Tag: Human welfare

California Realtors apologize for role in racist housing

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California Association of Realtors is apologizing for its role in pushing policies that drove racial segregation in the state, decades after the group put its money behind a proposition that overturned the state’s first fair housing law.

During a press conference Friday, leaders of multiple real estate organizations spoke about their next steps, following the association’s apology last week. The realtors’ group is now backing a bill that would overturn a law that makes it harder for the state to build affordable housing. The group is partnering with nonprofits focused on expanding homeownership among communities of color. It also pushed for a law requiring implicit bias training for real estate agents.

“This has been a very long time coming,” said Derrick Luckett, chairman of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers. The association has expressed a commitment to expanding intergenerational wealth among Black households.

The California Association of Realtors was one of many real estate groups that supported redlining, barriers to affordable housing projects, and other practices of the 20th century that led to more segregated cities across the United States.

During the 1930s, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, backed by the federal government, created maps that categorized parts of cities into grades based on their purported creditworthiness. The practice, now known as redlining, drove racial segregation and income inequality by preventing residents living in certain neighborhoods from receiving loans.

The California Association of Realtors, then known as the California Real Estate Association, paid for a campaign to add an amendment to the state constitution in 1950 forcing the government to get voter approval before spending public money on affordable housing. In more recent decades, the group has supported repealing the amendment.

In 1964, the association put its money behind a proposition to invalidate the Rumford Act, a law aimed at protecting people of color from discrimination while they were searching for a home.

In 2020, following the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, which led to global demonstrations against racism and police violence, the National Association of Realtors apologized for its role in housing discrimination. Real estate groups in cities including St. Louis and Minneapolis have recently followed suit.

Otto Catrina, president of the California Association of Realtors, said Friday that its apology follows one by the group’s former president in its magazine last year. But this apology is more formal, since it’s gone through the approval of the association’s board.

“For many of our members, this apology reflects the organization that we are today and are continuing to work to foster inclusion and belonging for all our members and our communities,” Catrina said.

The National Association of Realtors reports that the homeownership rate for Black Americans is 43% compared to 72% for white Americans. Black homeowners have also reported that the value of their home appraisals increases when they strip away any sign of a Black family living there.

Eli Knaap, associate director of San Diego State University’s Center for Open Geographical Science, said the apology comes when there’s overwhelming evidence that the legacy of discriminatory housing policies hinders families’ ability to build wealth.

“The greatest source of wealth for most families is in their home,” he said.

Knaap, who’s studied the lasting impacts of practices like redlining that drove racial segregation, said some local governments now implement what’s known as inclusionary zoning where a portion of units in a residential development need to be affordable for low-income residents.

In June, California’s first-in-the-nation reparations task force released an exhaustive report that listed housing segregation as one of the many harms Black Californians faced long after the abolition of slavery. As the task force deliberates on what form reparations could take, economists are working to put dollar figures on the lasting impacts of these harms.

The California Association of Realtors hasn’t taken an official stance on reparations but will review policy recommendations made by the task force, Catrina said Friday.

Matt Lewis, spokesperson for housing advocacy group California YIMBY, said it’s important for the realtors’ association to be clear about what steps it will take to address the lingering effects of discriminatory policies it supported.

“An apology is always backward-looