needs need to be met in our communities.
FLORIDO: And Messina Cox (ph) stood alone quietly nearby, thinking, she said, about her daughter and her disbelief that a right women have held for 50 years in this country seems on the brink of being snatched away.
MESSINA COX: You know, it's a terrible moment to have the Supreme Court take away a woman's right to choose. And if that draft becomes the law, it has huge impacts across the country. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/protesters-rush-to-supreme-court-after-leak-shows-vote-to-overturn-roe-v-wade | 2022-05-12T16:02:36Z |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
What does Ukraine still need from the United States? A congressional delegation led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went to find out. They were in Poland and Ukraine, where they met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff of California was part of the delegation, and he joins us this morning. Thanks so much for being with us.
ADAM SCHIFF: Great to be with you.
MARTIN: You have heard President Zelenskyy address Congress virtually before, but what was it like to meet him face to face?
SCHIFF: It was really inspiring, I think, to sit down with him, to understand that there was a war going on all around us, and yet to see his calm, the courage that he's displaying, and I think it has inspired not just his fellow countrymen, the Ukrainian people, but also people around the world. He's really been extraordinary. And it's all the more extraordinary when you consider that up until his election, he was essentially a comic star on a sitcom.
MARTIN: I mean, it obviously carries a lot of symbolic weight to have the speaker of the House visit him in Kyiv, the highest-ranking U.S. official to do so, but it's also an opportunity to make an ask, right? I mean, the U.S. has obviously provided military assistance and training and weaponry to Ukraine. What did President Zelenskyy, though, use this chance to ask for?
SCHIFF: It was a pretty wide-ranging conversation. So we talked about weapons. We talked about food. We talked about the need for economic support. On the battlefield, the nature of the battle has changed, as Russians pull their forces back from the capital and have concentrated on the east of the country. It's less a situation where Ukrainian forces can ambush Russian tanks and more a fight at a distance, and that requires a different set of weapons, a different set of skills, a different kind of intelligence. And so we discussed what they need, how we can provide it to them. President Biden, of course, announced that large aid package. So this conversation was really helpful in giving content to what ought to be in that package.
MARTIN: So let's talk about that. The package President Biden has asked for - he's asked for $33 billion from Congress in new aid for Ukraine. Democrats have tied this funding to a COVID relief bill. Republicans don't like that. Should Ukraine aid and COVID aid be separated?
SCHIFF: I don't know that there's been any decision to tie what goes in this bill. I think certainly we feel there are a couple of emergencies that need to be addressed. We need to help Ukraine, and in particular, one of the things we discussed with President Zelenskyy is the Russians are essentially blockading Odesa, which is not only impairing Ukraine's ability to protect itself but also impairing Ukraine's ability to export food for the rest of the world. It's the breadbasket of Europe. So it could cause starvation in Africa and elsewhere. But we also discussed what we can do on a wide range of issues to help. And that's an imperative, but it's also imperative that we deal with COVID. We see rising cases around the country again. We need to protect the health and welfare of our own people, even as we protect the democracy around the world. And whether those ride together or they ride separately, the urgency is to get it done.
MARTIN: What's the outer bound of congressional support for this war?
SCHIFF: You know, Putin succeeded in doing what no one else has done in the last several years, which is bringing Democrats and Republicans together to defend democracy. I think both parties recognize - with a, you know, few notable outliers in the GOP. But for the most part, we recognize this is a fight between freedom and oppression, and if the Russians are successful in simply overrunning their neighbor and remaking the boundaries of Europe, they won't necessarily stop with Ukraine. So that's a wide-held view in Congress. And we'll provide Ukraine with what they need until they're successful.
MARTIN: Congressman Adam Schiff, Democrat of California. He traveled with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to visit President Zelenskyy in Kyiv Ukraine. Congressman, thank you for your time, as always. We appreciate it.
SCHIFF: You bet. Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/rep-adam-schiff-was-among-the-u-s-lawmakers-who-met-with-ukraines-president | 2022-05-12T16:02:42Z |
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Primary election season began in earnest today as voters went to the polls in Ohio and Indiana. Among the early results, Congressman Tim Ryan is the Democratic Senate nominee according to a race call from the Associated Press.
NPR national political correspondent Don Gonyea is in Ohio and joins us with more. Hey, Don.
DON GONYEA, BYLINE: Hey.
SHAPIRO: Let's start with that Democratic Senate primary result. Tell us more.
GONYEA: Right. Congressman Ryan was expected to win. He was by far the highest-profile candidate. He's been running all along like he was running a general election, and he's really trying to follow the example of the state's Democratic senator who is not on the ballot this year; that's Senator Sherrod Brown. Brown keeps winning by focusing on economic issues. I've been with Ryan on the campaign trail, and he has gone all over the state - including to conservative parts, to Trump strongholds - stressing that economic message, often with harsh words for China.
Today, though, Ari, he was also talking about abortion some. You know, there is that leaked draft opinion from the Supreme Court that could indicate Roe v. Wade being struck down. Ryan suggested that that could drive Democratic base voters to turn out as well.
SHAPIRO: Having now won the primary, did Ryan share any thoughts about the general election looking ahead?
GONYEA: I did - he did. And, you know, I asked him early today, before we knew much - voting was still going on - about his potential Republican opponent, still unknown as we speak.
TIM RYAN: They all have different versions of crazy, and so we're just going to hone in on that particular candidate and really provide the contrast.
GONYEA: And in his reference to crazy, he is talking about how, on the Republican side, there's been a lot of competition to kind of out-Trump one another among those candidates. But no matter the Republican nominee, Ryan faces an uphill fight. Many political watchers think he could maybe be the kind of Democrat who could win in a red state, especially as Republicans lean so hard into Trumpism. But again, this is a state that Trump won twice really easily.
SHAPIRO: Well, tell us about those Republicans that he's likely to be going up against. Who is it?
GONYEA: Right. I'm here in Cincinnati, in this ballroom where we are waiting to hear at some point this evening from J.D. Vance. He's holding his election night watch party here. People might remember him for his memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy." I'm with Vance because he may emerge out of a competitive Republican Senate primary after he received the endorsement of former President Trump. Trump came to Ohio a couple of weeks ago to stump for Vance and some candidates down ballot.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DONALD TRUMP: He fights like crazy, and he loves Ohio. And he - frankly, he's a great Buckeye. So what I'd like to do is ask J.D. Vance...
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Chanting) J.D. J.D. J.D.
TRUMP: ...Come forward. I want to pick somebody that's going to win.
GONYEA: Now, you know, a week later, Trump messed up J.D. Vance's name when he was talking about him at another rally, so there's that. But this is really the first major test to the power of the Trump endorsement this primary season. If Vance wins, Trump will claim credit. If he loses, well, that's a big story, and the questions of Trump's clout become a very hot topic, even among Republicans.
SHAPIRO: All right. Well, if Vance doesn't win, who are the other Republicans that we're looking at tonight?
GONYEA: Right. There were several of them who wanted Trump's endorsement. There's Josh Mandel, a former state treasurer. It's actually his third Senate run. He's really campaigned in the combative Trump mold. There's Mike Gibbons, an investment banker who's poured a lot of his own money into the bank.
One candidate who has not sought Trump's approval and is worth watching is State Senator Matt Dolen. He's a Trump voter, but he's the only one who says the election in 2020 was not stolen. He doesn't buy Trump's lies along those lines, and he hopes he's maybe found a lane for himself.
SHAPIRO: That is NPR's Don Gonyea on one of the races we are watching tonight in Ohio and Indiana. For more races to keep an eye on and for live updating results tonight, go to npr.org. Thank you, Don.
GONYEA: My pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/republicans-face-off-in-the-ohio-primary | 2022-05-12T16:02:48Z |
TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. You know the audiotapes recently released of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy recorded in the days after the attack on the Capitol? In a January 10 recorded phone call, McCarthy said he was thinking of asking Trump to resign. In another part of the call, McCarthy expressed his concern about extremist rhetoric from Republican lawmakers and said he didn't want to look back and think, quote, "we caused something or we missed something and someone got hurt." Those tapes and more were obtained by my guests, Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, as part of their reporting for their new book, "This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, And The Battle For America's Future." They describe their book as being in part about how telling Trump what he wanted to hear became a way of life for an entire political party and how the gulf between what Republican leaders said privately about Trump and their public deference had gone unchallenged for half a decade. Martin and Burns are national correspondent for The New York Times and political analysts for CNN. Our interview was recorded yesterday.
Jonathan Martin, Alex Burns, welcome to FRESH AIR. I want to start with one of the tapes, and this is part of the phone call on January 10 with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, the second-ranking House Republican, and Liz Cheney, the House member who has stood firm in her denunciation of Trump's behavior and is serving on the House Select Committee investigating January 6. Also on the call is Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, head of the Republican House Campaign Committee. And a number of aides are on the call as well. So set the scene. What's the context for this phone call?
ALEXANDER BURNS: Terry, this is a few days after the January 6 attack, and the Capitol is still in shock. The Congress is still recovering from violent assault on the seat of American government. Washington is in a quasi-military lockdown. President Trump has mostly vanished from public view, but the reverberations from his actions on January 6 are shaking the Republican Party from top to bottom. And this conversation between the Republican leaders in the House is one of the most candid and wrenching explorations within the GOP of what on Earth they're going to do about Donald Trump. And the sense, even from Kevin McCarthy, who has been for four years one of Trump's most loyal and subservient allies, is that something has to be done about this man.
GROSS: This clip starts with Liz Cheney, referring to part of the conversation about the 25th Amendment, which would mean removing Trump by invoking the 25th Amendment. And the tape actually starts with Kevin McCarthy just making sure that Liz Cheney is on the phone. After Liz Cheney asks about the 25th Amendment, Kevin McCarthy starts talking about impeachment and whether it will pass. So here's the tape.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KEVIN MCCARTHY: Liz, you on the phone?
LIZ CHENEY: Yeah, I'm here. Thanks, Kevin. I guess there's a question - when we were talking about the 25th Amendment resolution...
MCCARTHY: Yeah.
CHENEY: ...And you asked, you know, what happens if it gets there after he's gone, is there any chance you're hearing that he might resign? Is there any reason to think that might happen?
MCCARTHY: I've had a few discussions. My gut tells me no. I'm seriously thinking of having that conversation with him tonight. I haven't talked to him in a couple days. From what I know of him - I mean, you guys all know him, too. Do you think he'd ever back away? But what I think I'm going to do is I'm going to call him. This is what I think - we know it'll pass the House. I think there's a chance it'll pass the Senate, even when he's gone. And I think there's a lot of different ramifications for that. Now, I haven't had a discussion with the Dems that if he did resign, would that happen? Now, this is one personal fear I have. I do not want to get into any conversations about Pence pardoning - again, the only discussion I would have with him is that I think this will pass. And it would be my recommendation he should resign. I mean, that would be my take. But I don't think he would take it. But I don't know.
GROSS: So McCarthy was saying in this tape that he was thinking of calling Trump and recommending that he resign. What is the significance of hearing McCarthy say that?
JONATHAN MARTIN: It illustrates how desperate the Republican Party was in this period, the days and hours after the attack of January 6, and how they saw President Trump as a potentially fatal political liability for their party and the urgency they had to address what they saw as this liability. And the larger issue, Terry, here is that it captures this vast gulf between what Republican leaders say in private about Donald Trump and what they offer in public when the cameras are on and their constituents are watching and listening. And those are two very different things.
And the last thing I say is, for nearly seven years now, the Republican Party's leaders have been looking for a moment to rid themselves of Donald Trump, not all of them but most of them. And this is just one more episode, obviously a historically significant one, but one more episode during that seven-year period in which the party's leaders said, maybe this is the one, maybe he's gone too far, maybe we can use this opportunity to excommunicate this figure who has effectively staged a hostile takeover of the Republican Party.
GROSS: The tape that we just heard starts with Liz Cheney referring back to the 25th Amendment. Had they been discussing in an early part of the call invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office?
BURNS: Terry, it's one of several options that they have discussed on this call or that they're about to discuss on this call. You know, after he initially lied and said that he didn't say anything like this, what Kevin McCarthy eventually acknowledged is, yes, he did say this. And it was part of a conversation where they were sort of brainstorming, speaking freely about things that they might do. And there's a lot of truth to that, as we reported in our initial story. They talk about the 25th Amendment. They talk about censuring Donald Trump. They talk about impeachment. And the one moment on the call where Kevin McCarthy says, I think I'm going to do this is when he's talking about resignation. But you hear him and you hear the others - Liz Cheney, Tom Emmer, Steve Scalise and their aides - really wrestling with what their options might be.
And overshadowing the whole conversation is the reality that they all know at this point that Donald Trump is a dangerous person to have in the White House, that he is not going to give up power peacefully. He's already sabotaged the peaceful transition to the next president but also that their own voters remain largely loyal to Donald Trump. At least that's their intuition at that point. That will become clearer and clearer in the weeks following this conversation. But the reason why they're tiptoeing around what to do about Donald Trump is because none of them has the confidence that if they take on this president directly, voters will reward them for it.
GROSS: And although McCarthy says that he's considering calling Trump and telling him he should resign, McCarthy never follows through on that.
MARTIN: Right. McCarthy has said publicly in the aftermath of this tape being released that he did not call President Trump and urge him to resign. And we spoke to President Trump at Mar-a-Lago in April of 2021 in the months immediately after he left the presidency. Trump denigrated McCarthy and said that this sort of tough-guy posture that McCarthy projected after January 6 about Trump and about Trump's inciting the riot in the Capitol was very different from what McCarthy was saying to Trump in private. And when we asked former President Trump, well, how do you explain that, like, why is McCarthy projecting this sort of tough-talking image about how he told you off about January 6, Trump told us two words - inferiority complex.
GROSS: What do you think Trump meant by that?
MARTIN: I think that he views Kevin McCarthy as a weak individual, somebody who is more of a supplicant than a peer. And look - Donald Trump preys on weakness, and he relishes the opportunity to humiliate people, whether they're his allies or his adversaries.
GROSS: Well, let's hear another tape. And this is from the days after January 6, and this is Kevin McCarthy talking about Trump and saying that he'd asked Trump if he felt responsible for the attack on the Capitol. So is there anything you want to say to set the scene for this call?
BURNS: Terry, this is a conversation with a much, much larger group of Republican lawmakers. So the call that we just heard was on January 10, and it was just with the senior team of Republican leaders in the House. What we're about to hear is a conversation the following day with the entire House Republican conference. So that's a couple hundred lawmakers, including the most moderate members of the party and the most extreme-right members of the party, who are still Trump diehards and who are still out there stoking anger and paranoia about the 2020 election. So McCarthy is speaking to a much larger audience, and I think you hear in his voice a sense that he does want to stay sort of on the right side of his team, collectively, while still saying something disapproving of Trump.
GROSS: OK, so here's the tape.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MCCARTHY: But let me be very clear to all of you, and I've been very clear to the president. He bears responsibility for his words and actions - no ifs, ands or buts. I asked him personally today, does he hold responsibility for what happened? Does he feel bad about what happened? He told me he does have some responsibility for what happened. And he need to acknowledge that.
GROSS: What do you think is the significance of what McCarthy is saying there?
MARTIN: Terry, I would make two points. One, you can tell he's talking to the larger audience of the entire House GOP conference because of the tone he's taking and the way he's delivering that presentation. You can hear him reading from the talking points in front of him. And he's taking a sort of tougher tone about President Trump to the House GOP conference because, at that point, he had a lot of angry members who wanted some kind of accountability for President Trump. They wanted to make a statement that what he did was not acceptable in inciting the violence of January 6. But, of course, McCarthy is straining to portray President Trump and his conversations with President Trump as something they are not.
You know, of course, this president is not going to take responsibility for his conduct before and during January 6. That's fantasy. But in that moment, McCarthy is trying to placate a House Republican conference that's angry, that wants the then-president to face some accountability. But it's a moment in time, Terry, and the moment passes quickly. And once McCarthy sees his flock, his members, drifting back to Trump or just not caring that much about January 6, generally, he moves back and embraces Trump, McCarthy does.
GROSS: You know, my impression of these tapes is that they're recorded at a time when lawmakers are still feeling the fear of January 6, hearing gunshots, knowing that the whole Capitol's being attacked, that they have to be evacuated, that their lives are in jeopardy. And once that fear just kind of slowly vanishes over time, then it's kind of business as usual. Is that your impression?
BURNS: Terry, I think I would present that a little bit differently in that the sense of urgency, at least among Republicans, that something had to be done about Donald Trump does fade. And for some of them, it fades very, very quickly, including, obviously, Kevin McCarthy. The sense of danger and the atmosphere of menace and of incipient violence does not fade that quickly. One of the things that struck us over and over again was how many lawmakers in both parties - different ages, different ideological orientations - expressed to us a sense of real fear. And we're talking deep into 2021; this is not just in the immediate aftermath of January 6. The death threats they received, the harassment online and by phone - some people told us stories of, you know, being harassed face to face in their home districts, needing to get police cars stationed at the end of their driveways back home because of the volume of death threats coming in.
I think this is something that the American people don't totally grasp right now because these lawmakers are pretty reluctant, understandably, to talk about this. But the mood on Capitol Hill, even today, is so starkly different and so much tenser than it was even a year and a half ago, when things were not exactly warm and friendly up there. January 6 has cast a very, very long shadow over our government.
GROSS: Well, I want to ask you more about that, but first, we have to take a break. Let me reintroduce you. If you're just joining us, my guests are Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, authors of the new book "This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, And The Battle For America's Future." They're both national correspondents from The New York Times. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOAN JEANRENAUD'S "DERVISH")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to the interview I recorded yesterday with Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, national correspondents for The New York Times and authors of the new book "This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, And The Battle For America's Future."
Well, you're talking about how there's still a lot of fear in Congress about the hostility being directed at lawmakers and that they - some of them need protection. They've been threatened. So this leads to another tape that you released, and this is Kevin McCarthy in that same phone call that we started with, with Liz Cheney and Steve Scalise. And he's talking about his concern about Republican lawmakers' rhetoric. Do you want to set up this call before we hear the excerpt?
MARTIN: So this is important to note that he's speaking to the small group of just House GOP leaders, not the full conference. So he's much more candid. He's not, you know, evidently reading from written talking points. And he's much more confrontational, frankly, in talking about how he's about to have some difficult conversations with some of the more difficult members of the House GOP conference.
GROSS: OK. So here's Kevin McCarthy.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MCCARTHY: The other thing that we have to do is these members on either - whatever position you are, calling out other members, that stuff's got to stop, especially in this nature. So when I get off right here, I'm going to call Gaetz. But anything else we see, don't assume I see everything, don't assume I know everything. But we've got to have one central point. So I mean, if you can bring this stuff to (inaudible) Leganski so we can have it. But I mean, don't sit back around. It's going to be (inaudible) personally. Tension is too high. The country is too crazy. I do not want to look back and think we caused something or we missed something and someone got hurt. I don't want to play politics with any of that.
GROSS: What's kind of ironic here is he's in part trying to protect his own House members, including Liz Cheney. But then the Republicans turn on Liz Cheney. They strip her of her leadership position. They create a lot of hatred toward Liz Cheney.
MARTIN: Yeah. And one of the reasons why we wanted to spend so much time reporting this book in 2021 instead of, you know, racing to turn it in after the campaign is because it was our bet, Terry, that there was a lot to capture in the aftermath of January 6 in both parties. And we chronicle at great length the weeks and months after the 6 and how it shaped the Republican Party and specifically what happened with Liz Cheney and her fate and how she went from being the scion of this prominent conservative family to an outcast in today's Republican Party.
And that happened because of one simple reason - after January 6, she wouldn't shut up. Everybody else, with a few exceptions in the House GOP conference, dropped their criticism of President Trump, stopped talking about his inciting the riot in the Capitol and just moved on. And she would not move on. And she kept talking about Trump as a member of the leadership, and she would do so standing at press conferences with McCarthy squirming next to her, looking awkward. And so finally in May, it becomes clear to Kevin McCarthy and his lieutenants that they cannot keep having Liz Cheney embarrassing them, in their eyes, by speaking out about President Trump. It's become too much, and they cast her out of the Republican leadership and create this schism between her and the rest of the House GOP conference.
GROSS: So they cast out Liz Cheney. Meanwhile, you know, McCarthy is saying in this tape he's afraid someone's going to get hurt. He doesn't want to play politics with any of this. And then he lets go of a lot of extremist talk. He just - at least not that we know of, he doesn't call people out for it. Like you say, he opposed a resolution to censure Paul Gosar and remove him from committee assignments. He ignored a remark by Mo Brooks last year after a man was arrested in connection with a bomb threat to the Capitol. And Brooks said that he understood citizens' anger directed at dictatorial socialism and its threat to liberty, freedom and the very fabric of American anxiety. So Mo Brooks of Alabama is basically saying, yeah, I understand this guy's bomb threat to the Capitol.
BURNS: And, Terry, that one is so particularly important because Mo Brooks is a repeat offender. He is one of the lawmakers who addresses the rally on the National Mall on January 6 and tells them it's time for patriots to start taking names and taking action. And that immediately precedes the riot at the Capitol. He used some saltier language that I'm not going to repeat on your program. But immediately after the attack on the Capitol, on these calls that we're talking about, McCarthy speaks about what Brooks said and says that in some ways it's even worse than what Donald Trump said at that rally preceding the attack on the Capitol. And just six or seven months later, when there's a bomb threat directed at the Capitol, you have the exact same member of Congress justifying, rationalizing, even somewhat admiring this threat to the Capitol. And Kevin McCarthy has nothing to say about it.
And you referenced Paul Gosar. There are a couple examples throughout calendar year 2021, and, unfortunately, it's very likely that there will be more examples for the rest of calendar year 2022, where the exact same members who Kevin McCarthy is describing in January as being a threat to incite violence against the American government and against their own colleagues in the House of Representatives, those people are not going away, and Kevin McCarthy is not doing anything to quiet them or push them towards the exits.
GROSS: Well, let's take a break here, and then we'll talk some more. If you're just joining us, my guests are Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, authors of the new book "This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, And The Battle For America's Future." They're both national correspondents for The New York Times. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to the interview I recorded yesterday with Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, two national correspondents for The New York Times. Their new book, "This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden And The Battle For America's Future," covers the period of two years from the onset of the coronavirus pandemic through the legislative battles of the new Biden administration. The book was published today but made news even before publication because the authors released audio recordings from the days after the attack on the Capitol of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy saying he was thinking of asking Trump to resign and that he was concerned that the extremist rhetoric of some Republican lawmakers could end up getting people hurt.
So after McCarthy seemed so outraged about the attack on the Capitol and Trump's partial responsibility for it, when it came to actually voting on impeachment, McCarthy voted against it.
BURNS: He did, and so does the overwhelming majority of the House Republican Conference. And this is a crucial moment, too, where, you know, McCarthy, on the eve of that vote, indicates to Republicans that, you know, this is a vote of conscience. People are going to need to do what they're going to need to do. He's not saying, in the runup to the impeachment vote, if you support impeaching President Trump, I will drive you out of the Republican Party. He is absolutely not doing that. And 10 members of Congress - 10 members of the Republican Conference do vote for impeachment.
But what happens after that is not only does Kevin McCarthy not, himself, vote for impeachment, but he encourages those members really not to talk about it anymore - that, you know, be that as it may, you needed to vote for impeachment. It was a vote of conscience. You know, could you please talk about other stuff now? And what's really telling, Terry, is almost every single one of them obliges. And that's what makes Liz Cheney such an outlier - that there are members of Congress who cast an extraordinarily difficult vote as Republicans supporting the impeachment of Donald Trump. And they did it because they thought he was a threat to the country and that what he did on January 6 demanded the sternest punishment available to them. And since then, almost none of them have had anything else to say about it.
GROSS: There are members in the House, in the Republican Party, who are very motivated by ideology or by conspiracy theories. You characterize McCarthy as being motivated by power. This is all about that he wants to become the House speaker if the Republicans gain control of the House in the midterms.
BURNS: Yeah. Let me just talk about Kevin McCarthy for a minute because I think some of your listeners may be more familiar with Mitch McConnell, who, of course, is a longer-serving and more prominent member of the congressional leadership. Kevin McCarthy is from Bakersfield, Calif., and he's always had his eye on the bright lights. He has sought to be a political force since he was a young staffer working for a member of Congress in his part of California. He went to Sacramento, Terry, and became a legislative leader in state government when Arnold Schwarzenegger was the governor. And that was his real first taste of working with a celebrity politician, and he loved it. He surrounds himself with pictures of himself with celebrities, and working with Schwarzenegger was quite fun for him.
And so when Trump comes along, McCarthy's already been in Congress for a few years but almost entirely serving with a Democratic president who was not taking him on Air Force One, who had no time for him. And here comes not just a president of his own party but a celebrity president, somebody who's a household name.
And Kevin McCarthy is taken with the trappings of power. And he relishes the trips on Air Force One with President Trump. He enjoys his time with the president at Mar-a-Lago. And he's ideologically flexible enough to sort of go along with, largely, what Trump's preferences are, because for him, the goal is to retain his grip on the House GOP Conference and eventually become speaker. And Trump offers him the way to do that. That is his path to power eventually.
And I'll just make one more point on McCarthy. He's tasted defeat. We have reporting in the book that when he first ran for the House in 2006, he told associates that he wanted to be speaker someday. Not a lot of first-time candidates for Congress will say such a thing in public, but McCarthy did. And he ran for speaker and lost that race seven years ago. And he lost it, Terry, because there was a faction on the far right in the House that was not comfortable with him. And so if you just think about Kevin McCarthy's history and his coveting of celebrity, his one setback when he was seeking the speakership seven years ago and lost it because of the far right, it explains a lot about McCarthy. It explains why he accommodated Trump, why he accommodates Trump today and why he's so focused on placating those far-right members who you mentioned a minute ago. He does not punish when they speak out inappropriately.
GROSS: We've talked about Kevin McCarthy, House minority leader. Let's talk about Mitch McConnell, Senate minority leader. Now, you don't have recordings of him that - at least not ones that you can make public. So let's talk about some of the things you've written about. You say that he established a back channel with Joe Biden after the election. Why did he need a back channel as opposed to more open communications?
BURNS: So, Terry, this is a really interesting and fateful period in the transfer of power, where immediately after the November election is called in Joe Biden's favor - the Saturday after Election Day - Mitch McConnell knows full well that Joe Biden is going to be the next president. He has no intention of going down the Trump path of contesting the election results, spinning conspiracy theories. But he also doesn't want to go to war with Donald Trump, at least not yet, and the reason for that is raw electoral politics. Coming out of Election Day in November, the balance of power in the Senate is 50 Republicans and 48 Democrats, with two seats still up for grabs. Both of those seats are in the state of Georgia.
In that state, you have to win an outright majority in order to win an election. None of the candidates managed to do that on the Election Day in November, so both races went to a runoff that was scheduled for January 5. And what Mitch McConnell knows in November is that Donald Trump has lost the presidential election, Donald Trump doesn't believe that he has lost the presidential election and he's not going to concede, and Donald Trump is capable of sabotaging the Republican Party's ability to maintain control of the Senate. Because if McConnell criticizes Trump and clashes with him openly about the outcome of the presidential race, then Trump can turn around and urge his voters to stay home and not vote for Republicans in Georgia.
So that brings us to the back channel that you just described. McConnell wants to open communication with Joe Biden, but he doesn't want an open clash with Donald Trump. So he asks one of his deputies in the Senate, John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, to speak to one of Biden's close allies in the Senate, Chris Coons of Delaware, and transmit a message back to the president-elect that he's prepared to recognize him at some point, that he's prepared to talk at some point, but not yet. And please don't call me. The ask of Joe Biden is don't put me, Mitch McConnell, in a position where I either need to take your call and enrage Donald Trump or reject your call and insult the next president of the United States. And tellingly, Terry, Joe Biden honors that request.
GROSS: It's just so interesting how politics is superseding democracy. Political interests are superseding the democratic procedures that are standard in the United States.
BURNS: And I think, Terry, that's one of the most consistent and central themes of this book, is that at so many of the crucial junctures in the democratic process over the last two years, what the people in charge of the country, or at least ostensibly in charge of the country, were thinking about either first and foremost or pretty near to it was electoral politics. And there's almost no one of whom that is more true than Mitch McConnell in November and December. He knows that what Donald Trump is doing is unacceptable and outside the political mainstream.
He gets a call from Donald Trump in early December, and he takes this call during a meeting of other Senate Republican leaders where Trump tells him openly, I'm trying to get the governor of Georgia to overturn the results of the election there. And I'm trying to get state legislators in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania to overturn the results of the election there. And, Mitch, we got to do this in order to win those Senate seats in Georgia.
And McConnell listens to him, and he hangs up the phone. And he takes off his glasses, and he rubs his eyes. And he tells his colleagues, we got to stay focused on Georgia. And, Terry, he means the elections in Georgia. He doesn't mean defending the outcome of the presidential race in Georgia, because that is how important keeping the Senate majority was to him. He was willing to look the other way and, for all his private discomfort, not take on Donald Trump just yet.
GROSS: Well, let me reintroduce you both here. If you're just joining us, my guests are Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, authors of the new book "This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, And The Battle For America's Future." They're both national correspondents for The New York Times. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to the interview I recorded yesterday with Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, national correspondents for The New York Times and authors of the new book "This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, And The Battle For America's Future."
Jonathan, you were in a pretty unique position while reporting this book. On January 6, you were at the Capitol. You were there when the Capitol was attacked. And you evacuated, along with people from Congress, and hid out together. And you observed during that process and right after it things that were very useful for this book. So let's start with something - with an encounter that you had with Mitch McConnell. And this is right after the certification of the election. So they hadn't gone home yet. You know, they were just like they were they were hiding. And then they went back to the chamber and voted. And after the vote - so this is like the wee hours in January 7, like, really early in the morning, after midnight. And you're at the elevator, and you run into Mitch McConnell there. And he tells you that he's disgusted with Trump. Tell us about that conversation.
MARTIN: McConnell was leaving the Capitol early on the morning of January 7 after what was probably the most wrenching day of his career in Congress and probably the most wrenching day of his history in the U.S. Capitol. He first went there as an intern in the mid-1960s. So we're talking about more than a half a century of service in that building. And McConnell comes off the elevator on the first floor of the Capitol on his way home, and he beckons me to a doorway where there would be at least a modicum of privacy. And he asked me the first question, which was, what do you hear about the 25th Amendment?
And what he's getting at is, is there a possibility that the Trump Cabinet will drive him from office before January 20 and rid us of this now disgraced president? Because McConnell is so eager to get rid of Trump, excommunicate him from the presidency and the Republican Party, that he sees an opportunity. And this is what's so key about McConnell in that moment. Yes, he is unnerved by what has taken place in the Capitol that day. He's angry about losing his majority the previous day in that Georgia runoff that Alex was talking about. But he's mostly, as he put it, exhilarated. Why? Because finally he thinks this is the chance that we can cut the cord and move on from Donald Trump. And at first, he thinks that that's possible to do via the 25th Amendment, which is why he's asking me. He's looking for intelligence. What am I picking up? What am I hearing from other lawmakers that day?
GROSS: You quote McConnell as having said, "if this isn't impeachable, I don't know what is." But he didn't vote to convict Trump in the Senate.
MARTIN: So this is now Monday, January 11. And McConnell is back in Kentucky. He's in Louisville. And he's having lunch, having a Chick-Fil-A takeout lunch in the office of one of his advisers. And McConnell is still relishing the prospect that this could be the opportunity, this could be the moment to drive Trump from political power. And McConnell thinks that the House Democrats are going to impeach President Trump that week. As he puts it, they're going to take care of the son of a bitch for us, he tells advisers at that lunch, and that subsequently, there will be the votes in the Senate. There will be the two-thirds votes needed to convict Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors, and then after that, to take a vote to bar him from serving in office before.
McConnell in this moment is bullish on the opportunity to depose Trump, to exile him forever from political power. And he tells his advisers that. Even more extraordinary, Terry, during this lunch, his phone rings and it's President-elect Joe Biden. And Biden is asking McConnell, you know, can there be a sort of two-track effort in the Senate to both confirm my new nominees, to put together my government, and also impeach the outgoing or then-departed president? And McConnell says he's going to talk to his chief of staff, but he does think it's possible. And Biden, who, of course, served with McConnell for decades in the Senate, in a human moment, says, Mitch, take care of yourself. Be careful out there. These guys are crazy. And what Biden means is McConnell himself could be targeted by extremists, and McConnell himself could be at risk.
GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guests are Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, authors of the new book "This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden And The Battle For America's Future." They're both national correspondents for The New York Times. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF GIOVANNI TOMMASO, ENRICO RAVA, STEFANO BOLLANI AND ROBERTO GATTO'S "L'AVVENTURA")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to the interview I recorded yesterday with Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, national correspondents for The New York Times and authors of the new book "This Will Not Pass: Trump Biden And The Battle For America's Future."
I want to get back to the fact that, Jonathan Martin, you were at the Capitol on January 6. And you were in the room with lawmakers when they were evacuated from the Capitol and escorted through the tunnels through - to a room in another office building. And while you were there with a lot of Democratic and Republican lawmakers, you overheard Lindsey Graham talking - well, actually, kind of hollering at a Capitol police officer. Tell us what was going on and what Lindsey Graham said.
MARTIN: So we have to understand the moment. There is uncertainty verging on chaos because the Capitol has been overrun. And these senators are seeing images on their phone of people marauding in the Capitol, of Confederate flags being displayed outside the Senate chamber. They're getting texts and panicked phone calls from their spouses and family members saying, are you OK? And so there is a mood of great nervousness in this period on the afternoon of January 6 as the senators gather in this large conference room in the Hart Building.
And a few times, Capitol police officials try to get their attention to speak to the group of senators. And during one of those moments, as the Capitol police was trying to explain to them what was going on - and frankly, they were uncertain if the building had been secured or if the rioters were still effectively in command of the seat of government. Lindsey Graham speaks up. And he interjects in very accusatory tones and says, you guys need to take control of this building. Do whatever it takes. And get back control of the seat of American government. And there's audible groaning in the room. And even Sherrod Brown, the Senate Democrat from Ohio, speaks up and says, shut up, Lindsey, to try to shout him down.
And then, you know, after that, I spoke with Senator Graham as we were sequestered in that room and talked to him. And he's sort of playing things out in his head. And he's talking at once both about the immediate security concern, about the need for the Capitol police to retake the Capitol, likening it to the time he was visiting a military base in Afghanistan and the security officials on the base, the MPs, killed a would-be suicide bomber who was trying to come onto the base. He's also, in that same breath, playing out the politics of what this is going to mean for Trump and how Trump went too far this time and then pivoting, Terry, to say, you know, maybe Biden can take advantage of this moment, saying, who doesn't like Joe Biden? And all of that captures the nervousness, the frenetic nature of this period and, frankly, the uncertainty of Lindsey Graham himself, who has been a Trump ally, made his peace with Trump, but is now wondering, you know - am I going to have to cut the cord with President Trump? - and is wondering also if he can reestablish the friendship he had with Joe Biden that well predated his relationship with Donald Trump.
GROSS: So Lindsey Graham gets White House counsel Pat Cipollone on the phone and says, if Trump doesn't tell the rioters to go home, Lindsey Graham is going to call for the 25th Amendment, to remove Trump from office. But after all this quiets down and things start to return to some sense of normalcy, Lindsey Graham's back in Donald Trump's court again.
MARTIN: Yeah. That same afternoon, he does call Cipollone and threatens the 25th Amendment because if you recall, Trump had taped a couple of videos in which he was purportedly telling the rioters to leave the Capitol. But it was halfhearted, and so Graham is enraged by the sort of halfhearted Trump response and says, if you don't make him do more and condemn this, then we're going to demand Trump be driven from office. But like so many Republicans, Graham comes back to Trump's embrace because, again, for him, for Graham, Trump is a way to stay a player in today's Republican Party. His voters in South Carolina still like Donald Trump, and if he wants to be a player in future GOP politics, then Lindsey Graham needs to keep that relationship.
But what's so interesting about Graham and Trump is that they're crafty enough to understand the other and to understand that the other isn't fully committed to their relationship. In their more honest moments, they say that out loud. We have a scene in the book from April of 2021, just a few months after January 6, where Alex and I were interviewing President Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and who should call Trump's cellphone but Lindsey Graham. And Trump being Trump, he takes the call, sees who it is and puts it on speaker for the two reporters to hear but doesn't tell Graham that he's putting him on speaker for the prying ears of the two reporters who are there speaking to him. And so they're talking openly about politics and the midterms, and Graham doesn't even know. And then, of course, Trump does tell Graham that he's sitting there with Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns. But, Terry, he tells them that we're here just to prompt Graham to sing his praises. And boy, does Graham happily do that. Graham talks about the hold that Trump has on the Republican Party, how it's like nothing he's ever seen before and, yes, what a great golfer Donald Trump is, too.
GROSS: Oh (laughter).
MARTIN: So it doesn't end there because a few hours later, we spoke to Graham separately on the phone after we left Mar-a-Largo, and Graham was much more candid about Trump, talking about his relationship and said, yeah, Trump is great to talk to, especially when the topic is him.
GROSS: You know, what you said about this climate of fear and distrust, that leads me back to the tapes that you released of Kevin McCarthy. I mean, somebody - I'm not going to ask you who your source is. Obviously, you're not going to be able to say. But the fact that there are tapes and they were leaked to you screams to me atmosphere of distrust. So are a lot of people that you know, without mentioning names, have they been taping conversations to protect themselves or to be used against the person who they think is either harming the country or might harm them?
BURNS: Yes, it's not always tapes, but certainly there are ample contemporaneous records of so many of these crucial moments. And one of our real priorities in reporting this book was to try to gather as much of that material as possible. We've not been able to put it all out in public. It's not likely that we ever will be able to put all of this out in public. But there is a sense, I think pretty broadly in Washington, certainly right after January 6, that people are living history, and they are living through a really dangerous moment in the life of the Capitol and the life of American democracy.
And our hope in assembling the narrative in this book is to tell that story as fully as we can and to show what political reporting ought to do in a moment like this. There is a whole lot of raw politics in our book, but it is all in this larger context of an ongoing and acute national crisis and a crisis of whether this American democratic system can ever work again. And there are people at all levels of both parties who are deeply concerned that the answer is no. And it is, in our view, an act of real bravery and an act - I think it's not too far to say - of real heroism for people who are present in these vital moments to do what they can to preserve them so that now or a couple of years from now or decades from now, people will understand what the country lived through in this moment and whether it did or did not come out all right.
GROSS: Well, Jonathan Martin, Alex Burns - thank you so much for joining us on the show. And thank you for your reporting.
BURNS: Thank you, Terry.
MARTIN: Thanks, Terry.
GROSS: Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns are the authors of the new book "This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, And The Battle For America's Future." They're both national correspondents from The New York Times. Our interview was recorded yesterday.
Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, my guest will be Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgard, star of the new Viking epic film "The Northman." He played a vampire who had been a Viking in HBO's "True Blood." More recently, he played a tech billionaire in "Succession" and an abusive husband in "Big Little Lies." "The Northman" is violent and bloody, but Skarsgard is from a pacifist family. I hope you'll join us.
(SOUNDBITE OF GARY PEACOCK AND JAN GARBAREK AND PALLE MIKKELBORG AND PETER ERSKINE'S "INTROENDING")
GROSS: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Therese Madden, Ann Marie Baldonado, Thea Chaloner, Seth Kelley and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. I'm Terry Gross.
(SOUNDBITE OF GARY PEACOCK AND JAN GARBAREK AND PALLE MIKKELBORG AND PETER ERSKINE'S "INTROENDING") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/republicans-suggested-invoking-the-25th-amendment-after-jan-6-but-failed-to-act | 2022-05-12T16:02:54Z |
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Biden made the case today for billions of dollars of new spending for Ukraine. He toured an Alabama factory that makes javelins. He says the missile has become very popular.
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PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: They've been so important. There's even a story about Ukrainian parents naming their children - not a joke - their newborn child Javelin or Javelina.
SHAPIRO: Earlier today I spoke with Mark Cancian about this weapon. He's a retired Marine colonel and an expert on military spending. And first, I asked him to describe it for us.
MARK CANCIAN: The Javelin is the top end of the infantry anti-tank weapons. It is a fire-and-forget weapon, that is you lock it onto the target, you pull the trigger, the missile fires, and it goes off on its own. It will home in on the target. The shooter can then go hide. It has a long range, up to 4,000, little more than 4,000 meters. And it also has a top attack capability. In other words, it can go straight at a target or it can go up in the air and come down on top of a target. That's important because tanks have much thinner armor on top, so they're much more vulnerable.
SHAPIRO: It seems like kind of the go-to weapon of this war. Has it been that way in conflicts for a while, or is there something unique about Russia's invasion of Ukraine that makes it particularly suited to this conflict?
CANCIAN: Well, the Javelin has become the iconic weapon of the war. It caught everyone's imagination. You know, there's Saint Javelin. There are Javelin songs. The reason I think it caught people's attention is because the Russians have a very mechanized military. They've got lots of armored vehicles. The Ukrainians needed as many anti-tank weapons as they could get. So we supplied these kinds of weapons early on in the conflict, and that was critical in allowing the Ukrainians, who were mostly light infantry, to hold back these Russian armored formations.
SHAPIRO: So these are particularly good for perhaps an overpowered military with less heavy equipment to take on a bigger, heavier, more armored military like Russia's.
CANCIAN: They are. And they're also very good for a military that may not be all that well trained because it doesn't take very long to learn how to use it. It is important to note that Javelin is only one of many kinds of anti-tank weapons that have been provided to the Ukrainians. There's another one that's called NLAW. It's also guided. It's not quite as sophisticated. It's been provided a much larger number. So many of the attacks we're seeing probably came from other kinds of anti-tank weapons. But the Javelins are the most capable, and they've certainly caught the public's imagination.
SHAPIRO: And in just a couple of months, the U.S. has already sent 5,500 Javelins to Ukraine. Biden is now asking Congress for another $33 billion in aid to Ukraine, 20 billion of which is for military aid. Any guess how big a chunk of that is to purchase Javelins specifically?
CANCIAN: I think we can guess. And the answer, unfortunately, is zero. And the reason is that we've given about a third of our inventory to Ukraine already. The stocks are getting low. There's some risk on certain U.S. war plans that there may not be enough for our own purposes. I think what you're going to see is that the United States will provide a broad spectrum of weapons to Ukraine, including some anti-tank weapons, just not the Javelin in particular.
SHAPIRO: So these can't just be churned out like pizzas. If they are so essential to the Ukrainian war effort, what does that mean if the U.S. has kind of gone through the stockpile that it's comfortable sharing already?
CANCIAN: Yes, production is a big problem. We've provided, as you say, over 5,500 Javelins to Ukraine. The United States have been producing about 600 or 800 a year. So you can do the math and figure out how long it would take to replace those missiles. Now we can ramp up production. That takes time. It's also important to note that they're moving into a different phase of the conflict, providing different kinds of equipment. Now we're providing artillery, for example, armored vehicles. So the aid package is going to be a broader than it has been before.
SHAPIRO: Mark Cancian is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies here in Washington. Thank you for talking with us.
CANCIAN: Thanks for having me on the show. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/retired-colonel-on-the-rise-of-javelin-missiles-as-biden-seeks-to-aid-ukraine | 2022-05-12T16:03:00Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
Summer arrived early in South Asia, way too early. Temperatures topped 120 degrees Fahrenheit in some areas over the weekend. This brutal heat wave is exactly what scientists predict for countries on the front lines of climate change. From sweltering Mumbai, NPR's Lauren Frayer reports.
LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: At 11 o'clock at night, it's still 93 degrees here - no breeze, not even a quiver of the palm trees. And Chrisell Rebello (ph) is patiently waiting in line at an ice cream shop with a cranky, tired toddler.
CHRISELL REBELLO: It's smoldering hot. But not only hot, it's also humid, which is making it very difficult. So I think standing in line for an ice cream for 20 minutes makes it worth it.
FRAYER: Extreme heat is common here in May, but not in April and March, which were both the hottest in more than a century. Some schools have closed early for the summer. Hospitals are on watch for heatstroke. Chrisell says she needs...
REBELLO: A lot of cold drinks, a lot of cold water, AC and probably multiple baths.
FRAYER: Only a fraction of Indians have air conditioning. Instead, people soak rags in water and hang them in doors and windows. Even so, this past weekend, India's electricity demand hit a record high.
ULKA KELKAR: The problem is that all that electricity is still largely coming from fossil fuel sources.
FRAYER: Climate economist Ulka Kelkar says India gets 70% of its electricity from coal. And burning coal contributes to the exact same warming that all these fans and ACs are trying to provide relief from. It's like a vicious circle. But there is a breaking point. And we're soon going to reach it, Kelkar says, especially in humid cities like Mumbai, where I live.
KELKAR: Heat plus humidity - at some stage, it becomes almost impossible for the human body's organs to function normally. Basically, the body just cannot cool itself. And a large fraction of our population in India still works outside in the fields, on building construction, in factories, which are not cool.
FRAYER: More than a billion people are in danger of heat-related health problems across South Asia right now. This heat wave has also hit at a critical time for the wheat harvest. In Punjab, India's breadbasket, a farmer named Major Singh (ph) told local TV...
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MAJOR SINGH: (Non-English language spoken).
FRAYER: ...That the grain he's harvesting is shriveled. Yields are down. He's losing money. And this is exactly when India was hoping to help boost global grain supplies that have been hurt by the war in Ukraine.
SURUCHI BHADWAL: Year after year, we may have more incidences of such kind and hotter years.
FRAYER: Climate scientist Suruchi Bhadwal says that shriveled grain, the rolling blackouts, the sweltering temperatures even at 11 p.m., they're India's warning to the rest of the world.
BHADWAL: And each country needs to realize that the warning signs will not be given to us forever.
FRAYER: Lauren Frayer, NPR News, Mumbai.
(SOUNDBITE OF ANOUSHKA SHANKAR'S "LAST CHANCE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/south-asias-heat-wave-leaves-a-billion-people-in-danger-of-related-health-problems | 2022-05-12T16:03:06Z |
The first Black Star album was released in Sept. 1998 to critical acclaim, immediately launching the solo careers for the duo of Talib Kweli and Yasiin Bey, formerly known as Mos Def. The pair of New Yorkers became two of the most noteworthy voices in what's sometimes called "conscious" rap.
Today, Bey and Kweli's second album as Black Star, No Fear of Time, will debut via the subscription podcast platform Luminary. It's an unusual place to release music, but Talib Kweli says it is a statement about artists getting both the respect and the pay that they deserve.
"People spend money on things that are important to them," he says. "But when you ask them to support art, they balk. Because why wouldn't somebody go to a Spotify where you could pay $10 to hear any song you want? The onus is on me as the creator to figure out and set the price point and tell the people what my art is worth."
This conversation has been edited and condensed. To hear the broadcast version, use the audio player at the top of this page.
Leila Fadel, Morning Edition: This album is a return to some of Black Star's themes — black excellence, unity, confronting racism, Pan-Africanism, elevating consciousness. How do you see these themes resonating today in a world that is markedly different than it was 24 years ago?
Talib Kweli, Black Star: Sure, I agree with that. Social media, I think more than anything we've seen in our lifetime, has changed the landscape and changed the conversation. The fans have a lot more access to the artists, and so that can be a gift and that can be a curse. I've experienced both gift and curse when it comes to that.
I'm glad that you mentioned Pan-Africanism in particular. Black Star — we're named for the honorable Marcus Garvey, famously a Jamaican immigrant who came to America and was trying to build ships, the Black Star Line, to get Americans back to Africa. [That] is the sort of beginning of Pan-Africanism and a push for reparations. So with Black Star, we've always been about hip-hop, about Pan-Africanism, spirituality, all these things that are necessary for the liberation of our people. And I think it's timely that we come back now.
Releasing this album in this moment where we've seen the reinvigoration of the Movement for Black Lives, but also an extreme reaction to it, to stop it. What is the message here?
The messaging on the Black Star album, the first one [Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star, released in 1998], resonates now. And we weren't saying anything that much different than, you know, people like Amiri Baraka in the Black Arts movement and what Nina Simone was saying onstage towards the end of her career. We stand tall on the shoulders of our ancestors. The canon of black art is amazing, and it is the lifeblood of all great art that comes from America in particular. Black people in America have been the moral compass, and we have been the ones who have elevated the art and we have been the ones who have made the most original American things.
Black Star started in Brooklyn, but at this point we are citizens of the world, and I feel like this album represents that type of growth for us.
I mean, maybe it's because I was listening in Ramadan, but the record felt really spiritual, addressing the fleetingness of this life, about the coming of the afterlife.
You're right on point with that. I mean, I have a decidedly Muslim name — I don't call myself a Muslim, but I definitely align with Islam in many, many ways. And many of my closest friends, from Dave Chappelle to Yasiin Bey, are Muslims.
Yasiin is very open about his Muslim identity. It's very much a part of his art.
Absolutely — to the point where we were supposed to release this album earlier, but he refused to release it during Ramadan. He said, "I don't want to distract my fellow Muslims from focusing on Ramadan." He stood his ground on that, where people were like, "No, we have to release it now." He's like, "Nope, I'm not releasing it now." As a writer, Yasiin is always trying to get closer to God. He starts all his albums with the Basmala. And me as his partner, I write different. His focus on spirituality helps me as a man and makes me write with a different sort of intentionality.
Is there a particular track off this new album that represents what Black Star is?
Mmhmm. The title track, "No Fear of Time." We're laying out a manifesto, and we sample a speech by Greg Tate, rest in peace, [who is] sort of our OG. He [was] a journalist, and the world that Greg Tate was describing — Black Star, we're the children of that world.
I want to go back to how you're releasing the album and the statement that you're making with it, but it's also a risk putting your music behind a paywall like that.
It's a risk for who?
I mean, maybe that's the wrong question. But putting it behind a paywall means...
That means the artists get paid. If you are truly a fan of Black Star, then you will respect the fact that what made sense for us, business-wise, was for us to put it on Luminary and get paid regardless of what happens in the music business. If you bought the Black Star album in the last 20 years, you paid Universal Records, which is one of the biggest companies on Earth. You know who you did not pay? You did not pay Black Star, because we didn't see any of that money. You know, people come and say, "Hey, what about what I want? I want the vinyl. I want it on Spotify. I want..." What you want does not matter. Know what I'm sayin'? What Black Star wants matters.
What would you say is the main message of this album?
I would say that the main message is "no fear of time" — to not let time, money, clout, trends dictate how you move. And to be closer to whatever your core is, whether it's a belief in God, whether it's a set of morals that you follow. Getting closer to what your core is.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/talib-kweli-on-black-stars-return-we-stand-tall-on-the-shoulders-of-our-ancestors | 2022-05-12T16:03:12Z |
ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
Texas is among about a dozen states in the U.S. with a trigger law on abortion. That means if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, abortions will be greatly restricted or banned completely in those states. Now, with the leaked draft of the high court's opinion making the rounds, an opinion that shows the court's conservative majority is ready to overturn Roe, those states with trigger laws are getting close attention.
NPR's Ashley Lopez is in Austin. Hi, Ashley.
ASHLEY LOPEZ, BYLINE: Hey there.
FLORIDO: What have you heard from Texas leaders so far about this draft opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court?
LOPEZ: Well, Texas is one of the most conservative states in the country. As you mentioned, we have a law that would ban - effectively ban all abortions 30 days after the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade - if they do, of course. So as you can imagine, political leaders here are happy about what's in this draft opinion. Texas' Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said in a statement this morning that this is a great day and that Republican lawmakers in the state haven't just been hoping that Roe v. Wade would eventually be overturned, but they've been planning for it, too.
FLORIDO: Well, Texas recently banned all abortions after six weeks. So what does this mean in a state where most abortions are already illegal?
LOPEZ: What Texas has right now is a ban on abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, which is before many people even realize they're pregnant. But abortion is still accessible here for people who make it to a clinic in time. So if Roe v. Wade is overturned, though, and the state's trigger ban goes into effect, abortions will be criminalized across the board. And the only exception will be to save the life of the pregnant person. And it's likely clinics will shutter across the state, and everyone who wants the procedure will have to leave the state to get it.
FLORIDO: What are anti-abortion groups saying today?
LOPEZ: Well, groups here are excited about this. You know, John Seago with Texas Right to Life says his group has been working for years to craft legislation that would force the Supreme Court to reconsider Roe v. Wade. In just the past decade, the court has heard arguments on multiple abortion laws just from here in Texas, and none have taken down Roe v. Wade. Seago says this draft has the potential to be a huge win for his group.
JOHN SEAGO: To see that they are leaning in the direction of overturning Roe is a phenomenal victory for the pro-life movement. It's not the end of the work that we need to do, but it is a significant step in that direction.
FLORIDO: And what about supporters of abortion rights in Texas, Ashley?
LOPEZ: Well, there's a lot of concern there. Because of Texas' six-week ban, in a lot of ways, Roe v. Wade hasn't really existed in this state. Texans have had far fewer abortion rights than the rest of the country for months now. And abortion rights advocates say they know what could be coming for all these other states that have trigger laws on the books.
I spoke to Cristina Parker with the Lilith Fund, which is an abortion fund operating in Texas. She says, already, most people in Texas seeking an abortion have to leave the state to get one.
CRISTINA PARKER: You know, that's already devastating, and that's already horrible. And it's just going to become that everyone has to leave, that nobody can get basic, essential abortion care in their own communities, which is devastating. I think what this means for other states is they're suddenly going to look a lot more like us, look a lot more like Texas, where people are being forced to travel.
LOPEZ: And that, of course, only applies to people who have the means or people who can find the financial and logistical support to leave. Abortion rights advocates also say there are already longer wait times in clinics that provide abortions around the country because of the influx of Texas patients in recent months. And that's only going to get worse if the Supreme Court turns - overturns Roe v. Wade.
FLORIDO: That's NPR's Ashley Lopez in Austin, Texas. Thanks, Ashley.
LOPEZ: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/texas-will-ban-abortion-if-roe-v-wade-is-overturned-heres-how-texans-are-feeling | 2022-05-12T16:03:19Z |
ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
The Supreme Court leak that has galvanized the nation has also focused attention on how journalists cover the country's highest court. And it casts light on the Supreme Court's historic resistance to public scrutiny.
NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik joins us now. Hey, David.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Hey, Adrian.
FLORIDO: So what do we know about how Politico broke this story?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, we sure don't know much about how Josh Gerstein and Alexander Ward broke the story for Politico last night. There's been a lot of speculation as to the source of it. They cited a person with knowledge. Many conservatives took to Twitter in airwaves to denounce the leak and claimed it came from, obviously, a clerk from a liberal justice or even perhaps one of the liberal justices, perhaps Justice Sonia Sotomayor. And the idea would be that they wanted to stir protest and action by congressional Democrats.
Then you saw this other pushback online, claiming conservatives might be trying to leak this to lock right-of-center justices in place supporting what had been proposed. Editors simply cited what they called an extensive review process and said that they're confident of the authenticity of the draft.
FLORIDO: Well, people have been calling this leak unprecedented. But just how unusual is this?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, let's call it rare but not unique. And let's scroll a little bit back in history. Go back in this case, say, to 1857 - the Dred Scott decision, an infamous one and a terrible one, a blot on the Supreme Court's legacy. It held that enslaved people seeking their liberty could be legally pursued and recaptured by those who had owned them in states where slavery had actually been outlawed. That leaked out to the New York Tribune.
More recently, CBS revealed a key justice's thinking a few days before the Pentagon Papers case was decided in 1971. That was, of course, itself a landmark case about leaking. In 1977, our own Nina Totenberg here at NPR reported the court was ruling on a key Watergate case ahead of its public release and what that ruling would be.
And there have been several leaks since in publications and in a slew of books. What's different about this case was that it was a leak of a full draft of what has been proposed as an actual ruling this far ahead of its release, which is expected perhaps in June.
FLORIDO: And this leak is being called an incredible breach of the court's deliberations. Chief Justice John Roberts said today that it will shatter the public's trust in the court. Why is that?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, justices have argued over the decades - and from both parties - that they have to operate effectively in private. And this draft is considered a work in progress; that is it's an attempt to win support from other justices, as well as a refinement of the thinking going into the ultimate decision and ruling itself. As Politico pointed out, this decision not only could change a lot, but the majority could swing in an altogether different direction or a modified one.
The court has always sought, I think, not only secrecy, but this idea of grandeur and inscrutability, almost like the Vatican. The court has been so secretive that only since COVID have they routinely shared audiotapes of arguments. And the audio of decisions are still not released until months after the fact, and there's no video allowed in.
FLORIDO: Well, Politico seems, clearly, to have rejected this logic that the court's work is best done in private. Why is that?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, editors cited what they called a great public interest. And it's hard to think of issues that are - have created more interest and more divisiveness in American social life than abortion. But let's also pull back a little bit. The Supreme Court is a branch of government. All branches of government - in federal government - deserve journalistic accountability.
If you think about Justice Clarence Thomas, he brushed off reports about his wife's links to the January 6 protests and to the siege of the Capitol. His allies have called that off-limits, and Thomas has refused to recuse himself from cases involving that day.
I'd say the Supreme Court should expect this form of journalistic accountability over time, as people consider it to have become more politicized. And they should buckle up for more scrutiny, not less, especially on issues this charged.
FLORIDO: That's NPR's media correspondent David Folkenflik. Thanks, David.
FOLKENFLIK: You bet. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/the-roe-v-wade-leak-has-drawn-attention-to-how-journalists-cover-the-supreme-court | 2022-05-12T16:03:25Z |
3 people shot at Korean-owned hair salon
Published: May. 12, 2022 at 8:19 AM EDT|Updated: 3 hours ago
DALLAS (KTVT) - Dallas police are investigating a shooting at a Korean-owned hair salon Wednesday afternoon.
Three people were shot but detectives say their injuries are not life-threatening.
According to investigators, a man entered the store, yelled something unintelligible, and opened fire.
The suspect was seen getting into a dark-colored van as he fled the scene.
Dallas police do not believe it was a hate crime incident, but the investigation is continuing.
Copyright 2022 KTVT via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/12/3-people-shot-korean-owned-hair-salon/ | 2022-05-12T16:03:29Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
President Biden is urging elected officials at all levels of government to protect a woman's right to choose. The president issued that statement after the leak of a draft of a Supreme Court opinion that suggests the justices are poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the decision that legalizes abortion in the U.S. The president said, quote, "it will fall on voters to elect pro-choice officials this November. At the federal level, we will need more pro-choice senators and a pro-choice majority in the House to adopt legislation that codifies Roe." He also added "we do not know whether this draft is genuine or whether it reflects the final decision of the court." Outside of the Supreme Court last night, hundreds of people gathered in response to the news.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) Abortion is health care. Abortion is health care.
MARTINEZ: NPR's Sarah McCammon covers reproductive rights. She joined us to talk about it.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: Well, I want to say, first of all, A, that NPR has not independently obtained this document, which is labeled as a first draft. But court watchers say it does appear genuine. Amy Howe is the co-founder of SCOTUSblog, which covers the Supreme Court. She says she sees no reason to doubt this document's authenticity. And she says this kind of leak is highly unusual.
AMY HOWE: I think the justices are going to regard this as an enormous breach. To have this kind of leak, not only of the results but the opinion itself, is extraordinary.
MCCAMMON: And that opinion itself, if the court ultimately issues something similar to this draft, would allow states to severely restrict abortion. It describes Roe v. Wade as, quote, "egregiously wrong from the start." And it says there is no constitutional right to an abortion.
MARTINEZ: So what's the reaction been so far?
MCCAMMON: Well, there's both a reaction to the leak and to the content itself. Now, because it's a leaked draft, groups on both sides are being a bit cautious about their reactions. But this news is certainly reverberating across the political spectrum, and it's very much in line with what a lot of groups on either side of this issue have expected. Steve Aden is with Americans United for Life, which has sought to ban abortion in state legislatures nationwide, and he likes what he's seeing so far.
STEVE ADEN: It means simply that state lawmakers have to get to work to enact strong state laws and a policy to protect life across the country.
MCCAMMON: And from abortion rights advocates, there is a lot of anger and sadness about what they fear will be the court's decision. This comes after months and years, really, of warning against exactly such a potential turn of events.
MARTINEZ: Are abortion rights groups at all hopeful that the Supreme Court's final opinion might be different?
MCCAMMON: I mean, they're stressing that this is a draft and it's a leak, but I'm not overall hearing that kind of optimism. Reproductive rights groups are reminding people that, at least for now, abortion is still legal across the U.S., even if very difficult to obtain in many places. And they're watching to see what the official opinion says. As we've said, this is in line with what a lot of people have predicted from this conservative court, you know, with three justices chosen by former President Trump. I talked to Michelle Colon with the reproductive rights group SHERo Mississippi. That's where this case before the Supreme Court originated. She says abortion is now seriously threatened.
MICHELLE COLON: It's the reality which we have been preparing for. We're not surprised. This will open up a floodgate to many, many of the other standing, you know, laws that have been argued and won at the Supreme Court in regards to freedoms for Americans.
MCCAMMON: And she says this will make abortion access particularly difficult for lower income people and other marginalized groups. But she says reproductive rights groups will try to help patients get abortions through travel or through abortion pills.
MARTINEZ: Now, assuming these reports are correct, what happens next?
MCCAMMON: According to some estimates, more than half of states are expected to ban most or all abortions. And this will become even more a political issue, an issue in the midterm elections, certainly.
MARTINEZ: NPR's Sarah McCammon, thanks a lot.
MCCAMMON: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/the-u-s-supreme-court-appears-ready-to-strike-down-roe-v-wade | 2022-05-12T16:03:31Z |
Astronomers capture 1st image of Milky Way’s huge black hole
WASHINGTON (AP) — The world’s first image of the chaotic supermassive black hole at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy doesn’t portray a voracious cosmic destroyer but what astronomers Thursday called a “gentle giant” on a near-starvation diet.
Astronomers believe nearly all galaxies, including our own, have these giant black holes at their center, where light and matter cannot escape, making it extremely hard to get images of them. Light gets bent and twisted around by gravity as it gets sucked into the abyss along with superheated gas and dust.
The colorized image unveiled Thursday is from the international consortium behind the Event Horizon Telescope, a collection of eight synchronized radio telescopes around the world. Previous efforts to capture a good image found the black hole too jumpy.
“It burbled and gurgled as we looked at it,” the University of Arizona’s Feryal Ozel said.
She described it as a “gentle giant” while announcing the breakthrough along with other astronomers involved in the project. It also confirmed Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity by being precisely the size that Einstein’s equations dictate. This one is about the size of the orbit of Mercury around our sun.
Black holes gobble up galactic material but Ozel said this one is “eating very little.” It’s the equivalent to a person eating a single grain of rice over millions of years, another astronomer said.
Scientists had expected the Milky Way’s black hole to be more violent, but “it turned out to be a gentler, more cooperative black hole than we had simulated,” Ozel said. “We love our black hole.”
“It is the cowardly lion of black holes,” said project scientist Geoffrey C. Bower of Taiwan’s Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Because the black hole “is on a starvation diet” so little material is falling into the center, and that allows astronomers to gaze deeper, Bower said.
The Milky Way black hole is called Sagittarius A(asterisk), near the border of Sagittarius and Scorpius constellations. It is 4 million times more massive than our sun.
This is not the first black hole image. The same group released the first one in 2019 and it was from a galaxy 53 million light-years away that is 1,500 times bigger than the one in our galaxy. The Milky Way black hole is much closer, about 27,000 light-years away. A light year is 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion kilometers).
To get the picture the eight telescopes had to coordinate so closely “in a process similar to everyone shaking hands with everyone else in the room,” said astronomer Vincent Fish of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The project cost nearly $60 million with $28 million coming from the U.S. National Science Foundation.
“What’s more cool than seeing the black hole at the center of our own Milky Way,” said California Institute of Technology’s Katherine Bouman.
___
Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/12/astronomers-capture-1st-image-milky-ways-huge-black-hole/ | 2022-05-12T16:03:36Z |
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
It was the blistering summer of 1992 in Dallas, Texas. Michael Bise had just graduated from college, and he needed a job. He saw an ad in the paper for his local Gap store.
MICHAEL BISE: You know, it was just seasonal sales. I needed something.
SHAPIRO: Bise got the job, but he found something unexpected when he started.
BISE: That very first day, immediately, I was hit with the music.
(SOUNDBITE OF ROZALLA SONG, "LOVE BREAKDOWN")
BISE: Rozalla, "Love Breakdown" - that was the one that got me.
(SOUNDBITE OF ROZALLA SONG, "LOVE BREAKDOWN")
ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
Bise is talking about the music that was playing over the speakers of that Dallas Gap store as the customers shopped. He had an ear for music. He was a DJ in college. But this carefully crafted mix of music was like nothing he'd heard before.
BISE: You know, classic R&B, and then it's followed by modern pop song and then followed by acid jazz and then trip hop or something.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAMB SONG, "COTTONWOOL")
FLORIDO: That music opened up Bise's world, and that first job turned into 15 years at Gap.
BISE: And so it's like, I found a career, but I probably wouldn't have stayed if it hadn't been as fun being there and listening. It was just drudgery. It would not have worked. I still have some of the best memories being in that store and learning how to do it all on my own. I'm serious. Those memories - the music brings all of it over.
SHAPIRO: Bise would collect the paper playlists that were posted in his break room each month and in Gap break rooms all across the country. The mixes were curated by an outside company Gap had hired.
FLORIDO: But to Bise, they were special - not only because the music was good, they also represented what was happening beyond the doors of Gap stores.
BISE: As the years went by, the tapes did seem to reflect what was going on in the country. There was a lot of experimentation at the beginning of the '90s. Then, you could, I mean, literally feel the change. And September 11, 2001, it was very, very somber. And, you know, that's how the country was. We felt it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BELIEVE")
LENNY KRAVITZ: (Singing) I am you, and you are me.
FLORIDO: A career change and a move meant he lost that stash of lists until 2010, when he found...
BISE: In the flap of a folder, there are about 24 Gap playlists.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HEROES")
RONI SIZE AND REPRAZENT: (Singing) I don't know no heroes.
SHAPIRO: The hunt was on. Bise wanted to find every playlist from his years at Gap - 1992 to 2006. He started a blog where he posted the playlists he found and some that he simply remembered.
BISE: In January of 2017, I had an email from a guy in California, and he said, I think I have what you need.
(SOUNDBITE OF RONI SIZE AND REPRAZENT SONG, "HEROES")
FLORIDO: That former employee had playlists from 1993 through 2000. And the responses are still rolling in. Bise only has a few incomplete years of music left to find.
BISE: It's almost like doing a service because I have so many people tell me how much they enjoy it. And so, you know, even if I find 100% of everything I want, I'm always going to continue doing this.
SHAPIRO: Michael Bise, elementary school computer teacher and former Gap employee.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HEROES")
RONI SIZE AND REPRAZENT: (Singing) Shidoobeedoo, beda, bedaii. Shidoobeedoo, da, down da down (ph). I don't know no heroes. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/this-former-gap-employee-is-on-a-quest-to-collect-hundreds-of-in-store-playlists | 2022-05-12T16:03:37Z |
ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
To eastern Ukraine now and the city of Kramatorsk. A Russian offensive in the region continues to drive civilians away. By some estimates, three-quarters of the population has fled. For those who remain, life is a daily struggle. The city is short on food and gas, and the destroyed buildings and frequent explosions remind residents that the Russian military is not far away. NPR's Tim Mak reports from near the front lines of the fighting.
TIM MAK, BYLINE: We were looking at a destroyed residential building when we met Maxim Kornyenko. It was 10 o'clock in the morning, and he had alcohol on his breath. Here was a man who had lost almost everything, pouring his heart out to me and my interpreter.
MAXIM KORNYENKO: (Through interpreter) I'm walking around psychotic. I'm not in a good condition. That life brought us to this.
MAK: He pointed out the shell of the building he used to live in. There's a rug dangling on his old balcony. It was thrown out of his apartment during a missile attack. We stood near trees destroyed by fire in what was once his yard and what remains of his car, burnt to a crisp. Maxim and his mother refuse to leave Kramatorsk. They're now both living in his mother's apartment.
KORNYENKO: (Through interpreter) Half of life, we've been working for this apartment, so how can we abandon it now?
MAK: Adding to the struggle of everyday life is finding enough to eat. Local officials say about 70% of the grocery stores are closed. Those that are open have little food left.
KORNYENKO: (Through interpreter) We eat soup, borscht which my mother cooks. And then once in a while, we get the humanitarian help.
MAK: The aid provided by the local government is hardly enough to survive on.
(CROSSTALK)
MAK: A long line of residents fights for position at a food distribution site in what was once a school. Among the people gossiping, shouting, griping is Elena Dulgig.
ELENA DULGIG: (Speaking Ukrainian).
MAK: Elena and her mother had come by twice before but were unable to get any food. Normally, Elena just sits at home with little to do but worry. She lost her job at a local factory the day after the invasion began in February. The ground fighting is happening a number of miles outside the city, and Elena does not think that Russian ground forces will make it into Kramatorsk itself.
DULGIG: (Speaking Ukrainian).
MAK: "I pray to God every day and pray that everything will be all right," she told us. But most of all, she wants an end to the fighting. She wants peace.
DULGIG: (Speaking Ukrainian).
MAK: Her son is in Kharkiv, another region near the front lines, and she worries about him. She wants the war to end so her grandchildren can come visit. Right now, that's impossible. All day, there are explosions in and around the city. At night, the bombardment is accompanied by sharp flashes of light in the distance.
(SOUNDBITE OF AIR RAID SIRENS)
MAK: We interviewed the mayor of Kramatorsk, Oleksandr Goncharenko (ph), from his bomb shelter as air raid sirens blared outside. You could hear the explosions even from underground, and he says he's becoming emotionally numb to it.
OLEKSANDR GONCHARENKO: In one or two months, nobody from us will get some emotions because of this war.
MAK: It was in this city that Russian missiles landed at the train station, killing 59 people and injuring 104 more, the mayor's office told me. The blasts caused mayhem among evacuees, thousands of whom had gathered to flee the violence in eastern Ukraine. Victoria Goncharenko - no relation to the mayor - was working in her shop just down the street.
VICTORIA GONCHARENKO: (Through interpreter) I saw many dead bodies. Where the rocket hit, there used to be a green tent. Volunteers were giving out tea, coffee and biscuits from there. The tent - and they were covering bodies with it, with the green material. I saw a lot of toys, bloody toys.
MAK: Victoria's shop sells, of all things, tombstones and artificial flowers to be left at graves. But ironically, during the war, business is way down. There are practically no customers left. She's alone with just the moments of that awful event.
V GONCHARENKO: (Through interpreter) It was horrifying. We went down the street over there. The cars were burning, burnt bodies. Seeing all these corpses, it was very scary.
MAK: She says, when the war ends, she wants to rethink her business.
V GONCHARENKO: (Through interpreter) I want to be selling living flowers, maybe bonsai trees, plants, stuff like that.
MAK: She's confident of a Ukrainian victory and the restoration of the city in peacetime. She predicts that when people come back to Kramatorsk, they'll want to see something beautiful.
Tim Mak, NPR News, Ukraine.
(SOUNDBITE OF HIPPIE SABOTAGE'S "OM") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/those-in-kramatorsk-ukraine-are-struggling-as-the-city-runs-out-of-food-and-gas | 2022-05-12T16:03:43Z |
Baby formula shortage reaches ‘crisis’ level in some places
(CNN) - Across the U.S., parents are having trouble feeding their infants.
The problem is a shortage of baby formula available for sale. In some places, the shortage has become a crisis.
“It’s not just a problem. It’s a crisis, and it’s a crisis that’s only getting worse,” said Laura Modi, co-founder and CEO of organic baby formula company Bobbie.
A nationwide shortage of baby formula has some parents struggling to feed their infants.
“Our babies literally do not have the formula that they need to survive,” mother Carrie Fleming said.
In at least eight states - Texas, Tennessee, Montana, West Virginia, Nevada, Arizona, Kansas and Delaware - formula is more than half out of stock.
The issues are supply chain problems and a February recall and shutdown at an Abbott Nutrition plant in Michigan.
“When two formula companies own the majority of the market and one of them has a recall, we should not be questioning how do we continue to feed babies,” Modi said.
Abbott said it could take 10 weeks to get the supply back to normal.
First, it needs Food and Drug Administration approval to restart production.
“You need to go inspect tomorrow, today, and let’s get these plants up in operations,” said Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois.
Members of both parties said they’re concerned.
In a statement, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell blames the Biden administration, saying they were sluggish to respond to the problem.
If you’re trying to feed your baby, doctors say don’t make formula at home or stretch out your supply. Those tactics could lead to poor nutrition.
Experts say you might consider switching brands, trying to restart lactation or asking your pediatrician about using cow’s milk or toddler formula.
“In the long term, we need to make sure we’re finding solutions, so we’re not in this crisis again,” Modi said.
“How do we not have a back-up plan to make sure this never happens? Like, what are we going to do to help get our babies fed?” Fleming asked.
Copyright 2022 CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/12/baby-formula-shortage-reaches-crisis-level-some-places/ | 2022-05-12T16:03:43Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
The Supreme Court news may end up influencing voters ahead of the November midterms. In a leaked draft opinion written by conservative Justice Samuel Alito and published in Politico, a majority of the court declares Roe should be overruled. Meanwhile, 13 states are holding primaries this month, and voters in Ohio and Indiana headed to the polls today for statewide primaries. Key congressional races are up for grabs. I spoke with NPR's senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro earlier this morning.
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: Well, it really has the potential to be an earthquake in this election. I mean, we're likely to see mass protests from women and men who are in favor of abortion rights. It could fire them up to vote in a year when Democrats are facing enormous headwinds. This is also going to raise the pressure on Democratic congressional leaders to get rid of the filibuster and pass legislation that codifies abortion rights in this country. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer released a statement last night saying the conservative justices have lied to the American people because, during their confirmation hearings, they repeatedly said that Roe v. Wade is precedent and the law of the land. Republicans, by the way, have used the culture war issues to fire up their base. No issue's more central to that than abortion. But our latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll - it's worth pointing out - found that Democrats had an 11-point advantage on the question of which party Americans think is better at dealing with abortion as an issue. And an ABC News poll out this week also had similar numbers. So not an outlier there.
MARTINEZ: All right, now to Ohio. What's going on with the key Senate races there?
MONTANARO: Yeah, there's a race to replace Republican Senator Rob Portman, who's retiring. Trump has endorsed J.D. Vance over several others who are trying hard for Trump's endorsement. Vance wrote the book "Hillbilly Elegy." But it was a surprise that Trump did this because Vance had been hotly critical of Trump before he became president. Vance has gotten a bump in the polls, but there are lots of undecided voters. Trump's endorsement did not, by the way, go down exactly well with his base. Before it, the top contenders were seen as state treasurer Josh Mandel and investment banker Mike Gibbons. It's been a pretty nasty fight, with Mandel and Gibbons nearly getting into a fistfight, literally, at a debate not that long ago.
MARTINEZ: I saw that. I saw that.
MONTANARO: (Laughter).
MARTINEZ: What about - yeah, it was wild. What about the Democrats, then? Do they have a shot in this race?
MONTANARO: Well, Ohio's a bit of a longer shot for Democrats than some other places, but they hope that this GOP tension can potentially open up a path for their likely nominee, Congressman Tim Ryan. He's got a pretty centrist profile in Washington. And remember - Ohio used to be a swing state, but it's just not the case anymore. It's trended more Republican, and that is a sign of just where the politics are in this state. When Ryan was asked if he wanted Biden to campaign with him, President Biden to campaign with him, he said that he's running his own race.
MARTINEZ: All right. Now, we mentioned Donald Trump's endorsements. Where else are you watching where his backing might matter?
MONTANARO: Well, this month, some pretty key races. We're looking at Pennsylvania and North Carolina, where there are some key Senate races. In Georgia, which is a hotbed of political activity, there's a governor's race and secretary of state race, and there, Trump has endorsed challengers to Republican incumbents, and those challengers have all backed his election lies and attempts to overturn the presidential election there. So lots to watch in the coming month, and it's really going to be a critical month as we kick off these primary elections.
MARTINEZ: That's NPR's Domenico Montanaro. Domenico, thanks.
MONTANARO: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/voters-in-13-states-head-to-the-polls-in-may-starting-with-ohio-and-indiana | 2022-05-12T16:03:49Z |
CAUGHT ON CAMERA: Good Samaritans help driver having medical emergency
BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. (CNN) - Authorities are hoping to identify and honor several people that sprang into action to help a driver that was suffering a medical emergency.
It happened May 5 in Boynton Beach, Florida.
Video shows a group of people swarming a car that was rolling through an intersection.
Together they were able to get into the car and pull it to safety at a nearby gas station, where the driver received medical attention.
The Boynton Beach Police Department released the video in the hopes of identifying all the strangers that aided the woman. They hope to bring them back together at the police department to recognize them and meet the woman they rescued.
Police posted an update to Twitter on Wednesday night, saying they have been in touch with several people seen in the video.
The driver later spoke about what happened. She said she felt dizzy and tried to pull over to a gas station but started to convulse before hitting a curb. She didn’t wake up until the next day.
Copyright 2022 CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/12/caught-camera-good-samaritans-help-driver-having-medical-emergency/ | 2022-05-12T16:03:50Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
Marvel's "Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness" opens in theaters this week.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS")
BENEDICT WONG: (As Wong) You opened a doorway between universes. And we don't know who or what will walk through it.
MARTINEZ: No, we don't. It's one of a bunch of sequels coming out this year. We're getting reprises of "Jurassic World," "Top Gun," "Hocus Pocus," "Downton Abbey," "Minions" and a lot more. So what makes a sequel good? Vulture went back in time to try and answer that question recently and came back with a ranking of the 101 best movie sequels ever made. TV and film critic Matt Zoller Seitz contributed to that list. He joins us now on Skype. So Matt, what would you say to a cynic who only sees sequels as a way for Hollywood to cash in and make some bucks?
MATT ZOLLER SEITZ: Well, a lot of the time, that is all that it is, but not always. I mean, I always like to think of it as, there can be multiple versions of a pop song. And there can be sequels to a pop song. And why can't there be that to movies? If there can be multiple novels in a series, why not movies? And at best, it's a creative experiment. Like, we can just redo the thing that was a success. Or we can try to add something to it. We can try to criticize it. We can reflect back on itself. And that's what the best sequels do.
MARTINEZ: All right. So what does make a sequel good?
SEITZ: I think it has to - first of all, it has that commercial imperative where it's supposed to give people kind of the experience that they had the first time, because that's the whole point of the exercise. It made money, and they want to make money again. But you also want to add something new. You want to, you know - you add new characters. You open up the universe. Maybe you introduce a note that kind of questions what you thought you knew. Like, I think "The Matrix" sequels do that very well. And of course, there's that franchise-building thing. But I think, at its best, in a movie like, say, "Evil Dead II," you can do a lot more. You can kind of remake a drama as a comedy. You can make it kind of a metafictional reflection on what makes a sequel, which I think "Matrix Resurrections" did very well. And then there's also a thing called legacyquels, where you have a reboot, essentially, with a bunch of new characters in the same universe. But then they encounter people from the first series of movies who act as kind of mentor figures.
MARTINEZ: All right. So those are a couple of examples of films that did this well. But what about some movies or franchises that did this badly?
SEITZ: (Laughter) Oh, my goodness. Well, I think a lot of the...
MARTINEZ: The list is long, I can imagine.
SEITZ: I think a lot of the slasher movies from the '80s got very repetitive. And that was my generation. And I eagerly went to all the new "Friday The 13th" and "Nightmare On Elm Street." And there were a few that were pretty good. Like, I thought the fifth "Nightmare" was excellent. But a lot of times, you do just get, like, the question of - why are they going back to the same summer camp to get hacked up? - becomes a plausibility issue (laughter). When you're starting to question the plausibility of one of these movies, it's in trouble. But I think, at its best - you know, I think the "Jurassic Park" series, which has a new one opening this year, does a great job of building plausibility concerns right into the story. They actually have characters saying, why have we not shut down the island? Why are we still letting people go into the - go to the island with dinosaurs where they have been eaten before?
(LAUGHTER)
MARTINEZ: Any sequels coming out soon that you're really looking forward to?
SEITZ: Well, you know, the "Doctor Strange" movie I'm actually looking forward to. I've - I go to see all the Marvel films with my kids. But this one is special because Sam Raimi directed it. And he's somebody who, I think, has done some of his very best work as an artist in the superhero genre with "Darkman" and three Spider-Man movies. And this is somebody who really, really knows how to build a sequence and how to have fun. And I'm glad he's back, you know? He's a giant. He hasn't directed in, I think, over a decade now.
MARTINEZ: Matt Zoller Seitz is a TV and film critic for New York Magazine. He joined us via Skype. Matt, thanks a lot.
SEITZ: I really appreciate it. Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF AMBIENT JAZZ ENSEMBLE'S "ELEVEN DAYS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/what-makes-a-good-movie-sequel | 2022-05-12T16:03:55Z |
Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas surprises every employee with $5,000 bonus
LAS VEGAS (Gray News) - The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas surprised all its 5,400 employees with a $5,000 bonus at an employee appreciation and awards buffet Wednesday.
Company representatives for the luxury resort casino and hotel said the bonuses total more than $27 million.
Resort President and CEO Bill McBeath made the announcement on stage, followed by a confetti cannon shooting into the crowd of cheering employees.
The audience of employees had been holding their breath to find out which lucky employee would be gifted the $5,000 bonus – but McBeath shocked them when he said, “Congratulations to… every one of you!”
McBeath credited the employees with maintaining “a youthful, exuberant brand” while working through the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the luncheon, two lucky employees were also gifted vacations to San Diego and Hawaii – Staci Stafford, a housekeeping worker trainer, and Samira Harbali, a server at the resort.
Blackstone, the New York-based private equity firm, owns the approximately 3,000-room, two-tower Cosmopolitan property. According to the Associated Press, Blackstone plans in coming weeks to complete a $1.6 billion sale of property operations to casino giant MGM Resorts International.
In an email, Tyler Henritze, head of strategic investments for Blackstone Real Estate, said, “We are incredibly proud of what we accomplished at The Cosmopolitan under our ownership to create the most dynamic destination on the Las Vegas Strip. We know that none of that would have been possible without the hard work and dedication of the resort’s amazing employees, and we are thrilled to recognize those contributions.”
The Cosmopolitan opened on Dec. 15, 2010 and is located just south of the Bellagio on the west side of Las Vegas Boulevard.
Copyright 2022 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/12/cosmopolitan-las-vegas-surprises-every-employee-with-5000-bonus/ | 2022-05-12T16:03:56Z |
ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
Nina Totenberg has covered the court for decades and knows it better than anyone. And she's here now to walk us through what happened. Hi, Nina.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: Hi there.
FLORIDO: Nina, Chief Justice John Roberts weighed in on the leaked draft today. What did he say?
TOTENBERG: Well, he confirmed the authenticity of the draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, though Roberts notes it does not represent the court's final position or even the final position of any justice. He said this was a singular betrayal of the court's confidences, and he said he's ordered the court martial to conduct an investigation to find out who's responsible.
Now, as luck would have it, I had a long-scheduled interview today with Justice Stephen Breyer at the Federal Judges Association meeting. And, of course, I asked him about all of this. I got bupkis, zilch, nada. So I think it's likely from here on, whatever the court does about this behind the scenes - and I think its options are pretty limited - whatever they do, we will not know about it.
FLORIDO: Well, as you mentioned, they presumably would like to find out who did this. They're investigating it. How many people in the court had access to this document?
TOTENBERG: Well, compared to the Pentagon, not a lot, but enough. In addition to the justices, there are some 37 law clerks plus professional staff, police and all the folks who maintain the building. So if someone just took a copy or printed out a copy and sent it anonymously to Politico, it could be very tough to figure out who did this. And the marshal's office isn't an investigative service. It's a protective service.
And then there's the question of how to proceed from here. I suppose the chief might suggest to his colleagues that they each designate a single law clerk and limit future drafts, at least in this case, to those nine clerks, but that's not how most of these chambers function. The law clerks are the justices' sounding boards, debaters. And I'm not at all sure that they would agree to that.
FLORIDO: Well, the legal world more broadly seems very upset by this leak, too. Why is this such a big deal?
TOTENBERG: Because it's a huge breach of trust. The justices operate like nine tiny little law firms, and they respect each other's confidences, and they trust not only their clerks, but other justices' clerks as well. This is a total betrayal, sort of like a partner in a marriage cheating on the other partner, except that it's never, ever happened like this before, at least going back over 100 years. Yes, there have been tiny leaks, like about a changed vote, for instance, but even those leaks you can count on one hand. This was an entire draft opinion, 98 pages, 118 footnotes with seeds planted all over the place to undo other precedents.
FLORIDO: Well, according to Politico, all three of President Trump's nominees to the court seemed inclined to sign on to this draft opinion. So what are we to make of the fact that this draft opinion reverses a half century of law?
TOTENBERG: You know that confirmation hearings have devolved into an exercise in futility, for the most part. Some nominees really don't tell you much, but I think it's fair to say that some other nominees have walked the line less artfully, to the point of being a bit misleading. Here, for example, is then-judge Kavanaugh answering a question about Roe and the court's other opinions on abortion.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BRETT KAVANAUGH: Senator, I said that it's settled as a precedent of the Supreme Court. And one of the important things to keep in mind about Roe v. Wade is that it has been reaffirmed many times over the past 45 years.
TOTENBERG: And then there was then-judge Gorsuch, who, in a book he wrote about assisted suicide, said that the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong. Senator Durbin asked him how he could square that statement with legal abortion.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
NEIL GORSUCH: The Supreme Court of the United States has held in Roe vs. Wade that a fetus is not a person for purposes of the 14th Amendment.
DICK DURBIN: Do you accept that?
GORSUCH: That's the law of the land. I accept the law of the land, Senator. Yes.
TOTENBERG: And here's then-judge Barrett at her confirmation hearing.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
AMY CONEY BARRETT: I don't have any agenda to try to overrule Casey. I have an agenda to stick to the rule of law and decide cases as they come.
TOTENBERG: So call it political, call it something else, but what this portends is not just an adjustment at the court, I think, but a seismic shift and a perhaps a seismic shift in other ways as well.
FLORIDO: NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg. Thanks, Nina.
TOTENBERG: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-03/what-supreme-court-justices-have-said-about-roe-v-wade-and-the-draft-opinion-leak | 2022-05-12T16:04:01Z |
Grocery prices spike, breakfast items hit hard
Published: May. 12, 2022 at 11:57 AM EDT|Updated: 7 minutes ago
(CNN) - The cost of groceries is enough to give many Americans heartburn – or at least burn a hole in the wallet.
Food prices shot up nearly 9.5% last month compared to April 2021. That’s the biggest annual hike in 41 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Breakfast is the meal getting hit especially hard.
Eggs are over 22% more expensive, due in large part to a shortage caused by an infectious Avian Flu, but margarine, milk, bacon and coffee also saw price increases.
Consumers are also feeling the pinch when they go out to eat. Menu prices rose 7.2% over the past 12 months.
Copyright 2022 CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/12/grocery-prices-spike-breakfast-items-hit-hard/ | 2022-05-12T16:04:03Z |
Ron Carter is one of the most prolific and influential bassists in jazz history. During his six-decade career, he has recorded more than 2,000 records, and he has no plan on slowing down.
"Age has not made me think slower," Carter says. And it's not made me refuse gigs. What it's made me do is be thankful I got this far playing an instrument with four strings."
Next Tuesday, May 10, For the Love of Ron Carter and Friends will take place at Carnegie Hall - which is a one-night 85th birthday celebration. Carter will lead three different bands performing highlights from his career.
The Most Important Bass Player
Born in Ferndale, Michigan in 1937, Carter started to play the cello at the age of 10, but switched to bass in high school because he claims opportunities were limited for Black musicians to play classical music. He studied at the Eastman School of Music, then went on to get his master's degree at the Manhattan School of Music. By the time he was 25, he was one of the most sought-after sidemen in jazz.
Carter's most historic recordings came in the 1960s as the bassist in the second great Miles Davis Quintet. He says the band – with Miles Davis on trumpet, George Coleman and then Wayne Shorter on saxophone, Herbie Hancock on piano, and Tony Williamson on drums — never rehearsed before recording.
"God gave Miles the title of Head Clinician at this laboratory," Carter recalls. "And his job was to bring in these various chemicals night in and night out, and see what these remaining four guys in this group—what kind of combinations would they find of these explosive devices he brought to the gig, and what kind of fun could he have trying to keep up."
Each night when Carter would leave a gig with the Miles Davis Quintet, he'd review the session.
"I'd look back and say now, 'How did I help these guys play better?' And 'how could I make me be better as I got them better?' Those are my views," he says. "And to this day, that's still how I feel when I'm playing a gig: That I helped these people who I'm playing with get better because I'm playing with them."
And Carter has certainly helped a lot of musicians get better. Bassist Stanley Clarke says in the last 50 years, Carter has been "the most important bass player." Before Clarke became famous as a founding member of Chick Corea's Return to Forever band, he says he learned by listening to Carter.
"I remember as a young kid, I used to get his records," Clarke recalls. "I could tell he was very, very professional because the consistency was there from record to record to record: his sound, his ability, and then his flow."
Giovanni Russonello, who writes about Jazz for the New York Times, says Carter has left as big a footprint in the music as any musician, let alone bassists.
"When I think of Ron Carter, I think of this incredible ability to be sure-footed everywhere, but also sound almost like a plasma, like some undefinable, mutable substance," he said. "Because his bass line sound endlessly fascinating, and full of ideas. And on the move."
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/85-year-old-bassist-ron-carter-has-no-plans-on-slowing-down | 2022-05-12T16:04:07Z |
Louisiana debates murder charge for women who get abortions
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana’s House of Representatives, venturing farther against abortion than lawmakers in any other state, is debating a bill to make women who end their pregnancies subject to criminal homicide prosecutions.
Republican Rep. Danny McCormick pushed for a House floor debate on his bill Thursday afternoon despite a crescendo of opposition from traditional supporters of abortion rights and longtime foes of legal abortion. Louisiana’s anti-abortion governor said he’d veto it, and Louisiana Right to Life and the Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops are against it.
“To suggest that a woman would be jailed for an abortion is simply absurd,” Gov. John Bel Edwards, a devout Catholic and a Democrat who has long broken with his party on the abortion issue, said in a news release Wednesday.
“Our longstanding policy is that abortion-vulnerable women should not be treated as criminals,” Louisiana Right to Life said in a statement.
The Catholic bishops said they are “unequivocally” opposed to the bill. And the National Right to Life Committee on Thursday issued an “open letter to the nation’s state legislators” that didn’t mention the Louisiana bill specifically, but said “any measure seeking to criminalize or punish women is not pro-life and we stand firmly opposed to such efforts.”
McCormick disagrees, saying a woman who has an abortion should be in the same legal position as a woman who takes the life of a child after birth. “When I give equal protection to the unborn, that’s the possibility,” he said in a Wednesday evening phone interview.
McCormick’s bill has come under high scrutiny in light of last week’s leak of a draft of a U.S. Supreme Court opinion indicating the high court is preparing to overturn decisions upholding a constitutional right to abortion.
There’s no indication yet that lawmakers in other states are taking up similar legislation. In Idaho, Republican state Rep. Heather Scott has proposed prosecuting women who get abortions, but a committee chairman said Friday he would not allow it. “There are still reasonable people in the Legislature who are going to ensure that extreme bills like that are not going to get a hearing,” Rep. Brent Crane said.
“In my committee, I’m not going to hear that bill that puts a woman on trial for murder. If you’ll take that portion of the bill out, if you’ll put the doctor on trial for murder, which trues up exactly with what we already have in Idaho statutes, then we can talk about having a hearing on your bill,” Crane said on Idaho Public Television.
McCormick introduced his bill in March in an attempt to end abortion regardless of what any court does.
In addition to rewriting homicide statutes to include abortion, it declares that any federal law, regulation or court ruling that allows abortion is void and that any judge who blocks enforcement of the bill’s provisions could be impeached.
Members of the committee that advanced the bill last week expressed doubt about its constitutionality. Edwards called it “patently unconstitutional.”
Edwards joined critics of the bill saying it criminalizes some types of contraception and parts of the in vitro fertilization process. McCormick on Thursday said forms of contraception that don’t destroy a fertilized egg would not be affected. And he disputes that the bill would newly criminalize some aspects of in vitro fertilization, pointing to state law that already grants rights to an “in vitro fertilized human ovum.”
Anti-abortion legislation usually passes easily in Louisiana’s Legislature but the emphatic opposition from some anti-abortion stalwarts could bolster attempts to derail the measure or heavily amend it.
Louisiana already has laws on the books criminalizing abortion, including a “trigger law” ensuring that it will be a crime if the Supreme Court reverses the Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 ruling establishing abortion rights. The statutes appear to exempt women from prosecution, although some abortion rights advocates have suggested they need tightening.
McCormick said the existing laws are inadequate to give fetuses equal protection under law. “This is a debate we need to have in Louisiana,” he said. “There are good people on both sides of the debate.”
___
Associated Press reporter Holly Ramer contributed to this report from Concord, New Hampshire.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/12/louisiana-debates-murder-charge-women-who-get-abortions/ | 2022-05-12T16:04:10Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
Good morning. I'm A Martinez.
It's happened to all of us - strange noises in a part of the house that should be quiet. At night, it can be unsettling, downright scary. Recently, a family in Bellevue, Neb., heard something upstairs. Fearing they might be in the midst of a burglary, they called 911. When police arrive and checked upstairs, they found the suspect. It was the family's Roomba vacuum just rolling around. They thought they were getting cleaned out. Instead, they were getting cleaned up.
It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/a-family-in-nebraska-called-police-after-they-heard-a-noise-upstairs | 2022-05-12T16:04:13Z |
Mega Millions mistake: NY Lottery temporarily pauses payments after ‘human error’
NEW YORK (WABC) - Mega Millions temporarily suspended prize payments after a mega mistake during a drawing in New York.
It happened Tuesday night when the host mistakenly called the wrong number.
It looked like any other televised Mega Millions drawing with an $86 million jackpot at stake. The five winning numbers were drawn normally.
But a closer look revealed instead of the six that was announced, the actual number is a nine, the digit on the ping-pong ball underlined to avoid confusion.
Not only did announcer John Crow repeat the error, the six was displayed graphically onscreen.
“I would definitely be mad. I would definitely be mad. But I don’t know how they’re going to work that out,” lottery player Ingrid Campbell said.
That is the question. Even Wednesday’s New York Lottery printout of winning numbers lists six as the Mega Ball, though the official page of the multistate lottery correctly lists nine.
So do players with a Mega Ball of six have any recourse?
Not really, said attorney Matthew Eyet, because of a regulation on the books that says, “The correct numbers are the ones that are drawn, not the numbers that were reported. And so they anticipated this as a possibility, probably because they thought a clerical error would occur in just transcribing what the number was, not that the announcer would call out the wrong number. But, be that as it may, it still, in my opinion, would apply in this case.”
There were no grand prize winners with either six or nine as the Mega Ball.
In New York, there were two $10,000 prizes with a six. There were 30,000 other players with smaller jackpots totaling nearly $130,000.
Would the state absorb that cost? Possibly, Eyet said.
“It’s not good for the game from the state’s perspective if people are going around feeling slighted by the state,” he said. “So yeah, they could absolutely pay out those people if they wanted.”
In a statement, New York Lottery cited human error, adding the lottery has temporarily suspended prize payments for all Mega Millions tickets and all Mega Millions players should hold on to their tickets for the May 10 drawing until the issue is resolved.
Mega Millions is played in 45 states plus the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Copyright 2022 WABC via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/12/mega-millions-mistake-ny-lottery-temporarily-pauses-payments-after-human-error/ | 2022-05-12T16:04:17Z |
ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
Overturning Roe v. Wade has been arguably the single most animating cause among conservatives in America for decades. Now a leaked draft Supreme Court opinion has made it apparent that goal is close to reality. NPR's Deepa Shivaram reports on how the issue of abortion came to define Republican politics.
DEEPA SHIVARAM, BYLINE: Abortion wasn't always as politically charged as it is today. Even after the Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade in 1973, there were Democratic and Republican candidates against abortion for a long time, in part to appeal to Catholic voters. Then in 1976, Republicans adopted an anti-abortion stance in their party platform, and the GOP became this political vehicle for the movement as a more vocal Christian right started to rise. Here's Ronald Reagan at the March for Life rally in 1988.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RONALD REAGAN: We're told about a woman's right to control her own body. But doesn't the unborn child have a higher right? And that is to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
SHIVARAM: Leaders like Reagan helped to boost Republicans as a party of, quote, "family values." But over the next two decades, more radical, socially conservative figures started putting more pressure on the party.
JENNIFER HOLLAND: Really see the power of the anti-abortion movement to not only be a part of the party, but to really remake a party and demand sort of political uniformity on this issue.
SHIVARAM: That's Jennifer Holland. She's a scholar on the anti-abortion movement and a professor at the University of Oklahoma.
HOLLAND: They had to convince a whole host of people that this was not only political, but the most important political issue that there is, and that everything came second to opposing abortion.
SHIVARAM: She says that movement leaders didn't want elected officials to just believe that abortion was immoral. They wanted them to act on it. Someone who took up that call? Pat Buchanan. Here he is in 1996 during his campaign for president.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PAT BUCHANAN: If I'm nominated, I will choose a pro-life Republican running mate. I will appoint justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade. And I will be the most pro-life president in the history of the United States of America, bar none.
SHIVARAM: In the decades since, Republicans have heavily relied on voters who are staunchly opposed to abortion rights, like white evangelical Christians. It's partly how Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, with his pledge to appoint anti-abortion rights justices to the court.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DONALD TRUMP: The justices that I am going to appoint - and I've named 20 of them - the justices that I'm going to appoint will be pro-life. They will have a conservative bent.
SHIVARAM: At the same time, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell put the federal judiciary at the top of his agenda, refusing a hearing on President Obama's nominee for a vacant Supreme Court seat until the 2016 election was finished, and then in 2020, moving quickly to confirm the third of Trump's Supreme Court picks before the election. Those justices appear set to provide the votes to overturn Roe in the coming weeks.
But even if they get this victory, the anti-abortion movement's ultimate goal is to implement a nationwide ban on abortions. They've gotten one step closer to that with this draft opinion from the Supreme Court, but politically, it could have some consequences. Here's Paul Djupe, a professor of religion and politics at Denison University.
PAUL DJUPE: The tension that Roe v. Wade has created for them was really beneficial. So once that tension is released and states are allowed to do it, they lose the ability to mobilize based on abortion tensions with the federal government.
SHIVARAM: Plus, it could be politically difficult for Republicans to go further on curtailing abortion rights. Nationally, public opinion shows a majority of Americans don't support a full ban on abortion.
Deepa Shivaram, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/abortion-wasnt-always-the-politically-charged-issue-it-is-today | 2022-05-12T16:04:20Z |
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.wvva.com/2022/05/12/mercedes-tells-owners-292k-vehicles-stop-driving-them/ | 2022-05-12T16:04:24Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
A leaked draft decision from the Supreme Court suggests Roe vs. Wade will be overturned. While waiting for the court to officially release its decision, advocates and lawmakers are preparing for an end to legal abortion in much of the nation. Abortions would likely be significantly harder to get in states like Mississippi. Meanwhile, states like California are working to become national havens for abortion rights. To talk about the implications, we're joined by reporters Brittany Brown in Jackson, Miss., with the Gulf States Newsroom, and Danielle Venton from KQED in San Francisco. Welcome to you both.
BRITTANY BROWN, BYLINE: Thank you.
DANIELLE VENTON, BYLINE: Hello.
FADEL: So, Brittany, let's start with you. You were at the clinic at the center of this case yesterday - Mississippi's only abortion clinic. What did you see and hear there?
BROWN: It was unusually quiet at the Jackson Women's Health Organization yesterday. The clinic, which is also known as the Pink House, normally sees abortion rights opponents and protesters outside. But yesterday it was quiet. There were mostly journalists, alongside three or four clinic escorts, known as the Pink House Defenders. And they're a group of volunteers who help patients seeking abortions enter and exit the clinic safely and discreetly.
Derenda Hancock has been a Pink House Defender for nine years now and says abortion rights advocates have been bracing themselves for more restrictions. The Supreme Court leak itself was a surprise, but the draft decision was not. She says it left her numb.
DERENDA HANCOCK: Feelings - don't have any. Like I said, even when you're prepared for this, when you hear it, it's just pretty much gut-wrenching.
FADEL: What about people who oppose abortion rights in Mississippi? What did you hear from them?
BROWN: There were only two abortion rights opponents outside the Pink House yesterday, which is unusual because there's normally a larger crowd out. And I spoke to Omarr Peters with Students for Life of America. He's a coordinator with high school and college students across Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. And he says he is cautiously optimistic about the future of abortion.
OMARR PETERS: I am a pro-life male. I'm an African American. And I just want to see us do better as a community when it comes to life.
FADEL: And what about lawmakers in Mississippi? This is a conservative state. What are they saying about this likely decision?
BROWN: Yeah. So Mississippi is a Republican stronghold state. And most of our leaders, like Governor Tate Reeves, the lieutenant governor and speaker of the House, have all said the same thing. They're not pleased with the Supreme Court leak, but they agree with the impending decision. They've maintained their anti-abortion stance. And Mississippi and Louisiana are a few of many Southern states with so-called trigger laws in place, meaning if Roe vs. Wade is overturned, abortions will automatically be banned in almost all cases.
FADEL: OK. So let's bring in Danielle Venton. Danielle, you're in California. When this leaked decision came out, how did people react there?
VENTON: There was a lot of anger, some disbelief, even if this was, to some extent, expected. Of course, plenty of people in California oppose abortion. But last night, among the more than a thousand people gathered at a rally in San Francisco, it was the voices of those supporting abortion rights that were the strongest.
MICHELLE WHITNEY: I'm so proud to be in California at this time and just so lucky.
TONY ASARO: The attack against women is so blatant and disgusting.
CAROLINE HANNAN: It's not enough to just rest on that comfort and to allow people to be slammed back to the Dark Ages.
VENTON: And that was Michelle Whitney (ph), Tony Asaro and Caroline Hannan (ph), all San Francisco residents.
FADEL: Now, that was what regular people were saying. What have state officials said and done since the leak?
VENTON: Well, California Governor Gavin Newsom on Monday night said in a statement, California will not sit back, and that the state was going to fight like hell. So Newsom and leaders in the state legislature are proposing an amendment to the state constitution that would ensure the right to an abortion and make California what some lawmakers call a reproductive freedom state. That amendment would go before both the legislature and the public for a vote.
FADEL: A reproductive freedom state - so what does that actually mean?
VENTON: Well, that includes things like legal protections for patients and clinicians, a right to access, a right to choose a provider, to privacy and confidentiality. Lawmakers and, in particular, the Legislative Women's Caucus are advancing 13 different bills. These bills do things like drop copays for abortions and direct more funds to support clinics.
Here's one of the caucus leaders, State Senator Nancy Skinner.
NANCY SKINNER: We will also welcome those from other states. We have let them know they will be safe here. They will be protected. And we'll do everything we can to allow them to exercise their reproductive freedom.
FADEL: OK. So that's at the state level. Are you seeing action at the local level, too?
VENTON: Yeah. I listened in on a board of supervisors meeting for Santa Clara County yesterday, where they voted unanimously to approve a $3 million grant for a local Planned Parenthood clinic. This is what Supervisor Cindy Chavez said just before calling for the vote.
CINDY CHAVEZ: These are really dark times and will be very dark times, especially for poor women in this country. Our action will lighten those times just a little bit and hopefully turn the tide back again.
VENTON: And that money will go towards medical treatment, counseling, lab testing and staff training.
FADEL: Now, I want to turn back to Brittany for a moment. What are abortion rights advocates doing in the meantime in Mississippi while abortions are still legal?
BROWN: They're still providing abortions at the Pink House right now because, so far, the law hasn't changed in Mississippi. Now organizations that fund abortions and help pregnant people cross state lines to access abortions, like the Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund and Access Reproductive Care Southeast - are raising money and seeking volunteers to help people travel to reproductive freedom states, like California, Colorado and others, for access to abortions.
In fact, Diane Derzis, the CEO of the Pink House, says they're planning to open other Pink Houses in New Mexico next month that would see Mississippi patients.
FADEL: OK. That's Brittany Brown in Jackson, Miss., with the Gulf States Newsroom. And we also heard from Danielle Venton with member station KQED in San Francisco. Thank you to you both.
BROWN: You're welcome.
VENTON: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/advocates-and-lawmakers-prepare-for-an-end-to-legal-abortion-in-much-of-the-nation | 2022-05-12T16:04:26Z |
Naomi Judd died of self-inflicted wound, family says
NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) — Ashley Judd encouraged people to seek help for their mental health and talked about her grieving process after the loss of her mother, country star Naomi Judd.
In an interview aired on “Good Morning America” on Thursday, the movie star said she wanted to address her mother’s struggle with depression. Judd said she was with her mother at her home in Tennessee on the day Naomi died on April 30.
Judd also encouraged anyone who was having thoughts of harming themselves to reach out to The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
Naomi Judd died at the age of 76, a day before she was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame with her duo partner and daughter Wynonna Judd. In a statement provided to The Associated Press, the family said they had lost her to “the disease of mental illness.”
“When we’re talking about mental illness, it’s very important, and to be clear and to make the distinction between our loved one and the disease,” Judd said in the interview. “It lies. It’s savage. And, you know, my mother, our mother, couldn’t hang on until she was inducted into the Hall of Fame by her peers. I mean, that is the level of catastrophe of what was going on inside of her because the barrier between — the regard in which they held her couldn’t penetrate into her heart. And the lie that the disease told her was so convincing.”
Ashley Judd said that her mother shot herself with a gun, but asked for privacy on other details of the death. Naomi Judd wrote openly about her depression and anxiety in her memoir “River of Time” and daughter Ashley said it was because of this that she cherished every moment she spent with her mother.
“I really accepted the love my mother was capable of giving me because I knew she was fragile,” Judd said. “So when I walked around the back of their house and came in the kitchen door and she said, ‘There’s my darling, there’s my baby.’ And she lit up. I savored those moments.”
Naomi and Wynonna Judd scored 14 No. 1 songs in a career that spanned nearly three decades. The red-headed duo combined the traditional Appalachian sounds of bluegrass with polished pop stylings, scoring hit after hit in the 1980s. Wynonna led the duo with her powerful vocals, while Naomi provided harmonies and stylish looks on stage.
The Judds released six studio albums and an EP between 1984 and 1991 and won nine Country Music Association Awards and seven from the Academy of Country Music. They earned a total of five Grammy Awards together on hits like “Why Not Me” and “Give A Little Love,” and Naomi earned a sixth Grammy for writing “Love Can Build a Bridge.”
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/12/naomi-judd-died-self-inflicted-wound-family-says/ | 2022-05-12T16:04:30Z |
Stockholm-born actor Alexander Skarsgård describes himself as "very Swedish."
"I don't scream a lot. I don't like arguments, I don't like fights," he says. "I'm quite a mellow guy."
So he had to work against his natural tendencies for his latest movie, The Northman, a violent epic set about 1,000 years ago. His character is a Viking berserker who's on a quest to avenge his father's murder. Skarsgård says getting into the film's battle scenes allowed him to draw on a side of himself he rarely accesses.
"In a way, it was quite thrilling and exciting to shoot those scenes because I definitely got to tap into something I don't tap into very often," he says. "It was quite cathartic."
There was just one problem with all the yelling he had to do for the film: "I basically didn't have a voice for seven months because ... there's probably 15, 20 [times] in the movie in which my character kind of has to crank it up to 11. And I guess I didn't use my diaphragm correctly because ... my voice was completely gone."
Skarsgård began his acting career as a child in Sweden, but pulled back as a teenager, in part because he was uncomfortable with the attention. He later returned to it, and became known worldwide after landing a role in the HBO series True Blood, and won an Emmy, a Golden Globe and a SAG Award for his role as an abusive husband in Big Little Lies. More recently, he played a tech billionaire in the latest season of HBO's Succession. His father, Stellan Skarsgård, is a prominent actor who has appeared in movies, stage and TV since the 1960s.
Interview highlights
On the immersive experience of shooting The Northman (directed by Robert Eggers)
Rob is all about historical accuracy and authenticity. So the village was built ... the way a village would have been built a thousand years ago. So my job was almost halfway done when I came to set because just stepping into those shoes and onto that set was such an immersive experience. ....
[Eggers's] style of working is quite unique and especially when it comes to big action adventure films. ... The big action scenes are shot in just one long, continuous take, which complicates things quite a bit. Most films, you'll have several cameras going simultaneously and you have coverage so you can cut into a big fight scene and just focus on one stunt. But Rob wanted the intimacy, the connection with the characters and didn't want to feel any cuts. ... It was a really exhilarating and thrilling way of working. I'd never worked that way before, so I learned a lot. It was challenging, but an extraordinary experience.
On the challenge of acting with live animals
Sometimes ... something would happen three seconds before the end of the shot. And it could be something, just a horse facing the wrong way in the background or a small detail that wasn't perfect. Those takes were tough when you found that fluidity to it and all the stunts work and the movement and everything and you were in it and it felt great — and then you can't use that take because, again, the small detail. But we just had to be patient and focus and go back and do it again and again until the chickens did what we wanted them to do. And, by the way, they are brilliant in the film.
On going from shooting at a luxury Lake Como villa in Succession directly to The Northman
Brian Cox is obviously one of the greatest actors of our time, so to be able to work with him and Kieran [Culkin] who is also phenomenal on such a beautifully written, fantastic and fun scene was a real treat. We had shot the majority of The Northman before that in Northern Ireland. But then we were going to go to Iceland and shoot a week or two out there, literally right after shooting [Succession] at that villa, the Lake Como house. ... It's absolutely stunning. And these Riva boats, these beautiful Italian wooden boats, and there's so much wealth and luxury around, it's mind boggling. And then I went straight from there to Iceland, where I was going to play a Viking slave. So I put on shackles and then I was being dragged through the Icelandic mud. So that was an interesting 48 hours, to say the least.
On saying yes to Succession without knowing what his role would be
I've only said yes to something once before, without reading the script [first], it was when Lars von Trier called and asked if I wanted to be in Melancholia, and I just said, "I don't care what you want me to do, but I'll be there." ... I absolutely adore [Succession creator] Jesse Armstrong and admire everything he's done even before Succession, Peep Show and the stuff he did in the UK. The writing is so smart and I found Season 1 and 2 of Succession some of the greatest television I've ever seen. So when he reached out I said, "Eventually I'd love to know who you want me to play, but I'm in, no matter what."
On filming the domestic violence scenes with Nicole Kidman in Big Little Lies
They were some of the most difficult days I've experienced on a set. Nicole and I became very close. That experience really brought us together, and it demanded complete trust between us in order to go into that darkness physically and mentally. Those scenes were so horrific. But we spent many days, weeks leading up to the shoot talking about the relationship. We were both creatively excited because it felt like a nuanced, accurate depiction of an abusive relationship. Perry was not a cliché or stereotype of an abusive husband. And you could understand, Celeste, why she might have been drawn to him and why she might be conflicted in the beginning when he's oscillating between the light and the darkness. And that was something that we spent a lot of time talking about and then going into those very, very intense scenes, they were horrific to shoot. And we had to check in with each other nonstop before takes after takes, because we both had to commit so completely.
It was draining. ... I love Nicole so much. And it was absolutely wonderful to be reunited with her on The Northman, this time as my mother. But again, also a very dark, weird, twisted relationship. But I think because we had that, we'd established that trust on Big Little Lies, that was really valuable when we started shooting The Northman and having that strong connection.
On becoming famous in the U.S. through his big break with True Blood
I was old enough and a bit more confident and secure to be able to handle all the chaos around being an actor and being on a show that hits the zeitgeist and gets a lot of attention. I was able to still have a private life. ... When someone recognized me or came up to me when I was younger, it made me uncomfortable. And instead [when I was on True Blood] I tried to kind of, not lean into it, but at least embrace it. ... When someone recognizes you and they like your character or a movie or a show you're on, and ... why shouldn't that be a great feeling? Why shouldn't you feel grateful for that and be excited that what you've done, your work has actually reached someone and meant something to someone. So I try to approach it from that angle as opposed to being paranoid or nervous that someone will recognize me and letting my self-confidence get shattered by that. Instead, I try to take joy out of that.
On co-starring in Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" music video
I did not know who she was at the time. A friend of mine, L.A.-based Swedish director named Jonas Åkerlund, directed that video. True Blood wasn't even out yet. So I was shooting Season 1 of True Blood. ... And he called and asked if I was going to do this music video with an artist named Lady Gaga. And he explained the premise of it and it sounded super fun. It was going to be shot over a weekend in Malibu. And again, I was in L.A. shooting True Blood, so I said, "Yeah, Jonas, I'll come do this Lady Googoo video any day. I don't know who she is, but it sounds great!" ... We had a fantastic week and it was super fun. She was great to play with, and Jonas and I had to teach her some Swedish because we speak Swedish in the beginning of it. And she was wonderful, absolutely fantastic. ... I was like, "Well, this song is catchy. Best of luck to you, Lady Googoo!" and had no idea ... how big she would get.
Lauren Krenzel and Seth Kelley produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Clare Lombardo adapted it for the Web.
Copyright 2022 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/alexander-skarsgard-lost-his-voice-and-found-catharsis-as-a-viking-berserker | 2022-05-12T16:04:32Z |
Protests at Supreme Court justices’ homes cause dispute between county, Virginia gov.
FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AP) — Fairfax County officials have rebuffed a request from Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin to establish a security perimeter around the neighborhoods of U.S. Supreme Court justices living in the county after some have faced protests outside their homes.
Youngkin, a Republican, made the request Wednesday in a letter to the county board of supervisors. “I fundamentally believe such demonstrations and picketing should not be allowed at the Justice’s (sic) homes as they are meant to intimidate and influence the Justices,” he wrote.
Three Supreme Court justices — Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett and Clarence Thomas — live in the county. Justices living in and outside the county have been confronted with protests outside their homes since a draft of Alito’s opinion that would overturn the Roe v. Wade abortion-rights decision was leaked.
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay said Youngkin’s request for a security perimeter is unnecessary and improper. He said establishing a perimeter would amount to creating an unconstitutional neighborhood “checkpoint” that would infringe on First Amendment protest rights. He also noted that protests that have occurred outside Alito’s home in the Fort Hunt neighborhood have been peaceful.
“We will enforce laws that serve to protect persons and property,” McKay wrote. “Our officers are equally committed to protecting the First Amendment guarantees afforded to those who gather to exercise their freedom of speech.”
Fairfax County Police, for their part, said through a spokeswoman that they’re providing extra staffing in response to reports of planned protests “to maintain the safety and security of the public, while ensuring First Amendment rights are protected.”
Youngkin also joined Maryland GOP Gov. Larry Hogan in calling on federal law enforcement entities to “take the lead and provide sustained resources” to protect the justices and ensure the neighborhoods are secure in the weeks and months ahead.
In a letter addressed to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, the governors called on the Department of Justice to enforce a federal law that prohibits “pickets or parades” with the intent to influence a judge.
Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley said in a statement Wednesday that Garland continues to be briefed on security matters related to the Supreme Court and justices. He noted that Garland had directed the U.S. Marshals Service to help support the Marshal of the Supreme Court and Supreme Court Police.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/12/protests-supreme-court-justices-homes-cause-dispute-between-county-virginia-gov/ | 2022-05-12T16:04:37Z |
A recently opened exhibition in New York City celebrates the blazing, beloved artwork of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. It includes 200 rarely and never-before-seen paintings, drawings and artifacts. They've been put on display by his sisters – giving an intimate, familial look at the artist's life and career.
There are rooms built into the "Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure" exhibition that recreate specific places from his life. Like A VIP room from the Palladium nightclub, studded with photos of the young artist enjoying the high life with his celebrity pals, plus two massive panels Basquiat painted for the club.
On the Lower East Side of the early 1980s, visual artists and musicians of all stripes happily commingled. Basquiat had his own experimental band, Gray, that he founded with filmmaker Michael Holman; another Gray member was actor and director Vincent Gallo. One of Basquiat's friends and early buyers was singer Debbie Harry of Blondie. She in turn cast him as a DJ in the video for Blondie's song "Rapture"; he appears just as she begins rapping about their mutual close friend, artist Fab 5 Freddy.
Another space in "King Pleasure" is a recreation of Basquiat's studio on Great Jones Street, in a space he rented from his friend and collaborator Andy Warhol. The room is scattered with his paintings and art books open all over the floor. A TV shows clips from some of his favorite movies, while the music of one of his heroes, Miles Davis, plays overhead. In one corner, one of Basquiat's trench coats is hung up — a potent reminder of the missing artist, who died in 1988 of a heroin overdose at age 27.
These recreations are just one of the ways in which this isn't a typical fine arts exhibition. "King Pleasure" was curated by Basquiat's two younger sisters, Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Heriveaux, who oversee their late brother's estate, with the exhibition space designed by noted architect David Adjaye.
Lisane says that the immersive show offers their perspective on Jean-Michel Basquiat. "What we're able to do is provide context," she says, "and to have people who appreciate Jean-Michel's work get a fuller understanding of who this man was on a personal level — where he came from, the family that he was brought up through, and the context within which he started his journey."
Alongside the paintings and drawings, the show includes many mementos of their family life. But the main draw is still his art: the quick, sure hand that he displayed even as a teenager. The exuberant colors. The trenchant commentaries on race and hierarchy. The smart, sometimes cynical phrases he rendered in text on his canvases. Centuries of artistic and historical references crammed in next to skulls, anatomical drawings and cartoonish cars, ideas pinging off each other just as in the bebop music he loved. His anointing of great Black cultural figures as kings. He sometimes literally crowned them in his work, says his sister Jeanine.
"For him, it was very important that Blacks were portrayed in a positive light," Jeanine says. "And so I think that was the main reason that not only did he crown himself, he crowned those heroes." Heroes like Jessie Owens, Joe Louis, and one of his particular idols, saxophonist Charlie Parker.
Writer and Basquiat specialist Chaedria LaBouvier says that "King Pleasure" is a chance for the public to see many works that they wouldn't otherwise get to see. "I thought it was a wonderful display of just quantity," she notes. "When you're talking about Basquiat, 90 percent of his works are in private collection, and most of those are in Europe."
In 2019, LaBouvier curated a Basquiat show for the Guggenheim Museum in New York, as the first solo Black curator to helm an exhibition there. (LaBouvier later accused museum leadership of racism, after which the Guggenheim's artistic director and chief curator, Nancy Spector, left "to pursue other curatorial endeavors and to finish her doctoral dissertation" after more than three decades at the institution. The museum conducted an independent investigation of Spector that cleared her of those charges, though LaBouvier did not participate in that investigation.)
LaBouvier says she wishes that there were more opportunities for scholars to engage with Basquiat's work and his legacy, even as he has become a reference point in pop culture. She notes that the artist's works were often snapped up, just after they were completed, by private collectors in the heated 1980s art market. "How else are you going to see or have access to those works?" she asks. "But there's also this imbalance — when there's not a lot of academic research or scholastic research, our understanding of the artist is compromised."
What "King Pleasure" doesn't do is evoke the most troubling elements of Basquiat's biography, including his heavy drug use, his mercurial personality, and the accusations he made to friends and interviewers that he had been physically abused by his parents, father Gerard and mother Matilde, as recounted in Phoebe Hoban's 1998 biography, Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art.
Basquiat's sisters deny the abuse accusations. In a written statement to NPR, Lisane said: "We grew up in the 1960s when spanking was a common form of disciplinary action. That doesn't overshadow the incredible passion and commitment that they demonstrated to the three of us. Our parents loved us. They didn't always get it right. but they put their heart and soul into helping us become the best we could be."
Moreover, as a very young, Black man of Haitian and Puerto Rican descent, Basquiat became a superstar in a mostly white high art world that frequently othered and belittled him, even as the market value of his work skyrocketed. His sisters say that the exhibition is a celebration of how much he did accomplish in such a short time.
"That's the story that Jeanine and I wanted to tell is the story of this really complex human being," says Lisane.
"He was very purposeful, and he was very determined," Jeanine adds. "He said, 'I will one day be famous.' And boy, did he make that happen. He was determined."
Tickets for "Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure" in New York are currently on sale through the beginning of September.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/an-intimate-look-at-jean-michel-basquiats-art-courtesy-of-his-family | 2022-05-12T16:04:38Z |
ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
Does it feel like everyone you know has COVID right now? For a lot of people, the answer is yes. And that's because in many parts of the country, COVID-19 case numbers are going up and up. Much of that increase is being driven by variants of omicron.
Well, Andy Slavitt thinks that this new wave of growth is giving us a glimpse into what endemic COVID will look like once we get there. Slavitt was a senior adviser to President Biden on COVID and was the head of Medicare and Medicaid in the Obama administration. Andy Slavitt, welcome back to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
ANDY SLAVITT: It's great to be here, Adrian.
FLORIDO: You said in a thread on Twitter that we're getting clues about what COVID will look like when it's an endemic disease. But before I ask why you think that, remind us what the endemic phase of a disease is and how that is different from the pandemic phase.
SLAVITT: Well, yeah, let's be clear - we don't know if we're in an endemic phase yet, and we probably won't know till afterwards because I think the best definition of endemic that I've heard is just when the surprises are gone, and it becomes predictable. Endemic doesn't necessarily mean everybody's safe. Endemic doesn't necessarily mean people are no longer losing their lives. It just means it's following a predictable pattern. And what we don't know but we may be witnessing are some clues as to what a predictable pattern will look like when we settle into one.
FLORIDO: Why is it so important for us to know that we're in an endemic phase, assuming we get there at some point?
SLAVITT: I think the real question is, what are the tools that we need to have as a country in order to live as normal life as possible? The best news of all is that we have incredible scientific tools - vaccines, boosters, oral therapeutics. And while none of them are perfect on their own, when you combine them with what our own immune system does and the continued kind of improvement of these tools, the layered immunity we have, COVID should become less and less fatal. It will still be dangerous and still dangerous for people who are frail, people who are immunocompromised, but even in those situations, the tools are better and better.
So what we really want to know is, is it going to get any more severe? And is it going to get any more frequent? And are the vaccines and tools we have going to continue to work? And if we are in a situation where we need to update our vaccines once or twice a year, we need to be prepared to do that.
FLORIDO: What are the unknowns out there that could change your assessment about how close we're getting to an endemic phase of this disease?
SLAVITT: So scientists talk about this notion of drift versus shift. And what they mean by that is a drift virus would indicate that we will just continue to see more progressions, almost laddering up of new omicron - we have 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4. And a drift is a better scenario than a shift. A shift is where we would get an entirely new Greek letter, in this case with completely different mutations and characteristics. And what's better about a drift is that our body is, generally speaking, forming better immunity in prior versions that protect us against newer versions. And our vaccines will, generally speaking, be more aligned to what we see next than they would be if we were to see a shift.
So the big question is, are we going to be in drift mode and for how long will we be in drive mode, or are we going to go back to shift mode where we'll see a delta, an omicron, etc.? No one knows the answer. But there are a number of scientists who say that the number of times we'll see a major shift could be pretty rare, could be as infrequently as once a decade.
FLORIDO: As you said, the predictability that comes from the endemic phase will help us figure out what kind of public health measures to use. But I wonder if it'll also discourage people from taking precautions, like masks and vaccinations.
SLAVITT: Well, predictability will be a good thing. You know, if we knew that we were going to see COVID-19 every June and every December, we might not like that, but at least it would tell us that we can take the kinds of precautions that we need to take then, and we don't need to take them other parts of the year. What bothers people is feeling like they're taking precautions in periods of time when it doesn't matter. So, you know, we don't give people flu shots in April, May and June because the risk of the flu is quite low then.
So if we understand this well enough, and it becomes predictable enough, I think you can then create targeted campaigns to say, hey, every time that this happens, these are the precautions we ought to take. We ought to wear masks. We ought to stay away from these types of crowds and these types of situations if we're immunocompromised. But other times of the year, go on, live your life. Things will be, more or less, safer.
FLORIDO: I've been speaking with Andy Slavitt. He's a former Biden and Obama administration official, the author of "Preventable" and the host of the "In The Bubble" podcast. Thanks for speaking with us.
SLAVITT: Thank you, Adrian. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/andy-slavitt-on-what-new-wave-in-case-growth-tells-us-about-endemic-covid | 2022-05-12T16:04:44Z |
Suspect identified in Utah double-slaying case
MOAB, Utah (KUTV) - A father is finally getting some answers months after his daughter, Kylen Schulte, and her wife, Crystal Turner, were killed.
Their bodies were found in Utah’s La Sal mountains in August.
The Grand County Sheriff’s Office said Adam Pinkusiewicz, a former co-worker of Turner, has been identified as a suspect.
“The indications we have is we don’t know if they worked shifts together. It doesn’t seem like it. They were off of each other, but they were both employees at McDonalds,” Grand County Sheriff Steven White said.
Pinkusiewicz is no longer alive. White said he died by suicide about a month after the murders.
There is no word on a motive or his relationship with the women.
“At this point, it’s still all being investigated. We’re not ruling anything out at this point,” White said.
Authorities are asking for any information the public has on Pinkusiewicz or the Toyato Yaris he drove.
Meanwhile, Kylen Schulte’s father is processing the news, and relieved and hoping it will all be over soon.
“The only other thing I can say is I hope they can process the evidence and close the case soon,” he said.
Duane “Dog the Bounty Hunter” Chapman was in Moab, Utah, this week searching for answers in the case, but the sheriff’s office said they did not work with him.
Copyright 2022 KUTV via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/12/suspect-identified-utah-double-slaying-case/ | 2022-05-12T16:04:44Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
Right now, the Bay Area is California's COVID hot spot. Cases have more than doubled in the last two weeks. It's the fifth wave to hit the region, but doctors say this one is different. Lesley McClurg from member station KQED explains why.
LESLEY MCCLURG, BYLINE: When cases started to rise again, Lisa Petras was rattled. She keeps a close eye on COVID data.
LISA PETRAS: We were really concerned because the vibe of everything's over and let's take off our masks and go party, that actually made me feel a lot less safe than I felt over the past couple of years.
MCCLURG: Then her own social calendar started to dwindle.
PETRAS: We had had several friends come down with COVID over the past couple weeks or so.
MCCLURG: Including many clients in her psychotherapy practice in Oakland. Petras wanted to lay low, but there was one event she couldn't cancel - the menu tasting for her upcoming wedding.
PETRAS: It was literally the first time in 25 months since the pandemic began that we ate indoors. And we didn't feel comfortable with it at all.
MCCLURG: A few days later, her throat was scratchy. By that evening, she was coughing and then up all night fighting chills and shaking.
PETRAS: And it reminded me of the exact symptoms that I had when I got the vaccine. And I was like, uh-oh.
MCCLURG: She tested positive.
MARIA RAVEN: I just think it's everywhere. I got it a couple weeks ago.
MCCLURG: Dr. Maria Raven is the chief of emergency medicine at UCSF.
RAVEN: I didn't think it was possible because I think I've been exposed so many times, but I finally got it. At some point, I think it's going to hit almost everybody.
MCCLURG: Two of Raven's colleagues at her hospital just tested positive. In Marin County, this surge is higher than last summer's delta peak. It's likely driven by a loosening of restrictions hitting just as a highly transmissible subvariant is spreading. Though Raven says it's not driving a significant uptick in hospitalizations.
RAVEN: Not the numbers that we were seeing a couple months back.
MCCLURG: She's referring to the omicron tidal wave that crushed the country over the holidays. Now its subvariant, called BA.2, is taking hold. And even though it's more contagious than omicron, it does not appear to cause more serious disease.
RAVEN: You can go about your normal life. You have done the right things. You have gotten vaccinated. So go out. Go out to dinner. Just move on.
JORGE SALINAS: People can continue going to work, taking public transportation, even socialize.
MCCLURG: Jorge Salinas is a hospital epidemiologist for Stanford Health Care. He stresses that this wave hasn't peaked yet.
SALINAS: And we just, as always, need to be slightly careful - wearing a mask in crowded indoor spaces.
MCCLURG: For example, the BART public transportation system in the area is again requiring masks on all trains. Salinas says the region has a layer of protective immunity from high vaccination rates combined with the fact that so many people have caught the virus by now. Plus, if someone does get really sick, there are several treatments available.
SALINAS: So that changes things, makes this a slightly less concerning virus than it was two years ago.
MCCLURG: Yet just because we have to learn to live with COVID doesn't mean it's going to be easy. Even a mild bout when you're boosted can be rough. The virus hit Lisa Petras worse than she expected.
PETRAS: I mean, it sucks just as much as getting, like, the worst flu you've ever had sucks. I can't imagine what this would be like if I wasn't vaxxed.
MCCLURG: She feels badly that she just passed COVID to her fiancee. Petras says the only potential silver lining to laying in bed is the fact that they will both have extra immunity for their summer wedding.
For NPR News, I'm Lesley McClurg in Oakland.
(SOUNDBITE OF TYCHO'S "DIVISION") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/as-cases-increase-the-bay-area-is-californias-covid-hotspot | 2022-05-12T16:04:50Z |
US producer prices surge 11% in April on higher food costs
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. producer prices soared 11% in April from a year earlier, a hefty gain that indicates high inflation will remain a burden for consumers and businesses in the months ahead.
The Labor Department said Thursday that its producer price index — which measures inflation before it reaches consumers — climbed 0.5% in April from March. That is a slowdown from the previous month, however, when it jumped 1.6%.
The April year-over-year increase in April declined from the 11.5% annual gain in March, which was the biggest increase since records began in 2010.
The producer price data captures inflation at an earlier stage of production and can sometimes signal where consumer prices are headed. It also feeds into the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation, the personal consumption expenditures price index.
Thursday’s figures came just a day after the government released consumer price data for April, which showed that inflation leapt 8.3% last month from a year ago. That increase is down slightly from the four-decade high in March of 8.5%. On a monthly basis, inflation rose 0.3% in April from March, the smallest increase in eight months.
Still, there were plenty of signs in the consumer price report that inflation will remain stubbornly high, likely for the rest of this year and into 2023. Rents rose faster as many apartment buildings have lifted monthly payments for new tenants. Prices for airline tickets jumped by the most on records dating to 1963. And food prices continued to rise sharply.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/12/us-producer-prices-surge-11-april-higher-food-costs/ | 2022-05-12T16:04:50Z |
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Last night, the Houston Astros soundly beat the Seattle Mariners. But it wasn't just that victory that got Astros fans cheering. The hometown crowd was also celebrating a major milestone for the team's manager, Dusty Baker.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: He got them. Astros win 4-0, and there it is.
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSION)
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Dusty Baker, career win No. 2,000 as a manager. His...
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSION)
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: ...Much-anticipated place in Cooperstown is now solidified - 1 of 12 all time. Congratulations, Dusty.
ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
Not just that, but he's the first African American manager to hit that 2,000 milestone. After the game, Baker was quick to acknowledge that baseball is a team sport.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DUSTY BAKER: Thanks to everybody. Thanks for all the support.
(SOUNDBITE OF CROWD CHEERING)
BAKER: No, thanks to the players because I couldn't do without them, and...
SHAPIRO: Baker is a baseball lifer. He's 72 years old, has been a manager in the MLB since 1993 and has led five teams in the course of nearly 30 years. His career started as a player with the 1968 Atlanta Braves and with some pretty cool company.
HOWARD BRYANT: One of the amazing things about Dusty is he was a rookie in 1968, and he was in the dugout with - for a very brief time, there was Dusty Baker and Hank Aaron and Satchel Paige all in the same dugout with the Atlanta Braves in '68.
FLORIDO: That's Howard Bryant, senior writer for ESPN and a friend of Baker's. Bryant says that the key to Baker's success as a manager was his ability to keep his ego out of it.
BRYANT: He never tried to be bigger than the players. He knows that the players win the game. He has respect for what the players do. He never believes that he is the solution. He always knows that they're the solution. And Dusty has that special gift of really making people invest in wanting to succeed, not just for themselves, but for him.
FLORIDO: Not only that, but Bryant says Baker knows how to bring teams together.
BRYANT: Whatever teams he manages - whether it was Washington or Chicago, Cincinnati - he's always made sure that the different players from different ethnicities brought in food to the clubhouse, really make it a family atmosphere. And that's some of the things he really prides himself on.
SHAPIRO: The next winning achievement Dusty Baker is shooting for as a manager - four games to win the World Series. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/astros-dusty-baker-makes-history-as-1st-black-mlb-manager-to-win-2-000-games | 2022-05-12T16:04:56Z |
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
If the Supreme Court does indeed overturn Roe v. Wade as a leaked draft of a forthcoming opinion seems to indicate, abortion access in the U.S. will change drastically. In many parts of the country, abortion will be against the law, which would essentially return the U.S. to a time that Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts remembers all too well. Here she was speaking to a crowd outside the Supreme Court yesterday.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ELIZABETH WARREN: Understand this - I have seen the world where abortion is illegal, and we are not going back.
CHANG: With this in mind, we're revisiting a story we aired in October about the early abortion rights activist Patricia Maginnis. She died last year at the age of 93.
Maginnis started her work at a time when, in most places in this country, you could face interrogation by police if you got an abortion. Most people seeking abortions in the U.S. had to go underground for a doctor or secretly perform the procedure on themselves or even leave the country.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PATRICIA MAGINNIS: Some hundred thousand women every year - this is California women alone - subject themselves to improperly or illegal abortion.
CHANG: Here's Maginnis giving an interview on the street in 1963.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MAGINNIS: I think that in itself is a rather staggering figure. And I feel great indignation as a woman to think that women have to subject themselves to second-rate medical care for a safe surgical procedure.
LESLIE REAGAN: She was the first person who spoke publicly saying abortion should be completely decriminalized.
I'm Leslie Reagan. And I'm the author of the book "When Abortion Was A Crime."
CHANG: Maginnis, Reagan says, would stand on street corners in San Francisco in the early '60s, passing out leaflets to people about abortion classes and even do-it-yourself abortions.
REAGAN: How to self-induce and where you could go to get a safe abortion - so she's the first to do that.
CHANG: Maginnis distributed this literature partly to get the information out, but also to try deliberately to get arrested.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MAGINNIS: We'd made great efforts to point out that we were soliciting you to have abortions (laughter). And we would go around the whole...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: In order to be arrested and challenge the law.
MAGINNIS: Well, show people how ridiculous it was that...
CHANG: Remember, this was a time when abortion was illegal everywhere in the U.S. except in rare cases. And by the late 1950s, early '60s, local and state governments were getting aggressive about enforcing these laws. They went after providers, shut down clinics. Seeking an abortion became this clandestine, sometimes dangerous experience.
REAGAN: They're blindfolding women. They're telling them to come to a corner where they'll be picked up blindfolded, driven around until they don't know where they are. And they are alone at all times, so the experience for women seeking abortions is extremely frightening.
CHANG: As I pictured what it would have been like to live as a woman during this time, I was fascinated to learn that this wasn't what most of American history was like. You see, during the 17- and early 1800s in the U.S., ending a pregnancy was totally permissible under the law, at least up until a point known as quickening.
REAGAN: Quickening is when a woman could feel fetal movement inside of her.
CHANG: And Reagan says in the months before quickening, a pregnant person could deliberately self-induce a miscarriage without any penalty. Even the Catholic Church at the time did not condemn this practice. There were literally domestic guidebooks that describe various ways to do this.
REAGAN: It's really something that is shared information, and it's quiet. It's not talked about.
CHANG: It's not debated.
REAGAN: Exactly.
CHANG: Like, there wasn't this nationwide conversation about whether that was ending life.
REAGAN: Yeah, there isn't a public debate. It's just part of commonplace health care.
CHANG: But eventually, states start outlawing abortion in the mid-1800s, and then the legal landscape begins to shift even more in the 20th century. As women's rights movements grow, crackdowns on abortions accelerate. Law enforcement agencies intensify efforts to catch abortionists in the act, interrogating women suspected of seeking abortions.
This was the world Pat Maginnis grew up in - a woman who knew from a very early age that she never wanted to have children. She grew up in an unhappy home with a mother who never seemed to like being a mother.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MAGINNIS: She had many frustrations, which she often took out on us.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: So you saw lots of conflict?
MAGINNIS: Oh, yes.
CHANG: She later goes through three illegal abortions of her own, two of which were self-induced. I mean, as Maginnis told her boyfriend once...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MAGINNIS: All I wanted was bed fun...
CHANG: Bed fun.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MAGINNIS: ...And that I did not want babies. I only wanted bed fun (laughter).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: You were clear in your mind about this?
MAGINNIS: I was fairly clear.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yeah.
CHANG: Trying to leave her Oklahoma past behind, Maginnis joins the Army. She trains as a surgical technician, and that's when Lili Loofbourow, who profiled Maginnis for Slate, says Maginnis saw women injured from botched abortions or forced to give birth even when they didn't want to have a baby.
LILI LOOFBOUROW: And it was all truly horrifying for her. And she said to me more than once that that was really the thing that radicalized her, was seeing sort of the gamut of things that women have to go through in the name of irreversible biology that nobody lets them opt out of.
CHANG: Maginnis plunges into activism after the Army. She moves to San Francisco. And at first, her advocacy starts with smaller stuff, like collecting signatures to reform abortion laws. But then pretty quickly, she gets to a point where she's like, forget reforming these abortion laws.
REAGAN: Those reform laws aren't going to work.
CHANG: Let's abolish those laws.
REAGAN: We need to argue for repeal.
CHANG: Let's repeal every law that criminalizes abortion. Leslie Reagan says this idea, repealing all laws that criminalize abortion, it's an idea that may feel commonplace today. But back then, in the early '60s, this idea is what made Pat Maginnis a radical.
REAGAN: She's earlier than the movement that we know of as women's liberation and when the major women's organizations like NOW also endorse the legalization of abortion. She's ahead of everybody.
LOOFBOUROW: So she was pro-abortion in the most explicit way, in a way that Planned Parenthood refused to be. And so that's why she said, I made - we made Planned Parenthood respectable.
CHANG: And Maginnis and her group do something that's pretty revolutionary.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MAGINNIS: We got together names of doctors. And we had at the very top of this, in large letters, this whole thing we've mimeographed.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yeah.
MAGINNIS: Large letters - are you pregnant?
CHANG: She puts together a list - a special list, Lili Loofbourow says, that could make safe abortions possible even for people living in a country where it's basically illegal.
LOOFBOUROW: That meant basically putting together a Yelp (laughter) inventory of doctors outside the country who it was safe for women to go to.
CHANG: This list contains not just names of doctors but their fees, also descriptions of the procedure. Reagan says Maginnis and her group acted sort of like a feminist public health agency. They wanted to make sure the providers followed certain standards of practice.
REAGAN: You have to wash your hands. You have to use sterile equipment. You have to disinfect the room.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MAGINNIS: The U.S. woman generally was quite naive as to whether someone was a physician or someone was a specialist. They didn't know the questions to ask. They knew that they were desperate.
REAGAN: You want to make sure that this bit is being done in a medically appropriate manner.
CHANG: The group would try to enforce these standards by asking women to fill out surveys after the fact, and bad actors would be removed from the list. But sometimes, Reagan says, after the fact was too late. For example, one woman who had used the list claimed later that a specialist had raped her.
REAGAN: The really interesting thing as, you know, somebody looking at this later is the way that they handled it. Instead of immediately taking that doctor off the list and warning people that, you know, he had assaulted somebody, do not see him, they sent a letter saying that they were very concerned and they did not want him to do anything like that again. It took...
CHANG: They simply admonished the doctor.
REAGAN: Yes.
CHANG: And remarkably, the group didn't remove that person from the list until a second woman claimed that that same specialist had raped her. Now, we don't know how many women were harmed as a result of relying on the list. There very well could have been other accounts. But Lili Loofbourow says there's no question what Pat Maginnis and her group were at least trying to do in their work.
LOOFBOUROW: This was really the way to return power to women. Even if it was hard, even if it was painful and even if it was scary, she thought it was crucially important to actually return some of that power to the people concerned because women had been reduced to an almost infantile state by a medical community that thought that, like, you know, the authorities should be making those decisions for them.
CHANG: This fundamental principle Pat Maginnis lived by, advocated by - this principle that decisions about your body belong to you and not to some doctor or lawmaker - that principle eventually becomes a given in the whole abortion rights movement. Pat Maginnis the maverick becomes the mainstream.
And yet she remains an obscure figure in the history of the reproductive rights movement. I asked Loofbourow, why was that, even after all these decades?
LOOFBOUROW: She was not an attention seeker or a credit seeker, and she did not make particular common cause, to my surprise, with the feminist movement in general. Her strategy was blunt, and I think that may have prevented her from being known as, like, the activist superstar that she really was. I mean, she was not Gloria Steinem.
CHANG: At one point, Loofbourow was photographing Maginnis for the profile she wrote and asked her to pose with anything she liked.
LOOFBOUROW: She went out back into her backyard and came back with a shovel and a pitchfork. And the pitchfork was just incredible. And so she's just standing there in her front yard with this pitchfork, like, reenacting American Gothic in the most incredible way.
(LAUGHTER)
LOOFBOUROW: I mean, what a symbol to choose - a pitchfork...
CHANG: Yeah.
LOOFBOUROW: ...For your profile.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE OCTOPUS PROJECT'S "BALTIMORE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/encore-she-was-out-in-front-of-the-fight-to-legalize-abortion-but-few-know-her-name | 2022-05-12T16:05:02Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
The year was 1977. A new science fiction movie was making its debut - "Star Wars." On this May the 4th, now also known as Star Wars Day, we listen back to an original NPR review of the now beloved classic. Here's Tom Shales.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
TOM SHALES: It is unquestionably splendibulous (ph). It is indubitably fantasmical (ph). It is the greatest kid's picture for adults since "The Wizard Of Oz." "Star Wars" is eye-popping, mind-spinning, ear-piercing, bubble-blowing adventure. It isn't the film of the future; it's the film of the future of the past. It takes place eons ago in another galaxy, and it has few, if any, moral pronouncements to make, allegories to mount or sermonettes to preach. "Star Wars" also offers us a tale in which good challenges and triumphs over evil. In that, it is a celebration of all wish-fulfillment literature. But the film is as unpretentious as it is elaborate. "Flash Gordon" meets "2001" in "Star Wars," and the science fiction is back, though not with a vengeance. It is "Gulliver's Travels," Homer's "Odyssey," "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" and Edgar Rice Burroughs. It's really the kind of movie for which movies were invented.
George Lucas, who wrote and directed "Star Wars," told an interviewer while making the film, I wanted to do a modern fairy tale, a myth. And he's done it. He's made a sci-fi film without a lot of nuisance-redeeming social value. That's something of a triumph for Lucas, who previously made the message-laden and Orwellian "THX 1138." There is a reference to that film in "Star Wars." Someone says into a radio, call back 1138. "Star Wars" took $8 million and several years to bring off, but it's been brought off grandly. Perhaps the most affecting profundities are accidental ones, just as natural symbolism can be so much more pungent than intentional.
"Star Wars" is casually profound. In an atmosphere of seemingly groundless escapism, it worships the air we hang in. Without ever stopping for a breath, much less the making of a statement, "Star Wars" celebrates that portion of the human brain that is shared by the brilliant and the stupid. It is the imagination, which in recent years, American movies have not given much of a workout. "Star Wars" puts us back on a direct course to reckless conjecture - the very best kind. It turns the icy cold universe into a setting as romantic as Sherwood Forest, Atlantis, the Emerald City and Hollywood of the 1930s. Against an army of bedazzling visual spectacles, actors would seem to stand little chance, but the forces of decency embodied in this film by Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Alec Guinness emerge through the skillful manipulations of Lucas as warm-blooded and dimensional and funny. And a movie newcomer named Harrison Ford is especially impressive.
Together, they search hyperspace for the monstrous black Death Star, piloted by Peter Cushing. And helping in this expedition are an Edward Everett Horton-esque robot and a slightly too-cute walking midget computer, the C-3PO and the R2-D2, or vice versa, as well as a shaggy and ornery Chewbacca, who is virtually all bark. Other than with an anticlimactic climactic explosion, "Star Wars" never lets its audience down. It's the stoned movie you don't have to be stoned for, an action-splash route without any depressing violence and a close encounter of the best kind. We now return control of your radio to the military industrial establishment.
This is Tom Shales.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN WILLIAMS' "STAR WARS MAIN THEME")
MARTINEZ: Yeah, wonder how things worked out for that movie newcomer Harrison Ford. May the 4th be with you always.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN WILLIAMS' "STAR WARS MAIN THEME") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/encore-tom-shales-1977-review-of-the-new-movie-star-wars | 2022-05-12T16:05:08Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The U.S. has already banned oil imports from Russia. Now Europe is thinking about doing the same. The EU's president, Ursula von der Leyen, is proposing phasing out Russian crude oil imports within six months and refined oil products from Russia by the end of the year.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
URSULA VON DER LEYEN: And let's be clear - it will not be easy because some member states are strongly dependent on Russian oil, but we simply have to do it.
FADEL: The ban would only go into effect if all 27 member nations approve, but oil markets are already responding with a sharp rise in prices. Here to talk about this is Ben Cahill. He's a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies here in Washington, D.C. Good morning.
BEN CAHILL: Hi, Leila.
FADEL: So, Ben, as the head of the EU noted in her speech to the European Parliament, this is not an easy thing for Europe to undertake. So how hard would this be for member nations?
CAHILL: It would be really difficult. I mean, Russia is not your run-of-the-mill oil producer. It's one of the three big oil producers in the world, along with Saudi Arabia and the United States. It's the world's largest oil exporter, if you combine crude and products, and Europe relies on Russia for more than a quarter of its oil. You know, if you combine crude oil and petroleum products, Russia supplies about 8% of global demand, so it's really hard to dismiss that.
FADEL: Yeah.
CAHILL: You know, even six months to a year is a pretty aggressive timeline to do something like this.
FADEL: I mean, is it even possible for Europe to survive without Russia's supplies?
CAHILL: Well, we're about to find out.
FADEL: Yeah.
CAHILL: I think what's going to happen is that, eventually, there'll be a reordering of crude flows around the world. So less will flow - or perhaps not at all - from Russia to Europe. Europe will have to look to other suppliers, like the Middle East, North Africa, the United States, and try to find crude and products wherever it can. But it takes time to do something like this, and, you know, frankly, the scale of this kind of disruption is something that we haven't seen on this timeline.
FADEL: Wow.
CAHILL: It's going to be tough.
FADEL: Do we have an idea of how broad the support is for this kind of ban?
CAHILL: I think one of the challenges is that the decision within the EU has to be unanimous. And if you look across the EU, there's a pretty big variation in dependence on oil from Russia.
FADEL: Right.
CAHILL: So some countries, like Hungary and Slovakia, are heavily dependent on Russia. So I think that the EU proposal is going to allow, you know, a longer time to phase in full sanctions on Russian imports - maybe until the end of '23. But still, I think it's going to be pretty difficult to get everyone to go on board. And the reality is that, you know, some countries are much more economically exposed and more at risk.
FADEL: And what kind of impact can the wider international community expect if this ban goes into place?
CAHILL: We're really in uncharted territory, and I think that we have to expect that Russia is going to respond and lash out in different ways. You know, it's possible they'll make a preemptive strike by trying to cut off oil pipeline flows. Maybe they'll decide to shut off gas supplies to some countries in Europe, as they've already done with Poland and Bulgaria.
FADEL: Right.
CAHILL: And I think that Russia's also going to go to the OPEC+ countries and a lot of developing countries around the world, and a lot of them will be sympathetic to Russia, to be honest. I think the perception of much of the world is that, you know, the U.S. and the EU are going to drive up energy costs for the developing world, and it's going to create a lot of economic pressure right across the world. It's not just a European issue. This is a global oil market, and it's going to affect everyone.
FADEL: Now, if approved - excuse me - this ban, as proposed, as you mentioned, would be phased in. And what would that look like, and what might happen in the interim?
CAHILL: I think what will happen is that we're going to see a much bigger disruption, but it's going to take some time for countries to find alternative supplies. What we've seen in recent months, since, you know, the initial round of sanctions, is that Russia has tried to find alternative buyers for its crude and products, and it's been forced to sell those at a pretty deep discount. So you do have some countries, like India and China, that are taking advantage and buying cheaper volumes. You know, but, ultimately, it's really hard to replace a buyer on the scale of Europe. I mean, Russia's just not going to be able to do it. So, again, it will take time for this to happen. I think it's possible that, you know, in a couple months, you're going to have shortages, and it's really a recipe for much higher prices. You know, I think the market has actually been pretty quiet over the last month, but the scale of these sanctions - the import ban - is really going to shake up the market, and I think we're going to look at high prices for quite a long time to come.
FADEL: In the few seconds we have left, this would be part of a sixth wave of sanctions on Moscow imposed by the UA - EU, excuse me. How would you assess the impact of energy sanctions so far?
CAHILL: I think policymakers have concluded so far that the sanctions are creating enough economic pressure on Russia. They really want to ratchet it up. This is the most powerful way to do that. I do think that we are placing a little bit too much confidence in the impact of sanctions, and the big question to me is - what if they don't work?
FADEL: Ben Cahill...
CAHILL: Or what if they're in place for a long time and they don't have the economic impact we want them to?
FADEL: Thank you.
Ben Cahill is a senior fellow with the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Thank you.
CAHILL: Thanks. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/eu-proposes-a-ban-on-russian-oil-imports | 2022-05-12T16:05:15Z |
Updated May 4, 2022 at 4:02 PM ET
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine — When Russian forces invaded Ukraine, 47-year-old Anna Krylova was working the night shift as a gas purification operator at Azovstal, a massive steel processing plant in the southern port city of Mariupol.
Her 14-year-old daughter, Maiia, came with her — no one was at home to watch her.
"We didn't leave that plant for the next 70 days," says Krylova. "As the bombing got worse, we moved further underground."
Russian forces began bombing Mariupol at the very start of the war. Most of the besieged city is in Russian hands now, but reduced to rubble. The Azovstal steel plant, badly hit, is the last holdout.
The Krylovas are among dozens of civilians who were evacuated from the plant this weekend, in a joint effort by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, which convinced Russia to hold its fire until some civilians got out. The evacuees arrived in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday. Some are now heading to various cities in Ukraine.
A vast network of tunnels with bunkers lies under the sprawling, Soviet-era plant, reportedly the last Ukrainian-held post in Mariupol. Hundreds of civilians as well as up to 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers sheltered there. But those inside say they never felt truly safe.
"It was really scary because we couldn't go outside," Krylova says. "It was just too dangerous. And inside we kept going from shelter to shelter, because the bombs kept hitting. We were hungry, we were scared, we were under constant shelling."
She calls the experience "like the apocalypse, like a horror film." Her daughter says, "Each day felt like it would be our last one alive."
Osnat Lubrani, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, told reporters that the U.N. was already planning another evacuation. But last night, Russian forces reportedly began storming the steel plant.
"It's horrifying to think what could be happening there," says English teacher Alex Dybko, who was evacuated along with his wife and young children. "It was already so terrible when we left. The steelworks looked like a mass of stone, iron and dust ... like something out of the Second World War. I never thought I would see this with my own eyes."
Dybko shared an underground bunker with the Krylovas. They pushed together benches to use as beds. The bunker shook, especially at night, when the bombing and shelling was the worst. His kids told him they were afraid to get up and go to the toilet.
"The [steelworks] was hit several times, it was burning several times," he says. "We were trying to manage the fire and not to suffocate. So every day was a fight for survival."
The only bright spot, he says, was that a plant worker sheltering with them found a generator, so there was sporadic electricity.
Many others lived in near-darkness for two months, including 57-year-old Oleh Yurkin, a Mariupol native. He used a headlamp to get around, "but only in areas where we were covered because otherwise the drones and fighter jets would spot us."
He and his wife cooked on a stove made out of bricks blown loose from explosions. Soldiers had stockpiled goods inside the plant and shared them with civilians.
Yurkin is a musician who used to perform in the city's restaurants and cafes. Every single one of those buildings is gone, bombed to rubble by the Russian military.
"Now," he says, "the city is no more."
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/evacuees-from-mariupol-describe-how-they-survived-inside-the-azovstal-steel-plant | 2022-05-12T16:05:21Z |
Emergency rental aid has helped keep millions of people in their homes during the pandemic. But that federal program will start winding down this summer, when it expects to have allocated all of the $46 billion from Congress.
About half of that has been spent so far, and in some places programs are now running out of their share of the money and shutting down. That's sending eviction filings up sharply, even as rents spike and inflation cuts deeper into household budgets.
In Plymouth, Minn., Wayne Meschke says getting eight months of federal rental aid was a huge relief. The 61-year-old works in hospitality as an executive recruiter, and depends on commissions. He says his company was devastated when COVID hit, and then he missed more work with a case of breakthrough COVID last fall. His kidneys and lungs have still not fully recovered, and exercise can be tough. His income is also still spotty.
"It's like a wave," he says. "There'll be a month that it's OK and then I'll go three months that it's not."
But in January, Minnesota's rental assistance program, RentHelpMN, ran out of money and stopped taking new applications. Meschke's aid stopped in April, and soon he got an eviction notice. He plans to sell his car to help pay rent. And he's reached out to family, and a religious nonprofit he once donated to, asking if they can help.
"If not," he says, "I've got five adult kids. I may have to go live with one of them in their houses."
Since Minnesota's aid program shut down, eviction filings are way up. Programs have also shut down in a number of states, including California, Connecticut, New Jersey and Texas.
"Our tenants are having to decide between buying food for their children or their elderly parents, or paying rent. And that's a real tight squeeze," says Dana Karni of Lone Star Legal Aid in Houston.
Texas, and Houston in particular, has actually been a model for the Treasury Department's emergency rent relief program. Last year, when it was having a slow, rocky start in many places, Texas was able to get far more money out the door to struggling tenants. Because of that success, when funds ran out the Treasury Department reallocated more money, part of an effort to shift it to where it's most needed.
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Legal aid groups in Houston and surrounding Harris County have also proactively reached out to help renters, sending attorneys to courthouses to offer assistance that can be crucial in avoiding eviction.
But not all landlords and property managers work with tenants to get that aid. Janie Mendoza is a single mother of six in Houston. She fell behind on rent when her kids were sick during the pandemic and she had to cut her work hours as a hostess. Mendoza says she applied for rental assistance — actually three times, as she found the process confusing.
"The one manager that was helping me from before, she was trying to do her best to provide whatever she could," Mendoza says. "Once she left and another manager came in, it just turned everything upside down."
Mendoza then got an eviction notice.
Some worry there will be a return not to normal, but to "worse"
For much of the pandemic, a range of economic aid and restrictions on evictions kept eviction filings well below normal. Even after the national moratorium on evictions ended last August, rates rose slowly. Peter Hepburn tracks filings in six states and 31 cities for the Eviction Lab at Princeton University, and he saw a notable shift this spring. As rental aid programs started closing, eviction filings overall have reached nearly the same level as before the pandemic.
"There's no limit on landlords' ability to use the courts to evict people," he says. "And there's less incentive for them to try an alternative, because the money that was there — that could make them whole again, that could pay back rent — is no longer there in a lot of cases."
Legal aid attorney Karni says even the extra rental assistance that's been allocated for Houston is not nearly enough. She says right now, there's an "outrageous" number of filings every week, and "I don't think it's going down, not only anytime soon but maybe ever again."
Diane Yentel, who heads the National Low Income Housing Coalition, shares that concern that eviction filings may eventually stabilize at a level that is "worse" than before the pandemic, in part due to the rising cost of renting a home.
"The longer we go past the time the eviction protections or resources are gone," she says, "the more we're seeing in some of these cities, eviction filing rates reach 150%, 200% of pre-pandemic averages."
Well before COVID-19, Yentel says, some 10 million of the lowest-income households paid at least half their income for monthly rent, and many far more than that. While some wages have risen during the pandemic, inflation is now eating into them and rental prices have climbed 17% over the past year, according to Redfin. They rose by a third in several cities in Florida, and a whopping 40% in Portland, Oreg.
Yentel says all this threatens to leave even more people "one financial shock" away from missing rent and facing possible eviction or even homelessness.
The affordable housing crisis needs long-term solutions
The end of rental aid hits landlords too, especially small ones with months of unpaid rent and bills, says Greg Brown of the National Apartment Association. And he says this moment comes as the country's larger affordable housing crisis has only grown worse. Along with rising rents and inflation, supply chain problems are slowing badly needed new construction.
"It's kind of amazing that all this has happened right around the same time," he says, "and it's a real tenuous situation, for both providers and developers and residents."
Brown says housing is so tight, occupancy rates nationally have hit a record 97%. One association member recently told him he only has eight vacancies out of 8,000 units.
Brown says this crisis needs a long term fix. After years of low production, the country is short millions of apartments and homes. He wants Congress to pass legislation to promote more multi-family housing, something President Biden also included in his recent budget proposal.
Meanwhile, as federal rental aid runs out, the Biden administration wants more states and cities to step in. It's urging them to follow the example of New York, which recently committed $800 million of its pandemic recovery money toward helping struggling renters stay in their homes. And on Monday, Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo praised California's plan to use $7.4 billion of its relief money to build and preserve more affordable housing.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/eviction-filings-are-up-sharply-as-pandemic-rental-aid-starts-to-run-out | 2022-05-12T16:05:27Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
We're continuing to follow the wide-ranging implications of the leaked Supreme Court opinion draft which suggests a majority of justices will overturn Roe v. Wade. Now, if the draft becomes final, abortion laws would be left up to the states. To further understand the content of that draft opinion and its implications, we turn now to Carol Sanger, professor of law at Columbia Law School and author of "About Abortion: Terminating Pregnancy In The Twenty-First Century" (ph). Good morning.
CAROL SANGER: Good morning.
FADEL: So let's talk about this draft opinion. It's quite strident. Does this represent Alito's singular view, the view of the majority of the justices? How do we read this?
SANGER: I think you can read it safely as representing the view of the majority of the conservative justices. And it is indeed, as you said, strident, and it is aggressive. It starts out with one paragraph that says people feel all different sorts of ways about abortion, and then after that, it just sort of rips into Roe and Casey, the precedents for this case, Dobbs, and tears them apart.
FADEL: Were you surprised about the tone and language in the Alito draft? I mean, it doesn't seem at all neutral. He used terms like abortionists instead of abortion providers, and he writes, quote, "Roe was egregiously wrong from the start."
SANGER: That's right. And he points out that in the old days - i.e., before two days ago - we called fetuses potential life in Casey and in Roe. But here now we're calling them unborn children. So that's another way of rhetorically changing how we think about what this is all about.
FADEL: Now, in the draft opinion, Alito argues that nowhere in the Constitution is there language supporting the right to abortion. He states that abortion is clearly a matter to be legislated by the states. What kind of precedent would this reasoning set?
SANGER: Well, if this is to be our new law, it will feel familiar to some people who were around in the early '70s and '60s because we're returning exactly to that situation of criminal law is normally a matter decided by the states, and Roe v. Wade made an exception to that by saying, well, not if one of the acts that's called a crime is an actual fundamental right protected by the Constitution, which is what Roe said. Now Roe is more or less being erased so that there is no more federal right to make a decision about an abortion. And the common rhetoric had been, against Roe, well, the word privacy isn't in the Constitution. But Alito has upped the ante on that, and now he says the word abortion isn't in the Constitution. Well, that's true, but neither is the word aircraft carrier or political party or other concepts and things that may be regulated. That's not the key feature. It really is the privacy or liberty that the court acknowledged protected the right in Roe - the abortion right.
FADEL: So let's talk about privacy, this reasoning. What are the larger implications here? We heard the president reference same-sex marriage. I mean, could this go beyond abortion?
SANGER: Yes, it could. Alito tries to assure us that it won't because he said, well, none of these other areas - same-sex marriage, marriage in general, contraception - has involved a fetus, another life. But that really - that's a convenient way to distinguish abortion from everything else. But of course, even in Roe, the court had said abortion is unique. It is a reproductive decision. It will necessarily involve pregnancy. And so it's an easy shot to use this as a distinguisher because certainly, contraception involves the idea of a possible pregnancy. He really overstates his case, I think, in many places. But it hardly matters since he's the king of the party and is really calling all the shots.
FADEL: OK. So if this draft becomes final and it says this issue is up to the states, would any federal law legislating abortion protections or banning them then be challenged in court?
SANGER: There could be federal legislation acknowledging and bestowing a right to abortion's legality. So we could have federal legislation saying abortion in the United States is a legal process. And that would codify the rule of Roe and that people can get it up to a certain point. What is interesting is, first of all, there aren't the votes for it politically. There aren't the 60...
FADEL: Right.
SANGER: ...Votes needed in the Senate for this. I think one other interesting thing about this decision is that because it was leaked, it appears to us as the only decision. It's all we've got to go on. If the entire decision had - was ready, with all the dissents, we would have a much greater understanding of the weaknesses of Alito's logic and reasoning.
FADEL: Carol Sanger is a professor of law at Columbia Law School. Thank you so much.
SANGER: Quite welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/examining-the-content-of-the-leaked-supreme-court-draft-opinion-and-its-implications | 2022-05-12T16:05:33Z |
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In Pennsylvania, Governor Tom Wolf, a Democrat, is term limited. And like some other purple states, the race for governor looks neck-and-neck between Democrats and Republicans. Part of voters' consideration will be this week's leaked draft decision from the Supreme Court on abortion access. From member station WITF, Sam Dunklau reports.
SAM DUNKLAU, BYLINE: If the U.S. Supreme Court does decide to overturn Roe v. Wade, Pennsylvanians could still access abortion but with some caveats. Even with Roe, those caveats have been in place for decades, as state House Republican spokesman Jason Gottesman explains.
JASON GOTTESMAN: Pennsylvania right now has the Abortion Control Act, and that would be unaffected because it would then be left up to the states to decide. And we already have that law on the books.
DUNKLAU: Pregnant women have to consult with a doctor at least 24 hours before an abortion, and abortions after 24 weeks are only allowed if they're needed because of a sexual assault, incest or to protect a pregnant person's life. And though Republicans who control the state legislature have recently pushed bills restricting abortion further, Democratic Governor Tom Wolf has held the line by vetoing them all. But Wolf is being term limited out of his job this year, and eight Republicans are scrambling for their party's blessing to run for it in this month's primary.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LOU BARLETTA: I would sign any bill that comes to my desk that would protect the life of the unborn.
DUNKLAU: Some candidates for governor, like former Congressman Lou Barletta, have said in TV debates that they would keep Pennsylvania's law in place.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BARLETTA: And I have made exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother.
DUNKLAU: But others, like state Senator Doug Mastriano, say they would not make exceptions. Mastriano says he'd push lawmakers to ban abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DOUG MASTRIANO: This is a national catastrophe. And so we're going to move with alacrity, with speed on the heartbeat bill, and we're going to get it down.
DUNKLAU: State Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the only Democrat that's running, says he and Wolf are of one mind on bills like that.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOSH SHAPIRO: I will veto that bill and protect the fundamental freedoms of women here in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
DUNKLAU: The Cook Political Report rates the Pennsylvania governor's race as a toss-up, and the idea that anyone could win is what has some voters worried about what would happen if the Roe decision is tossed out. Alyssa McLaughlin, who volunteers for Planned Parenthood, demonstrated on the state capitol steps with that in mind.
ALYSSA MCLAUGHLIN: Voting in this midterm election is really - especially with Governor Wolf leaving, I think that it's really going to make a difference as to whether or not abortion access continues in the state of Pennsylvania or not.
DUNKLAU: In a recent statewide poll, 53% of Pennsylvania voters said abortion should remain legal in certain circumstances. Valerie Boland also showed up at the capitol steps and says she'd rather see the practice banned entirely. She volunteers for Doug Mastriano, one of the Republican candidates.
VALERIE BOLAND: If our government would stop funding abortion and start funding adoption, we could have adoption. These babies could be put up for adoption to loving families. When there's abortion, there's no chance. Like, you can't change that.
DUNKLAU: Another protester, social worker Beth Diltz, says abortion should be legal in all cases because there are downsides to alternatives, like adoption.
BETH DILTZ: I think a lot of people forget that the foster care system doesn't have the capacity to care for these children. There's not enough funding. There's not access.
DUNKLAU: Pennsylvania's primary is less than two weeks away, and a poll last month shows two-thirds of Republican voters haven't picked a candidate. But if the GOP takes the governor's mansion in November, depending on who that is, access to abortion could look very different in Pennsylvania.
For NPR News, I'm Sam Dunklau in Harrisburg.
(SOUNDBITE OF EMANCIPATOR'S "EVERGREEN") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/for-purple-states-like-pennsylvania-abortion-laws-may-depend-on-who-becomes-governor | 2022-05-12T16:05:39Z |
ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
Do you need an excuse not to cut your lawn? Here's one - scientists say leaving your grass a little longer in the spring can actually help bees and other pollinators. A few dozen U.S. cities have joined a program called No Mow May. Here's Chuck Quirmbach of member station WUWM in Milwaukee.
CHUCK QUIRMBACH, BYLINE: Matthew Normansell is standing in the small side yard of his house in Appleton, Wis., and he likes what he's starting to see poke through the ground.
MATTHEW NORMANSELL: You can already see the dandelions starting to pop up. You get a little bit of the creeping charlie, a few small violets, a lot of daisies as well. But they'll all be flowering kind of at some point during May and providing, you know, pollen to these pollinating insects.
QUIRMBACH: Those plants will flower in May because, Normansell says, he'll be leaving his lawn mower in the garage and joining about 500 other Appleton residents taking part in a city-backed program to not mow at all for a month. This community of 75,000 has become a U.S. leader in the No Mow May movement, which began in England and has spread to more than 30 cities, mostly in the Midwest. That's where May is considered a key time for pollinators to come out of hibernation or their winter habitat.
Israel Del Toro teaches biology at Lawrence University in Appleton. He says an initial study of unmowed yards in the city shows a fivefold increase in the number of bees, and they're very hungry in the spring.
ISRAEL DEL TORO: So when we leave our weeds - or things we would normally call weeds - to grow, those are like little cheeseburgers for our pollinators, and they're able to get some cheap calories really, really fast and put on some weight that'll give them a leg up for the season.
QUIRMBACH: In many U.S. cities, not cutting your grass in May could get you a citation, but communities taking part in this initiative have agreed to waive that. Appleton Mayor Jake Woodford is taking part in the No Mow program, too.
JAKE WOODFORD: And it's, you know, not been without its hiccups or its frustrations from some community members. But by and large, there's just been incredible support for the effort, a lot of buy-in, a lot of participation.
QUIRMBACH: But hearing about increasing pollinator populations has not convinced everyone of the value of letting the lawn grow.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAWN MOWER)
QUIRMBACH: At the service area of the Northside Power Center in Appleton, Steve Schick says during a rainy springtime, the grass can grow really tall by June.
STEVE SCHICK: Now you've got to struggle getting it back under control. And a lot of people will have a problem with their mowers when they try to get it back under control. And they - a lot of times it will damage them.
QUIRMBACH: Backers of No Mow May advise raising the lawn mower blade height in June or using a string trimmer first.
Appleton is one of about 150 communities with a Bee City designation under a program coordinated by the Oregon-based Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. The group's Matthew Shepherd says, while valuable, not mowing is just a first step.
MATTHEW SHEPHERD: It's not like the endpoint. You know, we can't say, gosh, we've let our lawn grow; we've saved the bees, yay.
QUIRMBACH: Shepherd and others say they hope keeping lawn mowers in storage for a month will further habitat awareness and the central role pollinators play.
For NPR News, I'm Chuck Quirmbach in Milwaukee.
(SOUNDBITE OF JUSTICE'S "PHANTOM PT II") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/help-pollinators-and-get-a-break-from-mowing-your-lawn-by-joining-no-mow-may | 2022-05-12T16:05:45Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, many states can end or curtail access to abortion almost immediately because of what are known as trigger bans. The Guttmacher Institute is an abortion rights advocacy group that tracks legislative efforts nationwide. Its principal policy associate for state issues, Elizabeth Nash, joins us now. Elizabeth, is it fair to define trigger laws as the name of a law that's unenforceable but might become enforceable if things change, if key circumstances change?
ELIZABETH NASH: Exactly. What we're talking about are abortion bans that were signed into law and only go into effect if Roe v. Wade is overturned. So they don't have a normal effective date like, say, July 1.
MARTINEZ: OK. So based on that, then, explain how states are already set to restrict access to abortions if Roe is reversed.
NASH: So what we have are 13 states that have these so-called trigger bans, right? They go into effect if Roe is overturned. And then you have sort of some nuance in when they go into effect, because there are three of them that go into effect immediately, another seven that go into effect upon AG - the attorney general's certification and then another three that go into effect 30 days after the Supreme Court issues its decision. But in all told, all 13 of these would be in effect within the month.
MARTINEZ: So now that we've all seen this draft, do you think more states will urgently enact some sort of trigger law now that we've seen it?
NASH: Well, we have to take into account that some states already have adjourned their legislative sessions and may not be coming back in for a special session. But we might be seeing at least a couple. There's one moving in Ohio right now. It's already had a hearing. So we're waiting to see what might happen there in particular.
MARTINEZ: What about states, Elizabeth, where abortion is not addressed at all in the state constitution? What might they do?
NASH: Well, it depends, really, on the political tenor of the state, you know? Right now we have these - right? - already, a quarter of the states, 13 of them, have these trigger bans. And then you have another set of states that have pre-Roe bans or, you know, bans that were in effect before Roe and never repealed. Those states could move to have - to enforce those. And then you have some states like Georgia, where they passed a six-week abortion ban. That ban is not in effect because of the courts. So the attorney general in that state, once we hear from the Supreme Court, may ask the judges to dismiss that case, to allow that six-week ban to go into effect. So there's a series of things that can happen. But I want to stress that this would happen fairly quickly. We're not talking months and years. We're really talking around days and weeks.
MARTINEZ: And there are some states that say their constitution doesn't protect abortion rights. So they're going to go with maybe liberty clauses, privacy clauses, equal protection clauses?
NASH: Well, yeah. So in states that are - where the Constitution hasn't been interpreted to protect abortion rights and they do not - and they don't have a constitutional amendment that says there are no protections for abortion rights, yes, there are places that - where we could be looking at liberty protections or equal protections or privacy protections to fight back against abortion bans.
MARTINEZ: And Louisiana, Tennessee are two of those states like that. Elizabeth, if Roe is overturned, what kind of court challenges can we anticipate?
NASH: Well, we are going to be - our litigators in the movement are looking at what kinds of constitutional protections there could be based on those various types of clauses because, as you know, abortion is necessary. And it's part of health care. And we need to defend it to the fullest extent.
MARTINEZ: What opportunities to abortion rights advocates have for seeking constitutional protections on a state-by-state basis? I know California mentioned - or Gavin Newsom, governor of California, mentioned maybe putting it in the state constitution a couple of days ago.
NASH: Right. So you know, right now from Vermont, we have the very first ballot measure that if approved by the voters will put into the constitution an amendment that says this constitution protects abortion rights. And we have an effort in Michigan, where they're in the signature collection phase. So it's a citizen's petition. And they are looking to protect abortion rights in the - you know, at the November ballot as well. And now we've got California.
MARTINEZ: And one more thing really quick, what about states that have abortion bans still on the books from before Roe v. Wade? What happens with those zombie laws?
NASH: Those potentially could be enforced. But some of them, in places like Wisconsin and Michigan, have attorneys general and governors who support abortion rights. So they'll - they are not interested in enforcing them. But places like Arizona and West Virginia, we may see those attorneys general and governor trying to enforce them.
MARTINEZ: OK. Elizabeth Nash with the Guttmacher Institute. Elizabeth, thanks.
NASH: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/if-roe-v-wade-is-overturned-many-states-may-limit-access-to-abortion-immediately | 2022-05-12T16:05:46Z |
When it comes to omicron, one thing seems certain to bioinformatician Shishi Luo: Another surge will occur.
That's because new versions of omicron are emerging — here in the United States and in other parts of the world as well, like South Africa.
These new variants have a key set of mutations which enable them to spread even faster than the previous versions of omicron.
So people are wondering: If I had omicron once, can I get it again?
Now two preliminary studies, published online this week, start to answer that question. And the results show just how quickly omicron can mutate and overcome the defenses our immune systems put up.
How the variants are faring in the U.S. and South Africa
Before we get to the studies, let's look at what these variants are doing in the U.S. and South Africa.
In the U.S. a new version of omicron called BA.2.12.1 emerged in central New York state last month, where it caused a steep rise in cases. BA.2.12.1 is now found across the country, and It spreads about 50% faster each week than the omicron BA.2, which has been dominant in the U.S. variant.
"Given how this [new] variant is rising now in the U.S. it will definitely come to dominate here," says Luo. "And so I think the question is how high will the surge go before it peaks? How big of a bump will it be? I don't know the answer. It really just depends on people's behavior."
In South Africa, two of these new omicron variants, known as BA.4 and BA.5, are causing a fifth wave of cases. In the past two weeks, cases there have nearly quadrupled, from about 1,200 each day to 4,600 each day. And the positivity rate jumped from about 8% to 18%.
Omicron is a 'master player'
What these new variants show is just how wily omicron is.
"In terms of the ability to evade antibody activity, omicron is a master player. It's way more efficient than all the previous variants," says virologist Pei-Yong Shi at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, who wasn't involved in the newly published studies. "Like in this case, you need just a key mutation that can totally flip things around."
The two new studies start to explain why, all of a sudden, these new variants have started to spread so quickly. The answer boils down to one key factor: Their mutations allow them to re-infect people who have already had an omicron infection. This reinfection risk may be higher for people who are not vaccinated.
In the studies, researchers took blood from people infected with the original omicron variant, BA.1, and looked to see if the antibodies in the blood could neutralize newer versions of omicron, including the one that emerged in New York state (BA.2.12.2) or the two variants surging in South Africa (BA.4 and BA.5).
All people infected with omicron BA.1 had antibodies able to neutralize BA.1. But that potency decreased dramatically against the new variants (BA.2.12.2, BA.4 and BA.5). And how much it declined depended heavily on whether the people were vaccinated.
For people not vaccinated, their antibodies ability to neutralize BA.4 and BA.5 dropped by nearly 8 times, compared to the activity against BA.1, both studies reported.
"Neutralization capacity ... after BA.4/5 was very low," immunologist Alex Sigal, who led one of the studies, wrote on Twitter. Against BA.2.12.1, the potency dropped by about 4 times, researchers at Peking University reported.
"Together, our results indicate that Omicron can evolve mutations to specifically evade ... immunity elicited by BA.1 [omicron] infections," biophysicist Sunny Xie and his colleagues from Peking University write in one of the studies.
What vaccines can and can't do
"The situation was better in the vaccinated breakthrough cases," added Sigal, who's at the Africa Health Research Institute. For people immunized, either with the Pfizer vaccine or the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the neutralization ability dropped only 3 fold against BA.4 and BA.5, compared to the potency against BA.1. These people also had more neutralization capacity against BA.1 to begin with. So in the end, they had, on average, about 5 times the neutralization potency against the new variants, compared to people who weren't vaccinated before the infection.
"The data shows, again and again, that the vaccine still has tremendous benefits," says virologist Pei-Yong Shi in Galveston, Texas.
Nevertheless, Sigal believes this decline in antibody potency is enough "to cause trouble and lead to an infection wave" – like in South Africa, where only about a third of the population is immunized.
Bioinformatician Tulio de Oliveria agrees. "Previous infections with Omicron BA.1 will not be sufficient to prevent a second infection with BA.4 and BA.5," de Oliveria, who's at the Center for Epidemic Response and Innovation in Durban, wrote on Twitter.
"Some scientists & science communicators are convinced that one needs a new variant to cause a new wave," de Oliveira added. "Delta caused a long wave with multiple lineages. Omicron is causing waves with BA.1, BA.2, BA.2.12.1, BA.4 & BA.5."
Here in the U.S., both BA.4 and BA.5 are extremely rare. No one knows if they will be able to compete with BA.2.12.2, which accounts for about a third of all cases in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates. "Cases of BA.2.12.2 are growing exponentially," says Shishi Luo at Helix. "Depending on the rate of that exponential growth, we could start seeing a really sharp increase in cases across the country happening in the next month or so."
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/if-youve-had-omicron-before-are-you-safe-from-infection-by-the-new-variants | 2022-05-12T16:05:52Z |
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Nearly a year after a residential high-rise building collapsed in Florida, killing 98 people, the state has done nothing to address condo safety. There are more than a million and a half condo units in the state; nearly a million are over 30 years old. And Florida lawmakers and the governor have failed to act, despite promises that they would prevent a condo tower collapse like the one in Surfside. NPR's Greg Allen looks at some of the reasons why.
GREG ALLEN, BYLINE: In Surfside now, there's just a big hole in the ground to mark the place where the Champlain Towers South building stood. Martin Landesfeld's sister and brother-in-law were among those who died there. He was at the scene of the collapse recently to call on Florida's governor and lawmakers to do something to improve condo safety.
MARTIN LANDESFELD: One year later, the new question is when will the next building collapse?
ALLEN: Following the disaster in Surfside, a federal investigation is underway of what caused the collapse of the aging structure. There was also a grand jury investigation and a number of task forces that produced recommendations on how to avoid building collapses in the future. Miami-Dade County is poised to act on some of the recommendations, including recertification for buildings that are 30 years old, instead of the current 40-year requirement. But local officials say action is needed on the state level, to adopt regulations that apply to all condos in Florida. The Republican-led legislature did consider bills that would require condos to undergo safety inspections and to hold financial reserves to fund needed maintenance and repairs. But it adjourned without taking any action. Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz blames Governor Ron DeSantis.
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Governor DeSantis needs to lead. He needs to get involved in getting this critical issue across the finish line.
ALLEN: DeSantis was active on many other bills before the legislature, on issues involving how race and sexual orientation is taught in the schools, on the shape of new congressional maps and on punishing Disney for opposing his policies. He didn't take a leading role on condo safety legislation but says he supports it.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RON DESANTIS: We were very receptive. We wanted to be able to sign something that was going to make an impact. But the idea that somehow I was trying to not support it was not true.
ALLEN: Florida's failure to do anything on condo safety following the tragedy in Surfside disappointed many, including Fausto Gomez. He heads a group of nearly three dozen condo associations in Key Biscayne.
FAUSTO GOMEZ: I was surprised that nothing happened, yes. I was very surprised simply for the optics of it.
ALLEN: Gomez's condo is on the top floor of a seven-story building, with a large outdoor patio.
GOMEZ: There's a view of downtown Miami. And there's a view of Biscayne Bay.
ALLEN: Gomes says his building is just 20 years old, but it's already beginning the process of recertifying its safety and structural integrity. That's not because of state or county regulations, but because following the Surfside collapse, the residents of this building wanted it, and insurance companies may demand it. The head of Florida's Association of Insurance Agents, Kyle Ulrich, says insurance companies are now requiring condominium buildings over 15 years old to be recertified before their policies are renewed. And he says the cost of insurance is going up dramatically.
KYLE ULRICH: Almost all associations are getting rate increases at this moment. And I've heard from members that they've been delivering rate increases upwards of 100% to some condominium associations.
ALLEN: Ulrich and others say in some ways it doesn't matter that Florida has failed to adopt new rules on condo safety because the insurance industry is already doing it on its own. Along with steep price increases, many condo associations are now being required to carry out deferred repairs and improvements, costs, Ulrich says, that may be hard on retirees and others on a fixed income.
ULRICH: It's those condominium associations that are going to be in a very difficult spot, having to assess their owners to take care of deferred maintenance and structural issues, while at the same time having a very difficult time finding coverage.
ALLEN: Florida helped pioneer condominium living and is second only to California in the number of total units. With the Surfside tragedy, Florida is now raising new questions about what role the government should play in making sure aging buildings are still safe to live in. Greg Allen, NPR News, Miami. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/insurance-rates-spike-after-florida-lawmakers-fail-to-address-condo-safety | 2022-05-12T16:05:58Z |
A huge piece of quartzite in Lawrence, which has long stood as a memorial to the town's abolitionist founders, is being moved. It belongs to a Native American tribe.
Copyright 2022 KCUR 89.3
A huge piece of quartzite in Lawrence, which has long stood as a memorial to the town's abolitionist founders, is being moved. It belongs to a Native American tribe.
Copyright 2022 KCUR 89.3 | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/kansas-monolith-will-be-returned-to-native-american-tribe | 2022-05-12T16:06:04Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Protesters are marching across the United States after a leak suggests the Supreme Court could reverse the constitutional right to abortion for the first time in half a century. President Biden says this decision, if it holds, would be a radical change that could impact a whole range of private matters.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Does this mean that in Florida, they can decide they're going to pass a law saying that same-sex marriage is not permissible, it's against the law in Florida?
FADEL: For more on what overturning Roe v. Wade could mean for U.S. politics, I talked to NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: We don't know yet if abortion rights are going to be more motivating for Democratic voters than issues like immigration, inflation and crime are for Republicans and independent voters. In the past, abortion rights has always been a bigger motivator for conservatives than for liberals. The question now is, is this potential ruling a tipping point? In the short term in Washington, there's not a lot Democrats can do to secure abortion rights. Nationally, they don't have the votes to pass something in the Senate that would codify Roe. Even though Republicans Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski would presumably support that, there aren't enough votes to break the filibuster.
FADEL: Now, just yesterday, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt signed a ban on most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, modeled after a similar Texas law. If the Supreme Court overturns Roe, it would leave abortion decisions up to the states. So let's talk about other restrictions we could see.
LIASSON: I think that you will see more legislating in conservative states. Some legislators have talked about criminalizing abortion, making it a crime to take a woman across state lines to get an abortion. Some activists on the right have talked about passing national abortion restrictions if Republicans gain control of Congress. But other conservatives are cautious and are waiting for the court to rule.
FADEL: Now, clearly, Republicans and Democrats are reacting very differently to this news. Could you break that down for us?
LIASSON: Yes. On the Democratic side, President Biden, as you heard him in that clip, are warning that the rationale behind this opinion can be used to roll back other rights that are enshrined by the courts that rely on a constitutional right to privacy, like contraception or same-sex marriage. Republicans, on the other hand, have been - at least in Washington, have been very focused on the leak, not the policy. The National Republican Senatorial Committee issued a memo to its members that was very defensive. It encouraged them to be the compassionate consensus builders on abortion policies and to stress that Republicans do not want to take away contraception or to put doctors or women in jail. It was almost as if they were very aware of public opinion on this and the fact that they haven't won the battle for hearts and minds because polls have consistently shown that public opinion is solidly behind upholding Roe. More than 50% support it. And less than 30% support overturning it.
FADEL: So if the court goes through with this decision, what does it mean for U.S. politics in the long run?
LIASSON: Well, we don't know that. But we do know that it's going to spark this bigger debate that we've been having about whether the United States is turning into a minority rule country. A majority of the justices on the court were appointed by presidents who didn't get a majority of the popular vote. And in some cases, the conservative justices were confirmed by senators representing a minority of voters. So I think you're going to hear a lot of talk about that, whether the structure of the Senate and the Electoral College and extreme gerrymandering is leading to minority rule in this country. And we'll find out if voters are comfortable with that.
FADEL: NPR's Mara Liasson. Thanks, Mara.
LIASSON: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/leaked-supreme-court-draft-opinion-renews-the-political-debate-involving-abortion | 2022-05-12T16:06:06Z |
For actor Minnie Driver, becoming famous was a surreal experience. Fame always presented a bit of a "psychological paradox." You want to be seen, but not that much.
Now, two and a half decades after breaking into Hollywood, the Circle of Friends and Good Will Hunting star is ready for the world to see a little bit more of her. She's written a memoir called Managing Expectations, where she shares stories about the messiness of life from her childhood in England and Barbados, to her unexpected path into acting, becoming a single mom and her complicated relationship with her own parents.
She said she decided to write her memoir during the pandemic when she, like many other people, was questioning what was next and what she should do during this time.
"Having been metabolized and synthesized by other people my entire adult life, there's a point at which the agency of telling your own story becomes not important, but sort of an interesting exploration," Driver said in an interview with NPR's All Things Considered.
Telling stories orally is a huge tradition in her family, Driver said, so as she worked to decide which memories of her life to include, she went back to the ones she's told before that people have enjoyed.
Driver spoke about how her parents' relationships affected her views on the institution of marriage, her relationship with her son and what she hopes people will take from her memoir.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
On understanding her mother's need for marriage and the many reasons she wanted to make it work
I think it was much later in my life, probably in my mid-30s, where I really started to understand my mother's story. And, you know, the trauma that she'd experienced. And I don't use that word lightly, but I feel like you're never really aware of your parents' stories.
She had been thrown out of her home age 16, along with her three other sisters who were all under the age of 18 when her father married his housekeeper after my grandmother died. She had this desire for freedom and conventionality to be independent, but to also somehow find this convention.
It was part of what I think was the absolute dichotomy that went on in her life, which was this free spirit who also desperately wanted to have a convention define a part of her that I think she felt had been rejected. And so, of course, she did the most unconventional thing possible, which is to be the mistress to a married man whilst also having a job and having children and being interested in the world around her.
On how her mother's experience with marriage shaped her own views around the institution of marriage
Strangely for someone who was the product of people who weren't married, I've really always wanted to be married. But I think I thought it meant that you were accepted or acceptable.
It's taken a long time to unpick that and to realize that what I really want is to be with this man that I love now forever. He has said, "I do not want to be in a throuple with the state of California, so I don't really want to be married," which is hilarious. But I do want a party. I want my friends to come together, for us to dance and for us to tell stories. I want the ritual.
But the marriage thing I understand now was far more complicated for my mother and complicated for me as well.
On how the memories from her childhood affect how she brings people into the life she shares with her son
I've been extremely judicious in introducing my son to any person I was going to be in a relationship with, which is exactly two in his lifetime, because I don't believe children should meet someone who you're just casually dating. But Henry has also grown in a very different way where we talk to each other, and have done, because it's really just been him and I his whole life.
I raised him as a single mum and we talk about all of these things. We talk about who his granny and grandpa were. We talk about my life, not in an inappropriate way, but rather, these are my stories and these are the things. And if someone else is going to wander into our landscape, they won't wander in — they will knock on the door, be invited in, will sit down and have tea, and then we'll both decide if we think they should stay.
On what she hopes people can take away after reading all these stories
I think really, truthfully, we have this set of expectations — whether it's social media, whether it's our parents, whether it's politically, whether it's our own inner voices or relationships — we find ourselves in that are constantly telling us how we should be and what we are supposed to expect.
And I think I really wanted to illustrate that life just doesn't look like that, and that you can expect all you want, but being in the actuality of what happens in the living outcome, that's where life exists. That's it. It's experiential. I'm not sure that there's meaning beyond living as presently as we possibly can and laughing as much as you can with the things that are difficult, things that are hard.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/minnie-driver-on-the-paradox-of-fame-and-her-complicated-notion-of-marriage | 2022-05-12T16:06:12Z |
ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
As the country prepares for a Supreme Court ruling that could overturn Roe v. Wade, people are envisioning what it might mean for them and for their communities. TV writers have been bringing those stories into American homes for decades, as NPR's Elizabeth Blair reports.
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: Steph Herold studies depictions of abortion in popular culture. She's a researcher with the nonprofit Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health. She says TV mostly gets it wrong.
STEPH HEROLD: Most of those characters are white, are not parenting at the time of their abortions, are wealthy, are young - kind of the exact opposite of the reality of who's getting abortion in the U.S.
BLAIR: Think HBO's "Sex And The City."
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SEX AND THE CITY")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Did you really want to have a child with a guy who serves burgers on roller skates?
BLAIR: More recently, scripted TV shows have portrayed medical abortions in which a woman takes pills. In "Law And Order" last year, a teenager is taken to the hospital when she's found bleeding on the street.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "LAW AND ORDER")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) But what happened to her?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) She was hemorrhaging. Her tox screen shows misoprostol and mifepristone.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) The abortion pill.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) We had to do a DNC.
BLAIR: The FDA approved the use of those drugs to terminate pregnancies up to 10 weeks. For Herold, this is an example of depicting extremes, not reality.
HEROLD: Showing these kind of devastating medical consequences to taking abortion pills, to me, is extremely irresponsible because we know that abortion pills are very safe.
BLAIR: Herold says a more realistic portrayal aired last year in an episode of ABC's "A Million Little Things."
HEROLD: You know, we actually see her take the pill, put it in her mouth. She sits on the couch. She's surrounded by pillows and blankets. The guy she had sex with actually flies over to Boston from the U.K. to be with her during her abortion.
BLAIR: Abortion has come up in comedies, like "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "BoJack Horseman." In "Jane The Virgin," Jane is a 23-year-old who is accidentally artificially inseminated.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "JANE THE VIRGIN")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character) Are you ready for your insemination?
DIANA MARTINEZ: Jane is actually dealing with this wild telenovela premise.
BLAIR: Film scholar Diana Martinez says it was groundbreaking for "Jane The Virgin" to include conversations about abortion.
MARTINEZ: Particularly because this is a taboo subject within Latino households. You know, there's a political divide. There's a generational divide.
BLAIR: Jane's mother had Jane when she was 16. Jane's grandmother is a strict, devout Catholic. Jane assumes the only reason she's alive is because her grandmother would have forbidden her daughter to get an abortion. It turns out her grandmother did suggest her daughter have an abortion.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "JANE THE VIRGIN")
IVONNE COLL: (As Alba, speaking Spanish).
BLAIR: Her grandmother tells Jane, but I carry that shame in my heart every day.
MARTINEZ: It's powerful because it allows for this duality to exist that people of faith can also believe in a woman's choice.
BLAIR: Balancing different viewpoints is something producer Norman Lear and actress Bea Arthur tried to do when the sitcom "Maude" became the first primetime TV show to address abortion. In 1972, not long before Roe v. Wade was decided, Maude becomes pregnant at age 47.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "MAUDE")
BEA ARTHUR: (As Maude Findlay) Oh, yes, Carol. You see, on top of everything else, I'm preggy (ph).
(LAUGHTER)
BLAIR: Jokes aside, Maude agonizes over what to do. Ultimately, she and her husband decide they are too old to have a child. The story also featured a character who is the same age as Maude and also pregnant. She decides to have the child. She already has four children.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "MAUDE")
ELISABETH FRASER: (As Lorraine) Actually, we had planned at stopping at four.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #5: (As character) Four is a nice family, Lorraine. Why didn't you?
FRASER: (As Lorraine) I couldn't do that. I mean, each to his own, but I couldn't. I don't think it's right for me to make that kind of a decision.
BLAIR: Whose decision is it? The court is considering that question. Elizabeth Blair, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/more-tv-shows-depict-abortion-but-few-resemble-real-life | 2022-05-12T16:06:18Z |
NASA is planning its first-ever mission to bring dirt and rocks from Mars back to Earth — but before that momentous event happens, the space agency needs to figure out exactly how to protect our home planet from any alien microbes that might hitch a ride.
This week, the agency is holding public meetings and looking for feedback on its plan to land a spacecraft carrying Martian specimens at a U.S. Air Force testing range in Utah in the early 2030s.
"Maybe this is the most important environmental assessment that humans have ever done," says Peter Doran, a geologist at Louisiana State University who studies life in extreme environments.
"I think that it's a very low probability that there's anything living at the surface of Mars," says Doran, who also serves on an international committee devoted to planetary protection. "But there is a possibility."
Having a rock sample from Mars here on Earth would let scientists run exhaustive lab tests to look for evidence of whether this cold, harsh, rocky world was once habitable and maybe even inhabited.
For scientists, this is a long-held dream
Talk of such a mission has gone on for decades, and it will cost billions of dollars to accomplish. Still, Doran says no one has thought through exactly how to handle Martian specimens. Questions like how to contain any potential microbes? Or what specific features are needed for the secure lab (or labs) that will house the rocks?
"Until recently, there hasn't been a lot of focus on the details of the sample return facility and all that," he explains, "because we didn't think it was going to happen."
Now, though, the effort appears to be on a fast track, with NASA officials collaborating with the European Space Agency and making plans to launch a set of retrieval spacecraft as soon as 2027 and 2028. To get ready, NASA's Perseverance rover, which landed on Mars last year, has been drilling cylindrical samples of rock and sealing them inside metal tubes.
"We've got eight samples on board the rover now," says Jim Bell, a planetary scientist at Arizona State University who is part of the Perseverance rover team.
He explains that the rover has been exploring an ancient crater on Mars that seems to have once had water. Occasionally, the rover drills out a cylindrical core of rock about the size of a dry-erase marker. The core then gets hermetically sealed into one of the rover's 42 metal sample tubes.
Bell says a long-running joke among planetary scientists is that "Mars sample return has always been 10 years off." But at long last, it truly does seem to be 10 years off, he says.
"I'm optimistic, right? We're caching them, and we're getting them ready to be picked up," says Bell. "And so that is farther than the planetary science community has ever come before."
Critics say Martian rocks come with risks
NASA officials are hashing out a plan to safely collect the samples: A spacecraft would land on Mars and launch a container full of the previously collected rock samples into orbit around the planet. Once in orbit, this container could be engulfed by another container — like a big fish eating a little fish — to keep anything that had touched Mars inside.
It would then be sealed, and the seal would be heat-sterilized, says Brian Clement, a planetary protection expert with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who is working on the mission.
"We're applying very high heat. It's going to be in excess of 900 degrees Fahrenheit," he says. "We want to be able to break apart any biomolecules that might have activity of any concern."
This is technically challenging, however, because scientists also want to keep the rock samples cold, as they were on Mars. "I liken this to welding your metal lunchbox shut while trying to keep your lunch nice and cold inside," says Clement.
The sanitized container would then go into yet another container, which would also be sealed and put into the Earth-entry vehicle, which is what would eventually land in the Utah desert, without a parachute.
"We like to refer to it as a 90-mile-an-hour fastball, where the landing site is the mitt," says Clement. "That 90-mile-an-hour landing, just like with a baseball, is well within the Earth-entry system's capabilities."
Still, some observers find this proposal disturbing.
"We're just going to bring it back and have it come back to the Utah desert, much like the Genesis solar-sample return mission, which, of course, broke up, broke open on impact," says Barry DiGregorio, a science writer with a group called the International Committee Against Mars Sample Return, which has long opposed plans to bring Martian rocks directly to Earth.
"You could imagine what would happen if you have pathogenic organisms from another planet and you had that sort of event take place," says DiGregorio.
But Clement says that multiple panels of scientific experts have weighed in on the risk of Mars sample return over the years and that "those panels have all agreed that the potential hazard is very, very low."
Even so, he says, NASA is taking a conservative approach. "Anything that has contacted Mars directly will be contained or sterilized before it is returned," says Clement.
And Bell says he's not worried about the possibility that any Martian germs mixed in with the rocks might escape into the environment and cause problems or disease, "despite the fact that many science fiction fans out there are probably concerned about that."
Any life on Mars would be ill-suited to survive on Earth, says Bell, as it would have evolved in a separate biosphere, or environment that supports life. "We're talking about a completely different ecosystem, a completely different potential biosphere," he says. "And, of course, we don't know if there is or was a biosphere on Mars at all."
In his view, the main danger of a rupture or leak would be contaminating the precious Martian samples with Earth material. That's why the samples will likely need to be opened in high-tech facilities that can replicate the environment and atmosphere of Mars, Bell says.
Public reaction to a special delivery from Mars
While the surface of Mars is currently dry, very cold and blasted with harsh ultraviolet radiation, LSU's Doran says it's still possible that microbes could eke out an existence in shielded cavities and holes or under the dust.
"The possibility is not zero," says Doran, although he thinks it's "highly unlikely."
"We definitely have to take this stance of protecting Earth, at least in the early missions, until we know what's there," he says.
One of the few efforts to ascertain what the public thinks about bringing home Martian rocks was carried out back in the 1990s. That study found that "public perception of biological hazards associated with a Mars sample return mission is not seen as a large risk relative to other technological and environmental risks and hazards, such as nuclear technologies, food risks, and ozone depletion."
But public perceptions might be different now, in part because of the coronavirus pandemic, says Margaret Race, one of the researchers involved in that 1990s study, who has worked on planetary protection with the SETI Institute.
"What we're talking about is bringing it down in Utah in a great big desert and then you pick it up and you bring it to someplace else, a lab," says Race, pointing out that people will want to know where that lab will be and exactly what protections will be in place.
"I can expect there will be lots of questions," she says.
Even with many details left to be worked out, the prospect of a Martian rock being brought to Earth is just thrilling for scientists like ASU's Bell, who has studied Mars for years.
"I just want to see this stuff with my own eyes," says Bell. "We've been looking at this world through robotic eyes for so long, and I want to see that famous red dust and I want to see the insides of some of these rocks and little grains that may have formed in a watery environment 3 or 4 billion years ago."
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/nasa-is-bringing-rocks-back-from-mars-but-what-if-those-samples-contain-alien-life | 2022-05-12T16:06:24Z |
Back when TV was in black-and-white, there was a cop show called Dragnet whose hero, Sgt. Joe Friday, was famous for telling witnesses, "Just the facts, ma'am." Using the facts he got, he then caught the perp.
In real life, of course, things are not so neat. It's often hard to know what "just the facts" are, let alone what they mean.
Consider the story of Michael Peterson, a Durham, N.C., writer whose wife, Kathleen, was found dead at the bottom of the staircase in their house in 2001. He said she fell; the authorities said he killed her. The evidence was ambiguous.
Three years later, French filmmaker Jean-Xavier de Lestrade turned the case into an acclaimed documentary series, The Staircase, that would set the template for countless true crime series to follow. Imagine Dateline if it was exciting, not hokey.
Peterson's saga has now been dramatized in a moody HBO Max series, also titled The Staircase. Created by Antonio Campos and boasting a crack cast led by Colin Firth and Juliette Binoche, this new version starts with the stuff from the original series and then expands outwards. Hopscotching to and fro over a 16-year period, Campos seeks to reveal truths — and capture emotions — left out of the earlier series.
Firth plays Peterson, a man with an apparently idyllic family life. He has a loving marriage to Kathleen (Toni Collette) and happy relationships with their blended family, which includes two sons and three daughters.
But on Dec. 9, 2001, he calls 911 and tells them that his wife is lying collapsed on the stairs. By the time help arrives she's dead. Although Peterson explains that Kathleen fell while drinking and hit her head, the D.A.'s office is convinced that he murdered her with an implement — in part, it seems, because they disapprove of what they learn about his sex life.
From here things snowball. Not only does the investigation produce startling twist after twist, but the Peterson family starts splintering in all sorts of ways. And in a fresh narrative strand, Campos includes the story of the French filmmakers turning up in Durham, telling Peterson they want to use his story as an example of American justice. Perhaps vaingloriously, he agrees.
Now, The Staircase is very skillfully turned. Campos directs with more visual panache than usual for TV, and he wins lots of nifty performances, including those of Parker Posey, who captures the scornfully amused righteousness of prosecutor Freda Black, and Collette, who endows the dead Kathleen with a living presence.
The whole show revolves around Firth, who hasn't been this good since the film A Single Man. Losing himself in Peterson, who's sort of a tainted Mr. Darcy, he does a spectacular job of conjuring up a man who's charismatic, erudite, slippery and entitled — he's sure the justice system will be on his side.
Big mistake. In fact, both versions of The Staircase detail the workings of a justice system filled with pricey lawyers, ambitious district attorneys, bickering experts and appeals to a jury's cultural biases that may have nothing to do with the evidence or even the case at hand.
By making the French film team part of the action — we see them urging Peterson to show more emotion on camera — Campos accentuates the idea that it's narrative, not truth, that matters. "What is justice?" asks Binoche's character. "Two sides competing to tell a better story."
When it comes to telling a better story, this dramatized Staircase can't match the addictively fizzy energy of the original documentary which you can watch on Netflix. Where the French film enthralls us with shocks and surprises — it's clearly riveted by the showbiz strangeness of high-profile American trials — Campos wants to explore something less fun: the painful human reality of the Peterson case. He leads us into the murk, both emotionally and intellectually.
Which brings us back to facts. It's one measure of their ultimate unknowability in the Peterson case that — through the five preview episodes anyway — Campos doesn't tell us whether Peterson actually murdered Kathleen. Rather than attempt to solve the mystery, he wants us to feel the weight of her death and what happens to everyone in its wake. He clearly agrees with the words of the French producer: "Innocent or guilty — the Peterson ending will always be tragic."
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/new-staircase-series-emphasizes-the-tragedy-behind-the-sensational-true-crime-story | 2022-05-12T16:06:26Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Protesters are marching across the United States after a leak suggests the Supreme Court plans to reverse the constitutional right to abortion for the first time in half a century.
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
President Biden says that this decision, if it holds, would be a radical change that could impact a whole range of private matters.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Does this mean that in Florida, they can decide they're going to pass a law saying that same-sex marriage is not permissible? It's against the law in Florida?
FADEL: For more on what overturning Roe v. Wade could mean for American politics, we're joined by NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Hi, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hi there.
FADEL: So, Mara, President Biden and other Democratic leaders are vowing to make abortion rights a central issue in the midterm elections this fall. So what's their plan? And will this bring more Democrats to the ballot box?
LIASSON: That's the big question. Their solution is to try to motivate voters to elect more Democrats. We don't know yet if abortion rights are going to be more motivating for Democratic voters than issues like immigration, inflation and crime are for Republicans and independent voters. In the past, abortion rights has always been a bigger motivator for conservatives than for liberals. The question now is, is this potential ruling a tipping point? In the short term, in Washington, there's not a lot Democrats can do to secure abortion rights. Nationally, they don't have the votes to pass something in the Senate that would codify Roe. Even though Republican Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski would presumably support that, there aren't enough votes to break the filibuster.
FADEL: Now, just yesterday, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt signed a ban on most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, modeled after a similar Texas law. If the Supreme Court overturns Roe, it would leave abortion decisions up to the states. So let's talk about other restrictions we could see.
LIASSON: I think that you will see more legislating in conservative states. Some legislators have talked about criminalizing abortion, making it a crime to take a woman across state lines to get an abortion. Some activists on the right have talked about passing national abortion restrictions if Republicans gain control of Congress. But other conservatives are cautious and are waiting for the court to rule.
FADEL: Now, clearly, Republicans and Democrats are reacting very differently to this news. Could you break that down for us?
LIASSON: Yes. On the Democratic side, President Biden, as you heard him in that clip, are warning that the rationale behind this opinion can be used to roll back other rights that are enshrined by the courts that rely on a constitutional right to privacy, like contraception or same-sex marriage. Republicans, on the other hand, have been - at least in Washington, have been very focused on the leak, not the policy. The National Republican Senatorial Committee issued a memo to its members that was very defensive and encouraged them to be the compassionate consensus-builders on abortion policies and to stress that Republicans do not want to take away contraception or to put doctors or women in jail. It was almost as if they were very aware of public opinion on this and the fact that they haven't won the battle for hearts and minds because polls have consistently shown that public opinion is solidly behind upholding Roe. More than 50% support it, and less than 30% support overturning it.
FADEL: So if the court goes through with this decision, what does it mean for U.S. politics in the long run?
LIASSON: Well, we don't know that, but we do know that it's going to spark this bigger debate that we've been having about whether the United States is turning into a minority-rule country. A majority of the justices on the court were appointed by presidents who didn't get a majority of the popular vote, and in some cases, the conservative justices were confirmed by senators representing a minority of voters.
FADEL: OK.
LIASSON: So I think you're going to hear a lot of talk about that, whether the structure of the Senate and the Electoral College and extreme gerrymandering is leading to minority rule in this country. And we'll find out if voters are comfortable with that.
FADEL: NPR's Mara Liasson. Thanks, Mara.
LIASSON: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FADEL: Ohio's Senate race is shaping up to be one of the most closely watched elections in the country, as Democrats are hoping to drive more people to the polls.
MARTINEZ: Yeah, Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan won the state's Democratic U.S. Senate primary, setting up a battle against Republican nominee J.D. Vance, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump. Here he is addressing supporters after his victory.
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J D VANCE: They wanted to write a story that this campaign would be the death of Donald Trump's America-first agenda. Ladies and gentlemen, it ain't the death of the America-first agenda.
(CHEERING)
MARTINEZ: This is already the most expensive race in Ohio's history.
FADEL: With us now is NPR's national political correspondent Don Gonyea in Cincinnati, where he's been covering the race. Good morning.
DON GONYEA, BYLINE: Good morning.
FADEL: So, Don, how did J.D. Vance emerge on top of a crowded field of Republican candidates, each vying to be more pro-Trump than the other?
GONYEA: Yeah, the GOP primary was just a slugfest, a race full of personal attacks. But you have to give credit to the fact that Vance ultimately got that Trump endorsement. It's something that seemed unlikely early on, given Vance's very strong criticisms of Trump back in 2016. But he became a major fan of Trump's over the years. And by the time he entered this race, he was really all in, and Trump gave him his blessing. Here's Vance with supporters last night.
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VANCE: I have absolutely got to thank the 45th, the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, ladies and gentlemen.
(CHEERING)
VANCE: One forgiveness example of what could be in this country, ladies and gentlemen. Remember 2019, when wages were going up and not down? Remember 2019, when workers were doing well in this country, not struggling terribly? Thanks to the president for everything.
GONYEA: So look for Trump to be very much front and center in the fall campaign.
FADEL: OK, so let's talk about the Democrats. What's next for Tim Ryan? He's seen as a moderate congressman.
GONYEA: Ryan has essentially been running his general election race for many months now. He boasts of going to all 88 counties, including the deepest red, most hardcore Trump counties, in the state. He says he wants to listen to everybody, but he also wants people to see him and hear him, and he talks about bringing Ohio back as a leader in manufacturing. Again, the economy took up a chunk of his victory speech last night.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TIM RYAN: I want us to be builders again. I want us to dominate the electric car industry. I want us to dominate the battery industry. I want us to dominate the electric truck industry. I want us to dominate the chip industry, glass industry, energy in southeast Ohio, aerospace in southwest Ohio. I want us to be the manufacturing powerhouse of the world.
FADEL: Now, Ohio was previously a major swing state and a bellwether for the presidential pick, but it's made a shift to the right, and Trump easily won the state in 2016 and 2020. What does that mean for this race?
GONYEA: It means it's something Ryan has to overcome. Again, Trump won the state big twice. And this, you know, economic uncertainty we're looking at now doesn't help Ryan at all. Vance last night accused him of trying to be a Trump Democrat. He's got a lot to overcome. But people do expect it to be a race.
FADEL: NPR's Don Gonyea. Thanks, Don.
GONYEA: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FADEL: The U.S. has already banned oil imports from Russia. Now Europe is thinking about doing the same. The European Union proposed today a plan to phase out Russian crude oil. It's an attempt to put economic pressure on Russia, which continues to attack Ukraine as far west as Lviv, near the Polish border.
MARTINEZ: And Russian shelling continues in the port city of Mariupol. Ukrainian officials are hoping to get more people out of the ruins of the Azovstal steel plant in the city. Hundreds of civilians and Ukrainian fighters are still holed up in bunkers and tunnels underneath the plant. The soldiers are the last holdouts in a city Russian forces have reduced to rubble. Roughly a hundred evacuees have now arrived in the city of Zaporizhzhia.
FADEL: And that's where NPR's Joanna Kakissis is. Hi, Joanna.
JOANNA KAKISSIS, BYLINE: Hi, Leila.
FADEL: So, Joanna, you're in Zaporizhzhia. You watched evacuees arrive after weeks of living under bombardment, living underground. How are they?
KAKISSIS: Yeah, the people who were inside that plant walked off those buses looking very pale, looking totally exhausted. I remember this little boy with curly brown hair and freckles. His name is Vova (ph). I was with his friend Sasha (ph), who was waiting for him. They'd grown up together in Mariupol, and Sasha said Vova, you know, was so much fun and had so much energy. But, you know, when he saw Vova, you know, get off that bus looking so exhausted and so sad, you know, Sasha just started crying. He ran to Vova, and he hugged them, and he said, it's going to be OK. Vova and the others were evacuated by the U.N. and the Red Cross. It was a very tricky evacuation. It involved a cease-fire that only held for a couple of days and lots of checkpoints. The U.N. said that some people chose to stay behind in Mariupol after getting out of the plant. They wanted to try to find their family members and even though the U.N. warned them that this would be very, very dangerous.
FADEL: Now, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator who helped get them out says for many, it was their first chance to, quote, "see daylight" after two months. I just can't imagine that. What did people tell you it was like?
KAKISSIS: Yeah, it was extremely bad. People told me it was like living through a horror movie or the apocalypse. You know, aside from food and water shortages and shortages of things like medicine and hygienic products, you know, there's the bombing and the shelling. Everyone I spoke to, they talked about entire rooms shaking and bricks coming loose and falling on families huddled together. I spoke with Anna Krilova and her 14-year-old daughter Maya, who - they lived through all this, and Anna gave this description.
ANNA KRILOVA: (Through interpreter) It was really scary because we couldn't go outside. It was just too dangerous. And inside, we kept going from shelter to shelter because the bombs kept hitting. We were hungry. We were scared. We were under constant shelling.
FADEL: So it feels strange to say this after listening to that, but these are the lucky ones. These are the ones that got out. Humanitarian corridors in the past fell apart under bombardment, and there are still people stuck under that plant. How confident are Ukrainian officials and the U.N. that they can get them out?
KAKISSIS: Yeah, so Ukrainian officials say they are going to push really hard to get everyone out. They're going to do everything they can. And the U.N. says they're already planning a mission to do so. But again, you know, this is very, very complicated. Russians are - once - the Russian troops are once again hitting the plant really, really hard. And so Russia doesn't appear to be showing any signs of a spirit of a cease-fire here.
FADEL: NPR's Joanna Kakissis in Zaporizhzhia. Thank you, Joanna.
KAKISSIS: You're welcome, Leila. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/news-brief-supreme-court-abortion-shift-ohio-primary-mariupol-steel-plant | 2022-05-12T16:06:32Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
If you're someone who still uses cash, maybe you've noticed a penny or two that are a little different. They're inscribed along the edge. The pennies are part of a public art project called "Tender" by New York artist Jill Magid. The idea is to explore the vulnerability of both our economy and our bodies over the past two years. NPR's Jennifer Vanasco explains.
JENNIFER VANASCO, BYLINE: Brooklyn's Dime Savings Bank was once a cathedral of capitalism. Now it's empty, ravaged, but for a short time, it hosted Jill Magid's silent film. Eight musicians played the score. The film is a provocative set of images juxtaposing the refrigerated trucks that, during the pandemic, were filled with bodies with Brink's trucks filled with pennies. Magid inscribed her pennies with the phrase, the body was already so fragile. She took it from an article using the body as a metaphor to explain how sick the economy was in 2020.
JILL MAGID: And in that way, I was thinking of the human body but also the government body, financial bodies and our own fragility.
VANASCO: Eventually, Magid distributed 120,000 pennies in 2020. Those pennies circulate through our economy like the virus circulates - through contact. The film focuses closely on people's hands as they pass pennies from clerk to customer. It's both frightening and intimate - highlighting both how we're vulnerable to each other, but also how much we need each other. The idea behind having a physical experience, a gathering, was to allow people to reflect on the past two years.
MAGID: You feel the music. You see the musicians. You feel the subwoofer is, like, resonating in your body. And all of us together create a whole other kind of moment that you can't really put into words, nor could you get online or any other way.
VANASCO: The coins themselves have wound up across the country. Justine Ludwig is the executive director of Creative Time, the arts organization which supported the project. She received one from a coffee shop.
JUSTINE LUDWIG: Pennies signify something very specific in society. For many people, they're good luck. If you see a penny on the ground, it's something that you usually pick up and you carry with you in your pocket. It becomes this talisman for so many.
VANASCO: This is art that, if you're lucky, you can hold in your own hands before passing along to someone else - a loved one or a stranger at a bodega. Jennifer Vanasco, NPR News, New York. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/public-art-project-tender-explores-the-vulnerability-of-our-economy-and-bodies | 2022-05-12T16:06:38Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
An update, finally, on the situation involving WNBA star Brittney Griner. Since February, she's been in custody in Russia. Authorities there say she illegally brought hash oil into the country. But yesterday, the U.S. government said it now considers Griner to be wrongfully detained. NPR sports correspondent Tom Goldman is following this development. Tom, first, what does this move by the U.S. mean?
TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: Basically, that Brittney Griner's case is going to get more attention. Specifically - and I'm quoting a State Department official here - "the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs will lead the interagency team for securing Brittney Griner's release," end quote. But now with the wrongful detention designation, the idea is that the U.S. government isn't going to wait for her case to advance through Russia's legal system. And she has a hearing in about two weeks. But instead, it'll be more proactive in negotiating her freedom.
MARTINEZ: All right. Any clue as to why this decision was made now?
GOLDMAN: Well, we don't know. And the State Department won't say why. The department constantly reviews cases of U.S. nationals detained abroad to determine if those detentions are wrongful. But the official I spoke to said they can't get into details of internal deliberations. In the absence of those details, of course, there's speculation, speculation that Griner's been detained since February on a fraudulent drug smuggling allegation. Someone inside the WNBA pointed out to me, Griner has played in Russia since 2014. She would know the risks in a country with tough drug laws. So if the allegation is fraudulent, why then would she be, as the State Department now says, wrongfully detained? It's not hard to believe a high-profile person like her could be used as a political pawn. She was taken into custody right before Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But again, the government not divulging.
MARTINEZ: Now, those close to Griner family and fellow players have taken a quiet approach and not raised a big fuss for fear that they might have an impact on any diplomacy going on. Will that change now that the U.S. government is saying that it'll be more aggressive with her case?
GOLDMAN: Yeah, you know, you're not seeing the floodgates open yet. I reached out to Griner's wife and agent. And the only response yesterday was a brief statement from the agent saying, Brittney has been detained for 75 days. And our expectation is that the White House do whatever is necessary to bring her home. More players, we assume, will start to speak freely. You know, it's been tough and strange for many of them. WNBA players have been very outspoken on social issues in recent years. The league did announce yesterday that with a new season starting Friday, all 12 WNBA arenas will feature on their floors Griner's initials and jersey number. So you know, there's a very visual and constant statement, at least, of the league's commitment to Griner.
MARTINEZ: Any hope at all that she could be coming home soon?
GOLDMAN: There's more hope today, for sure. Whether resolution is soon, we don't know. But if you put it in the context of last week's release of former Marine Trevor Reed, who'd been detained in Russia since 2019, it does show diplomacy still is possible, even though relations between the U.S. and Russia obviously have plummeted since the war started.
MARTINEZ: That's NPR sports correspondent Tom Goldman. Tom, thanks a lot.
GOLDMAN: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/russia-is-wrongfully-detaining-wnba-star-brittney-griner-u-s-officials-say | 2022-05-12T16:06:46Z |
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: If the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion across the U.S. is overturned, then abortion laws and abortion access will vary by state. Some states are set to implement total bans. Others are preparing to help patients who travel from states where they can no longer get abortions. And legal battles are expected across the country. NPR national correspondent Sarah McCammon joins us now. Hi, Sarah.
MCCAMMON: Hi, Adrian.
ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
Sarah, big picture, if the Supreme Court does end up handing down an opinion similar to the draft that leaked this week overturning Roe v. Wade, what would the country look like in terms of access?
MCCAMMON: So there are several different types of abortion laws that could take effect from state to state in different ways, doing different things. Right now, 13 states have what are known as trigger bans, which are specifically designed to ban abortion if Roe falls. Elizabeth Nash is with the Guttmacher Institute, which is a research group that supports abortion rights.
ELIZABETH NASH: You're thinking from Idaho to Kentucky, all the way up to North Dakota and down to Texas. So they're across the country. They're a cross-section of the country. And they will - would all be in effect within one month of the decision, with most of them going into effect in maybe even as quickly as a day.
MCCAMMON: And then in addition to those, there are another dozen or more states that have either old pre-Roe bans still on the books or other restrictions that are currently tied up in courts. Some of those are early abortion bans. All told, Guttmacher estimates about 26 states are likely or certain to ban most abortions if Roe falls. They estimate 36 million women of reproductive age would be in a state without abortion access.
FLORIDO: So how might this actually play out, like for those old restrictions or those laws that are currently tied up in court? When would those go into effect?
MCCAMMON: Well, states with Republican leaders are likely to act quickly to try to implement as many of these bans as possible. Sue Liebel is with the Susan B. Anthony List, which opposes abortion rights. And she says her group is working with governors' offices and attorneys general in some of these states to prepare them to enforce bans as soon as they can.
SUE LIEBEL: We have been talking to all of those about, you know, acting immediately. So when that happens, let's be ready. You know, how do you get that back into play, to say, hey, don't forget, you know, this is not something you want to start the night before, right? We have to plan for this.
MCCAMMON: Because there's a process, and that could mean certifying some of the laws or asking courts to allow them to go into effect.
FLORIDO: So it seems almost certain that there are going to be more legal battles even once the Supreme Court issues its decision.
MCCAMMON: Yeah, it's a virtual certainty. Legal experts expect a tremendous amount of litigation and confusion around how to apply the specifics of the eventual decision to individual state laws. They'll also be looking at state constitutions, some of which may offer their own protections for abortion rights. There could be special sessions in some states that don't have laws on the books but want to either expand or limit abortion access. And as one reproductive rights advocate told me, it is likely to be a mosh pit of litigation in some of these states.
FLORIDO: So, Sarah, what does this mean for patients and abortion providers right now today?
MCCAMMON: Providers are continuing to offer procedures as long as they can. Dr. Colleen McNicholas is with Planned Parenthood, serving patients in the Midwest, including in Missouri, which has a trigger law. Earlier today on the NPR program "1A," McNicholas said they're trying to be very clear with patients right now about what the situation is.
COLLEEN MCNICHOLAS: As we're making appointments for future care, we're being transparent and honest with folks to say today you can make that appointment. And at any moment, if that final decision comes out and is as devastating as it suggests it will be, Missourians will immediately lose access to abortion in their state.
FLORIDO: So most - so more than half of states, Sarah, are likely to ban most or all abortions. But what about the rest?
MCCAMMON: Well, some are expanding access or shoring up protections in state law. Maryland is providing some funding for training abortion providers. Connecticut is providing some legal protections for them. Guttmacher says close to 20 states are in a situation with fairly solid protections for abortion rights. And then there are a handful where it's more complicated, and you're likely to see a lot of continued battles over these questions in legislatures, as well as in the courts.
FLORIDO: That's NPR's Sarah McCammon. Sarah, thank you.
MCCAMMON: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/some-states-will-ban-abortion-others-will-expand-access-if-roe-v-wade-is-overturned | 2022-05-12T16:06:52Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Good morning. I'm Leila Fadel.
A 300-year-old Stradivarius violin is up for auction soon and is expected to go for as much as $20 million. This one was handcrafted in Italy in 1714 and nicknamed da Vinci. Throughout the 20th century, it was used for film scores in movies like "The Great Waltz," "Melody For Three." And it's believed it was also used in "The Wizard Of Oz." Before the auction, the instrument will be shown across the world in cities like London and Berlin and Beijing - oh, my.
It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/stradivarius-is-expected-to-bring-in-as-much-as-20-million-at-auction | 2022-05-12T16:06:58Z |
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The European Union is planning to phase out Russian oil by the end of the year. It's part of a package of new sanctions against Russia for its war in Ukraine. NPR's Rob Schmitz joins us from Berlin to talk about the announcement. Hey, Rob.
ROB SCHMITZ, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: So tell us more about these latest sanctions from the EU.
SCHMITZ: Yeah. The biggest part you mentioned is a ban on Russian oil in the EU by the end of this year. Russia exports two-thirds of its oil to the EU, so this is pretty significant. The EU also plans to sanction individuals in Russia's military who were involved in alleged war crimes. And last, the EU plans to remove Russia's biggest bank, Sberbank, from SWIFT, the global financial network. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says this sixth package of EU sanctions on Russia promises to further isolate Vladimir Putin.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
URSULA VON DER LEYEN: Putin wanted to wipe out Ukraine from the map, and he will clearly not succeed - on the contrary. Ukraine has risen in bravery and in unity, and it is his own country, Russia, that Putin is sinking.
SHAPIRO: And yet oil prices rose by more than 3% after the announcement today. How difficult is it going to be for Europe to wean itself off Russian oil?
SCHMITZ: Yeah, this won't be easy. You know, a quarter of Europe's crude oil comes from Russia, and countries like Slovakia and Hungary depend on Russia for more than 75% of their oil. Both these countries will likely be granted exemptions from the EU for this embargo because of that. I spoke to European energy expert Andreas Goldthau about the EU's approach to doing away with Russian energy. And here's what he said.
ANDREAS GOLDTHAU: They go for the low-hanging fruits first. That was coal, and now it's oil. Gas is still something they're not touching. The second thing they're doing is they're not implementing an embargo right away, neither for coal nor for oil. But they do this as part of a gradual phaseout.
SCHMITZ: So, Ari, in essence, they're giving industry and the markets time to adapt because, you know, whenever you suddenly take oil off of global markets, it often means a sudden price hike everywhere. So gradual is better here.
SHAPIRO: Everywhere - is the rest of the world ready? I mean, how might this impact American consumers?
SCHMITZ: Yeah. Goldthau says the EU embargo will mean a higher price for oil, and that will likely contribute to inflation in the United States and elsewhere.
SHAPIRO: So the EU is phasing out Russian coal and now Russian oil. What about gas?
SCHMITZ: Yeah, that's not going to be easy to replace. You know, with gas, for the most part, you need pipelines to get from point A to point B. And Russian gas pipelines - a lot of them end in Europe. And that's why it's so difficult for the EU to impose an embargo on Russian gas. You know, current non-pipeline infrastructure, like liquefied natural gas terminals, will not be able to replace a loss of pipeline gas in the short term. And experts say an embargo would be too costly for the European economy at this stage. You know, in the meantime, though, the EU is ramping up renewable energy infrastructure and energy efficiency measures to lower its demand on gas overall. But there is a danger that Goldthau mentioned that Russians don't give the Europeans the timeframe to gradually cut this energy off, that Vladimir Putin goes ahead and cuts it off sooner than the Europeans were planning on. And that could cause a severe energy crisis.
SHAPIRO: I mean, how quickly could clean energy get ramped up to make up for this?
SCHMITZ: This, Ari, will take a long time, but we have many countries in Europe, including Germany, that is putting it on a fast track. But again, in Germany, a fast track means it could be maybe a year or two or maybe three. So we're looking in many months rather than weeks.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Rob Schmitz in Berlin. Thanks a lot.
SCHMITZ: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF JINSANG'S "LEARNING") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/the-eu-says-it-plans-to-ban-russian-oil-by-the-end-of-the-year | 2022-05-12T16:07:04Z |
Updated May 4, 2022 at 5:43 PM ET
The Federal Reserve ordered the largest interest hike in more than two decades Wednesday as part of its escalating campaign to battle stubbornly high inflation.
The central bank raised its benchmark rate by half-a-percentage point, following a quarter-point increase in March. The moves mark a sharp U-turn from the easy-money policies the Fed had pursued through most of the pandemic.
"Inflation is much too high, and we understand the hardship it is causing," Fed chairman Jerome Powell said. "And we're moving expeditiously to bring it back down."
Powell said he and his colleagues would actively consider two additional half-point rate increases at their next two meetings in June and July, continuing a campaign that has high stakes for the U.S. economy.
But Powell said the Fed was not contemplating rate hikes larger than half a percentage point at a time, a comment that relieved investors.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared more than 900 points, while both the S&P 500 index and the Nasdaq rose about 3%.
Consumer prices in March were 6.6% higher than a year ago, according to the Fed's preferred inflation yardstick. That's the sharpest increase since 1982. Excluding volatile food and energy costs, prices were up 5.2%.
Inflation has been driven by strong consumer demand for both goods and services, which is outpacing the ability of businesses to deliver.
Fears of recession intensify
The Fed hopes to cool off demand by making it more expensive to borrow money. But interest rates are still low by historical standards, so the central bank will likely have to move aggressively to catch up, with another half-point increase expected at the next Fed meeting in June.
Fed policymakers said in March they expect rates to climb to nearly 2% on average by the end of this year, and close to 3% by the end of 2023.
Rising interest rates increase the cost of all kinds of credit, from auto loans to home mortgages. Some analysts worry that in its push to regain control over prices, the Fed risks causing a recession.
But Powell expressed optimism that the central bank can curb inflation without stalling economic growth.
"I think we have a good chance to have a soft — or 'softish' — landing," Powell said, noting that families and businesses have amassed significant extra savings during the pandemic. "Businesses are in good financial shape. The labor market is very, very strong. And so it doesn't seem to be anywhere close to a downturn."
Inflation has been more stubborn than expected
For much of last year, the central bank blamed inflation on temporary supply-chain problems tied to the pandemic, which were expected to ease on their own. Shortages of new cars and other products have persisted, though, and price increases have spread to more parts of the economy, including essentials such as rent and electricity.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine this spring triggered an additional spike in oil and food prices. And ongoing COVID lockdowns in China are "likely to exacerbate supply chain disruptions," Fed policymakers said.
The Fed is also concerned that an exceptionally tight job market in the U.S. is pushing wages higher, which could fuel additional inflation. On Tuesday, the Labor Department reported a record number of job openings in March. Workers are also quitting jobs at a record rate, often in search of higher wages elsewhere.
Unemployment, which approached 15% in the early months of the pandemic, has fallen to just 3.6%.
In addition to raising interest rates, the Fed announced plans to begin gradually reducing its holdings of government bonds and mortgage-backed securities on June 1.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/the-fed-raises-interest-rates-by-the-most-in-over-20-years-to-fight-inflation | 2022-05-12T16:07:10Z |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
It's about to get more expensive to borrow money. Leaders of the Federal Reserve are meeting today, and they're expected to approve the biggest jump in interest rates in more than two decades. It's all part of an escalating push to address stubbornly high inflation. But the Fed's action is not without risk. NPR's Scott Horsley is here. Scott, the Fed has kept interest rates super low for most of the last two years. What's behind this turnaround?
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Inflation. According to the Fed's preferred yardstick for inflation, prices in March were up 6.6% from a year ago. That's more than triple the central bank's target rate for inflation, and it's the sharpest increase in prices since 1982. Even if you strip out volatile food and energy costs, prices were up 5.2%. There's just this real mismatch right now between consumers' strong demand for goods and services and what businesses are able to deliver, especially when those businesses are still scrambling to find enough workers and parts. So you've got inflation heating up. The Fed wants to cool things off. And the way it does that is by making it more costly to borrow money.
MARTINEZ: All right, so what's this going to mean for consumers?
HORSLEY: Well, anyone who's been shopping for a home loan has already seen the big jump in mortgage rates. Other interest rates are going to be going up as well - so car loans, credit card balances. Any sort of borrowing is going to get more expensive. For most of the pandemic, the Fed kept interest rates close to zero as it tried to prop up the economy, but starting this spring, it made this U-turn. It raised rates by a quarter percentage point back in March, and today it's expected to raise rates by another half percentage point. If so, that'd be the first half-point rate hike since Bill Clinton was in the White House. And forecasters think rates are going to keep going up in the months to come.
MARTINEZ: Scott, look into your crystal ball, if you can. Any clue how this is going to affect the economy?
HORSLEY: There's a lively debate about that. Ideally, these higher interest rates would gently tap the brakes on demand, bring it back into balance with supply, and inflation would gradually coast down to something closer to 2%, the Fed's target. That's what economists call a soft landing, and it's what Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and his colleagues hope to achieve.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JEROME POWELL: That's our goal. I don't think you'll hear anyone at the Fed say that that's going to be straightforward or easy. It's going to be very challenging.
HORSLEY: Some analysts think the Fed has waited too long to react and that now it's going to be very hard to get control over inflation, especially when you've got the war in Ukraine and ongoing lockdowns in Shanghai putting more upward pressure on prices. The concern is that the Fed might have to raise interest rates so high that it won't just slow the economy but push it into reverse. And the fear that that could trigger a recession is one of the factors that's been prompting all the volatility we've seen in the stock market in recent days.
MARTINEZ: Scott, you mentioned earlier how employers are still struggling to find enough workers. How does the job market affect the Fed's thinking?
HORSLEY: Well, right now there is a record number of job openings. There are almost twice as many openings as there are unemployed people to fill those jobs. That means employers are having to compete for workers. They're having to pay more and offer higher benefits. Now, that's good for workers, but it is somewhat worrisome for the Fed. Here's Powell speaking at an IMF conference a couple weeks ago.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
POWELL: The labor market is extraordinarily tight, extremely tight, historically so, to the point where really there's an imbalance between supply and demand for workers.
HORSLEY: Private sector wages this spring were up about 5% from a year ago. Powell and his colleagues are worried that if wages continue to climb at a really rapid pace, that will just fuel additional inflation, the kind of wage-price spiral we saw back in the 1970s. And of course, workers are already seeing their real buying power eroded by the high pace of inflation.
MARTINEZ: NPR's Scott Horsley. Scott, thanks.
HORSLEY: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/the-federal-reserve-is-expected-to-take-a-big-step-to-try-to-lower-inflation | 2022-05-12T16:07:17Z |
The Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade in 1973, saying that access to abortion was protected in the United States.
The decision fueled the anti-abortion movement and congealed it, too. Prior to Roe, anti-abortion activists were operating on a state level, but the Supreme Court's ruling turned the movement into a national one.
In the decades before the decision, opposition to abortion was a fairly bipartisan issue. In fact, many Democrats in elected positions were likely to oppose unrestricting abortion access because many represented Catholics, who were largely opposed to abortion. But even then, it wasn't a politically charged topic.
Now, the Court appears to be on the verge of overturning the right to an abortion, bringing a movement that transformed American politics over the past half century to its apex.
In the past decade, Donald Trump was able to win the White House in no small part because he galvinized conservative evangelicals by pledging to appoint Supreme Court justices that would overturn Roe. It was a promise he fulfilled, even though Trump had previously supported abortion rights.
But the history of organized opposition to abortion access started more than a century before Roe v. Wade, with roots in British common law.
Restricting abortion actually began with doctors
In the early days of the country, laws often reflected British common law, and when it came to abortion, the process was determined by quickening. Quickening meant the moment the pregnant person could feel the fetus move, which typically happened between the fourth and six month of pregnancy. At that time, it was the only way to truly confirm the pregnancy, so the thought of life beginning at conception wasn't a factor at all.
Ending the pregnancy after the quickening period was considered illegal, but was just a misdemeanor. And even then, it was hard to prosecute because it was only the pregnant person who could attest to whether or not the fetus had moved. Abortions were accessible and largely without stigma at this time.
But close to the mid 1800s, some doctors, who at the time were a mostly unorganized profession, sought to separate themselves from the healers and midwives who were also performing abortions. Doctors didn't have as much medical or institutional authority as they do today, and some in the profession pushed states to pass anti-abortion laws in order to tamp down on competition. These physicians, all of whom were men and who were backed by the newly founded American Medical Association, argued that they had more knowledge on embryos and that the heightened medical knowledge was necessary to determine when life began.
It should be noted, though, that this claim of advanced knowledge didn't actually exist in the medical community. Historians note that this argument was mostly used as a way to take away women's bodily autonomy. Now, it was a doctor who could interpret their medical condition, rather than just relying on whether the pregnant individual could feel the fetus move.
Their efforts worked. By the early 1900s, every state had made abortion illegal, though there were exceptions made if the life of the pregnant person was at risk.
What happens next, in the decades leading up to Roe v. Wade?
In terms of the movement, mostly nothing.
In these decades leading up to Roe, abortion was for the most part illegal. Because of that, seeking abortions also became extremely dangerous, particularly for low-income pregnant people and people of color, especially Black women.
In 1930, abortion was listed as the official cause of death for almost 2,700 women in the United States, though there were likely many more deaths that did not get recorded. In the 1940s when antibiotics were introduced, fewer were dying from illegal abortions, but thousands were still admitted into the hospital due to medical complications.
By the middle of the 1960s, some states like Colorado liberalized their abortion laws, and anti-abortion movements started to crop up on the state level. But it was still not nationally talked about, or even politicized, the way it started to become in the 1970s.
How did the movement change after Roe v. Wade in 1973?
In a short answer, it changed a lot.
"All of a sudden, it moves from a movement in the states that are liberalizing to a nationwide movement," Jennifer Holland, a professor at the University of Oklahoma and scholar on the anti-abortion movement, tells NPR.
"They are able to point to sort of an oppressive federal government... and it really feeds into the argument that the United States is on a slippery slope toward genocide and fascism," Holland said, referring to language often used by the anti-abortion movement.
Holland says that at this point, the anti-abortion movement strategically cast itself as a "rights campaign" and started to compare abortion to the Holocaust and the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, which ruled that Black people in the U.S. did not have constitutional rights.
"With Roe, the movement is able to grasp on to a federal oppressor, as an entity that is... allowing genocide to be enacted," Holland said.
And then, the Republican Party gets involved
By the mid-1970s, the anti-abortion movement becomes far more partisan.
In 1976, the Republican Party added an anti-abortion stance in their party platform. And that's when they start to enlist more evangelicals into the anti-abortion movement, which was critical for the movement's expansion.
Through the 1980s, Republican leaders such as Ronald Reagan won in elections thanks to the anti-abortion movement. The Supreme Court also ruled on Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey in 1992, making it easier for states to pass more restrictive abortion laws. By 1996, 86% of all counties in the U.S. did not have a known abortion provider.
From the late 1990s into the early 2000s, socially conservative leaders like James Dobson start to become more critical of the Republican Party. For example, they didn't want Reagan to nominate Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court because she wasn't in line with the movement, but Reagan nominated her anyway.
"In the late 90s, you have all these big socially conservative leaders who say: no more... We don't agree in a big tent party," Holland said
"You really see the power of the anti-abortion movement to not only be a part of a party, but to really remake a party. And demand political uniformity on this issue," she said.
Through the end of the 20th century and the decades since, there's been a concerted effort from Republicans to prioritize abortion restrictions in legislation and judicial appointees. Conservative organizations such as the Federalist Society have heavily influenced who leaders like former President Trump nominate to the courts. Trump pledged to select nominees off a list provided by the group, which has in part led to the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court today.
In the year 2022, where does the movement stand? How popular is banning abortion?
The Supreme Court's draft opinion that leaked Monday night effectively achieves what the anti-abortion movement has been aiming for for decades. But in public opinion, it's not a popular move at all.
Several polls from the last few years show that a majority of Americans do not support banning abortion. For example a recent poll from ABC/Washington Post shows that 54% think Roe v. Wade should be upheld and only 28% say it should be overturned; 18% said they had no opinion.
The unpopularity of overturning Roe isn't a new finding, either. Polling from CNN going back to 1989 shows that the percentage of Americans who support overturning Roe has never risen above 36%.
So right now, the Supreme Court is set to change a ruling that most Americans want to keep in place.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/the-movement-against-abortion-rights-is-nearing-its-apex-but-it-began-way-before-roe | 2022-05-12T16:07:23Z |
Sitting on a bench at Calcasieu Point Landing marina in Southwest Louisiana, James Hiatt recently looked across the water to forests in the distance. The Lake Charles, La. native says this dock is one of the few spots where he can watch the sun sink into the skyline without the sight of a petrochemical plant.
"Anywhere else you go on the Calcasieu River and in Calcasieu Parish, and you look out over towards the sunset, over to the west, you watch the sunset go down on top of a tower or a flare or a smokestack," Hiatt says.
Soon more natural vistas here could be lost.
The Gulf Coast is at the epicenter of the fossil fuel industry's push to increase natural gas exports across the globe. That would require building massive terminals and processing plants to super-cool gas to -260 degrees Fahrenheit, turning it into liquified natural gas, or LNG, so it can be transported by ship.
More than 20 facilities are proposed between Texas and Florida, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. If they are built, the facilities would be largely concentrated in southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana in areas already burdened by air pollution and climate-fueled storms. In just two Louisiana parishes, at least nine plants are planned, including three on the land near Calcasieu Point Landing.
Several plants received permits but sat in limbo as the companies proposing the projects secured buyers. Now business may be about to boom.
Russia's war in Ukraine boosts U.S. gas
Despite the world's climate goals, the war in Ukraine and Europe's scramble for alternatives to Russian gas has boosted support for increasing LNG exports in the U.S. and other countries. As Russia's squeeze on Ukraine tightened in March, President Joe Biden pledged to send an additional 15 billion cubic tons of gas to Europe by the end of the year.
Even LNG industry groups agree that goal could be met with the seven terminals already operating, as found by an April report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. But long-term, that gas wouldn't be guaranteed to those countries.
"Unless, the European utilities and other purchasers step up right now to buy additional long-term contracts with U.S. LNG projects and own that gas," says Fred Hutchison, president of the industry group LNG Allies.
More European countries are considering that now and Hutchison says those long-term contracts could soon spur new construction.
Some locals are opposed to building more gas export terminals
In southwest Louisiana, that buildout would follow decades of industrial development, that sends air pollution into nearby low-income or Black neighborhoods, says Roishetta Ozane, a local community organizer with the environmental nonprofit Healthy Gulf.
Close to the Gulf of Mexico and crisscrossed by pipelines, the region is a prime location for the industry to move goods in and out. But the same factors that have been a boon for companies have left the coastal community increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
In 2020, back-to-back hurricanes smacked Cameron and Calcasieu parishes, including Hurricane Laura, a Category 4 storm. Within months, those disasters were closely followed by a winter storm and heavy rain events as residents were still recovering. Despite the area's long dependence on industrial plants for jobs, Ozane says she's watched more residents connect the fossil fuel industry to the intensifying flooding and storms.
"The folks right now are beginning to talk about climate change because they see all of this stuff happening so close together," Ozane says.
The recent trauma from those storms has left some wary of adding more plants to the region, especially those with the carbon footprint of an LNG facility, says Ozane. One of the largest facilities proposed, Driftwood LNG, has the potential to emit close to 10 million metric tons of greenhouse gasses per year, according to state permits. That's about the same annual footprint as the entire country of Costa Rica. And the plant will operate for decades.
"Once it starts operating, now we have what, a 30-year commitment that the citizens here have to deal with?" Ozane says. "That crisis will long be over in Ukraine. And we will still be waking up every day with, to the flares, to the smells, to the smoke, to the threat of an explosion every day."
Building new infrastructure without getting rid of problems from old infrastructure will "make that problem worse"
That multi-decade commitment would also lock the world into several more decades of carbon emissions, says economist Clark Williams-Derry with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, adding that would make it more difficult for the U.S. to meet goals set under the Paris Climate agreement.
"Building new infrastructure without, you know, clearly getting rid of, or abating problems from the old infrastructure, that's just going to make that problem worse," he says.
Hutchison argues that finding lower-carbon alternatives to coal — widely considered the most polluting fossil fuel — should be the primary focus. He says it's not realistic to believe gas won't have a role in limiting global warming, adding that after meeting with representatives of European governments, they believe "gas will have a role to play in meeting Europe's climate ambitions."
"We'd love to see a future where the world runs on nuclear fusion or on the beautiful solar resources that exist, but we also have some realities that are staring us in the face," Hutchison says. "So in short, we think the world's going to need gas for a very long time."
But Ozane says that's not what environmental justice communities, like those in southwest Louisiana, need.
"Everybody is saying, 'Roishetta, why are you doing this? You can't win against oil and gas. You're a black woman. They're gonna blackball you'," she says. "My children are very much connected to this land. This is where they were born. They have every right to live here and total freedom and total peace."
Ozane and her allies are developing a different vision for the region's future — one that places more value on industries other than oil and gas, like tourism. She wants to see her Southwest Louisiana take advantage of its natural beauty by cleaning up beaches and prioritizing local waterways for things like sport fishing, while developing more renewable energy.
But if it's more LNG plants coming, Ozane says residents won't let that happen without a fight.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/the-u-s-may-soon-export-more-gas-to-the-eu-but-that-will-complicate-climate-goals | 2022-05-12T16:07:29Z |
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Two months, one week and three days - that is how long since Russia invaded Ukraine. The war, of course, grinds on. The toll in lives lost and physical destruction has been catastrophic. And if anything, it's harder to make out how or when it might end than it was back on February 24, the day of the invasion. Our next guest is one of Ukraine's most senior officials, the foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba. I first met and interviewed him in Kyiv right before the war. Earlier today, we reached him again at his office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kyiv, and I asked about the latest developments in another part of Ukraine, the devastated southern city of Mariupol. More than 160 civilians were evacuated this week. There were reports today that Russian forces have breached the Azovstal steel plant, that they are inside. Can you confirm?
DMYTRO KULEBA: I have, probably, the most reliable source from Mariupol, Azovstal. It is one of the Ukrainian officers who is locked up at Azovstal, together with his army fellows and civilians. And usually he texts me or calls me in the evening to update on the developments. The last message that I received from him was last night, and I haven't heard from him since. I pray that everything is fine, and I'm really looking forward to receiving the message or call tonight and he will tell me that everything is fine with him.
KELLY: How many people are still inside this plant?
KULEBA: It's hard to say - hundreds of civilians...
KELLY: Yeah.
KULEBA: ...Mostly children and women and more than a thousand Ukrainian soldiers. But it's true that they get bombed every day. It's true that wounded soldiers die because of the lack of proper treatment and because of the new bombings.
KELLY: Yeah.
KULEBA: And they die under the roof of the destroyed shelter. So it's a tragedy when you escape death once, but it reaches you from second attempt.
KELLY: I mean, this plant, it's the last holdout...
KULEBA: Yes, yes.
KELLY: ...You said - more than - something like a thousand soldiers and then hundreds of civilians. Russia says it has captured the city of Mariupol. Has it?
KULEBA: No, no. Until Azovstal holds, Mariupol holds.
KELLY: Mariupol is in Ukrainian hands, you're saying?
KULEBA: Yes, absolutely, absolutely. As long as we continue resistance, it means that Russia has not captured the city, whatever their propagandists tell us, tell everyone. But the problem is that Russia ruthlessly attacks Azovstal, trying to kill everyone who is there, destroy it and present Mariupol as their huge success before 9 of May.
KELLY: The 9 of May, the Victory Day celebrations that Russia...
KULEBA: Yeah.
KELLY: ...Is gearing up for. Let me turn to the battle for the East. Pentagon officials here in Washington say they do see Russia making progress, but they say it's minimal, that the Russian offensive thus far is anemic, is plotting. That's their words. Do you agree with that assessment? And how long can Ukrainian forces put up that kind of resistance?
KULEBA: OK. I want you to understand the nature of the battle for Donbas. It looks this way. There is a line that Ukrainian army holds - trenches, defensive positions. Russia throws on these lines artillery fire, attacks from the air and shells. Then, once they believe that they killed everyone and they can advance, they sent tanks with infantry to take over our positions. To their surprise, almost-killed Ukrainian soldiers dig out from the trenches and start shooting back, and we throw them back because the morale of Russian army is very low. They're not ready to fight. And to the contrary, our soldiers are ready to defend, to stand by every inch of our land until death.
KELLY: I do need to ask about unexplained fires, explosions at strategic locations in Russia. Russia's biggest chemical plant just burned down for reasons not known. Is Ukraine attacking inside Russia?
KULEBA: Whatever Ukraine does, Ukraine always defends itself. This is a defensive war, and we defend our country from an aggressive country that is much bigger and stronger than us. But again...
KELLY: Striking inside Russia would be offensive, though, not defensive, no?
KULEBA: No, I'm not saying it was - I'm not saying we are attacking objects in Russia. What I'm saying is that whatever we do here is aimed at defending the country. Imagine, theoretically, that a missile is heading towards target in Ukraine and we have, theoretically, the capacity to shoot it down. Should we wait until it reaches our city because we cannot shoot it down in the Russian skies? If we had the possibility to shoot them down, we would use them because the eventual target is in Ukraine, and we have to save people and our own houses.
KELLY: And I hear you using the word theoretically, so you are not confirming or denying what is targeting these...
KULEBA: No, no.
KELLY: ...Locations in Russia?
KULEBA: I think it's the military. I think is the military guys who have to confirm or deny hitting this or that target. My point to you is that we are fighting against the enemy who is much stronger and has more resources than we do. And everything we do is aimed at saving and defending and saving Ukraine. We have no aggressive plans towards Russia. We have no intention to invade Russia. We have no intention to cross the border between our countries. Everything we do is aimed at one thing - to defend our country and our right to exist.
KELLY: So that brings me to the last thing to ask you. You're a diplomat. As a diplomat, do you still hold out hope that diplomacy can end this war?
KULEBA: Of course - every war ends with diplomacy. This is how history works. In the end, it's diplomats who have to sit down and draft and sign an agreement.
KELLY: That would require Russia to negotiate in good faith, though. Do you believe that is possible?
KULEBA: You know, the chances to meet a Russian diplomat negotiating in good faith are equal to meeting a Martian on Earth. But still, we have to be ready to negotiate with them, to defend our positions. But as a diplomat, I have to make sure that my country approaches this negotiations in the strongest position possible. And the strength of our position will depend on the level and quality of sanctions imposed against Russia, on the amount and quality of weapons supplied to Ukraine, on the level of isolation of Russia in the world and on the ability of Ukrainian army to push Russian army back. If we - I can do the three first things to help our army to do the force. And as a diplomat, I'm focused on this. I am ready to negotiate, but I want my country to be very strong in those negotiations.
KELLY: Dmytro Kuleba - he is the foreign minister of Ukraine. He joined us from the capital, Kyiv. Foreign Minister, thank you - great to speak with you.
KULEBA: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/ukraines-foreign-minister-says-mariupol-is-still-in-ukrainian-hands | 2022-05-12T16:07:35Z |
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
In Ohio, the November ballot is set for what will be one of the most closely watched U.S. Senate races in the country. Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan will face off against venture capitalist and author J.D. Vance. NPR's national political correspondent Don Gonyea is in Cincinnati watching this race.
So, Don, how did J.D. Vance emerge on top of a crowded field of Republican candidates, each vying to be more pro-Trump than the other?
DON GONYEA, BYLINE: Yeah, the GOP primary was just a slugfest, a race full of personal attacks. But you have to give credit to the fact that Vance ultimately got that Trump endorsement. It's something that seemed unlikely early on, given Vance's very strong criticism of Trump back in 2016. But he became a major fan of Trump's over the years. And by the time he entered this race, he was really all in, and Trump gave him his blessing. Here's Vance with supporters last night.
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J D VANCE: I have absolutely got to thank the 45th - the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, ladies and gentlemen.
(APPLAUSE)
VANCE: One, for giving us an example of what could be in this country. Ladies and gentlemen, remember 2019, when wages were going up and not down? Remember 2019, when workers were doing well in this country, not struggling terribly? Thanks to the president for everything.
GONYEA: So look for Trump to be very much front and center in the fall campaign.
FADEL: OK. So let's talk about the Democrats. What's next for Tim Ryan? He's seen as a moderate congressman.
GONYEA: Ryan has essentially been running his general election race for many months now. He boasts of going to all 88 counties, including the deepest red, most hardcore Trump counties in the state. He says he wants to listen to everybody, but he also wants people to see him and hear him. And he talks about bringing Ohio back as a leader in manufacturing. Again, the economy took up a chunk of his victory speech last night.
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TIM RYAN: I want us to be builders again. I want us to dominate the electric car industry. I want us to dominate the battery industry. I want us to dominate the electric truck industry. I want us to dominate the chip industry, glass industry, energy in southeast Ohio, aerospace in southwest Ohio. I want us to be the manufacturing powerhouse of the world.
FADEL: Now, Ohio was previously a major swing state and a bellwether for the presidential pick, but it's made a shift to the right. And Trump easily won the state in 2016 and 2020. What does that mean for this race?
GONYEA: It means it's something Ryan has to overcome. Again, Trump won the state big twice. And this economic uncertainty we're looking at now doesn't help Ryan at all. Vance, last night, accused him of trying to be a Trump Democrat. He's got a lot to overcome, but people do expect it to be a race.
FADEL: NPR's Don Gonyea. Thanks, Don.
GONYEA: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOUSE ON THE KEYS' "PHASES") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/vance-and-ryan-will-face-off-in-ohios-u-s-senate-race-in-november | 2022-05-12T16:07:41Z |
In early 2015, as the Environmental Protection Agency considered updates to its national air quality standards for smog, federal officials sat down for a public hearing in Arlington City Hall.
They listened as activists and medical groups from across Texas pushed for rules that would allow less ground-level ozone – also known as “bad ozone” or smog – in the air.
Environmental advocates pointed to the health effects of prolonged exposure to concentrated levels of ground-level ozone. Clinical studies connected air pollution to reduced lung function, higher frequency of asthma episodes and reduced ability to fight respiratory infection, according to the North Central Texas Council of Governments.
Jim Schermbeck, longtime director of the North Texas environmental activism group Downwinders at Risk, was among the activists who testified that January.
“There’s a symbolism to defeating smog,” Schermbeck said in an interview. “It’s the most visible evidence of not taking air pollution seriously. To reduce smog is to make things better, and in fact, it is better in DFW. Progress has been made, but not enough progress has been made to get us out of violation of the Clean Air Act.”
To determine if a region has violated ozone standards, the EPA averages the fourth-worst ozone pollution days over a period of three years. Between 2011 and 2014, the North Texas region averaged about 81 parts per billion of ozone over an eight-hour period, well above the federal standard of 75 parts per billion established in 2008.
Today, more than seven years after that EPA hearing, the Dallas-Fort Worth average lingers at 76 parts per billion – still too high to meet the 2008 standard or the most recent 2015 standard of 70 parts per billion. 2021 was a deadline year to meet both of the standards.
“We’ve got the cleanest air that we’ve ever had in the region, but it’s stagnated since 2018,” said Chris Klaus, senior air quality management program manager for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, which is tasked with helping local governments meet federal requirements. “That is not to say that everyone is exposed to those high levels of ozone. The worst air is only at certain areas and certain monitors.”
Last month, after facing a lawsuit accusing the agency of dragging its feet on ozone regulation enforcement, the EPA announced its intention to downgrade the air quality status of five metro areas. Under the new designation, the Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Denver, Chicago and New York metro areas will be listed as “severe” violators of the 2008 ozone standards.
Penalties for not meeting the Clean Air Act standards mostly consist of stricter pollution controls and revising state implementation plans. However, a region that is classified as a “severe” violator can impose financial penalties of $5,000 per ton on major pollution sources if they do not meet required ozone reductions.
“Smog pollution is a serious threat to public health, increasing the likelihood of respiratory infections, asthma attacks and hospital visits,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in an April statement. “With these proposed determinations, we are fulfilling our duty under the Clean Air Act.”
Legal challenges to ‘severe’ status expected
The change would force the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and other state environmental agencies to adopt more stringent pollution control requirements on industry and revise their plans for reducing ozone levels statewide.
Businesses could be required to follow stricter air pollution permitting rules, purchase pollution control technology or potentially face delays in permitting while the region attempts to reduce smog, according to the Texas Tribune.
Industry groups representing manufacturers and oil and gas producers have previously opposed stricter air pollution regulations, with the Texas Association of Manufacturers arguing at the 2015 hearing that new ozone regulations would “decimate” Texas jobs for a “feel-good” change.
While the new designation for North Texas has not been fully adopted yet, Schermbeck called it a “done deal.”
“It’s been in the works since last year when the results from the ozone season last summer were locked in,” he said. “This is all highly scripted theater. We’re going to be moved up to severe, and we deserve that.”
However, Neil Carman, the clean air director for the Austin-based Lone Star Sierra Club, expects the state of Texas to pursue litigation fighting the EPA’s latest moves impacting North Texas and Houston.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has previously filed legal challenges to stricter federal air quality requirements and the EPA’s attempts to re-classify cities, including El Paso, as more severe violators of the ozone standards. The timeline for a decision on the state’s lawsuit could be dragged out to late 2023 or early 2024 depending on if and when Texas files it, Carman said.
In the meantime, new ozone data will come in and potentially bring Texas into compliance with the 2008 standard of 75 parts per billion, he added.
A single air monitor near Pilot Point in Denton County is pulling the entire 10-county region into not complying with ozone standards because of its high readings over the past three years, Carman said. High readings have also come from air monitors near Eagle Mountain Lake, northwest Fort Worth and Keller.
“If you look at the last 10 to 15 years, the trend (for ozone) is clearly down, even though there is tremendous growth in freeways, there is growth in the number of vehicles and miles traveled,” Carman said. “By the time they come up with a state implementation plan for the DFW area for the severe status, I wouldn’t be surprised if they will meet the standard of 75 by then.”
While air quality is better, advocates say Texas must do more
Since amendments regulating ground-level ozone were made to the Clean Air Act in 1990, North Texas has seen massive improvements in reducing harmful emissions, Klaus said. The region was in the 125-130 range for ozone parts per billion back then.
The council of governments has largely focused on transportation-related changes, like retiring vehicles and equipment with heavy-duty diesel engines; reducing traffic congestion and idling; providing funding for alternative fuel vehicles; and leading public campaigns to take fewer car trips and operate vehicles in ways that reduce emissions.
In turn, the average ground-level ozone has hovered around 76 parts per billion since 2018. The plateau has concerned local officials trying to bring the region into compliance with EPA standards. Klaus pointed to the conundrum that the COVID-19 pandemic posed. With fewer cars or trucks on the road, ozone levels did not improve in North Texas.
“Our vision and our understanding of all this is changing daily,” Klaus said. “Why is it that our emissions basically didn’t get any better, with all those reductions that were unfortunately having to be implemented because of the pandemic? There’s a lot of research that’s ongoing now to try to figure all of that out.”
“The state has established a track record now of sacrificing the health of Texans and suing on behalf of polluters.”
Activists like Schermbeck and Ranjana Bhandari, the executive director of the environmental advocacy group Liveable Arlington, want the state’s ozone plans to focus less on reducing vehicle emissions and more on regulating industrial pollution.
Bhandari, whose group leads opposition to the expansion of natural gas drilling in Tarrant County, has been part of the EPA’s process to develop new rules cutting methane emissions associated with oil and gas production. She testified at the Arlington hearing in 2015 and plans to speak again at the EPA’s public hearing May 9.
“There’s so many emissions from gas drilling that contribute to ozone,” Bhandari said. “The state has established a track record now of sacrificing the health of Texans and suing on behalf of polluters. It seems like a very inappropriate way to discharge their responsibilities toward residents, but that’s what it is … It should all be of concern to the EPA.”
Klaus is optimistic that the region’s ozone levels will continue to fall, especially with the potential for more electric vehicle charging infrastructure to be built out by the late 2020s. The council of governments is in wait-and-see mode until the “severe” violator status becomes official, and if the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality asks Klaus and his colleagues to begin revising their implementation plan for reducing smog.
The tools to improve air quality are already available to government officials, Schermbeck said, but any future progress on ozone is “purely a political decision.” The EPA’s classification of North Texas as a “severe” violator could mean very little if the state government continues to find loopholes or drag its feet on regulating pollution, he added.
“We have access to the expertise and technology we need to reduce emissions enough to come into compliance with the Clean Air Act, but the state government has chosen not to deploy them,” Schermbeck said. “There’s no framework for state and local action on this stuff because of the state’s lack of interest in clean air as a goal. If you leave all of that in place, nothing will change.” | https://www.keranews.org/2022-05-04/with-air-quality-failing-to-improve-north-texas-may-soon-be-classified-as-severe-violator-of-epa | 2022-05-12T16:07:47Z |
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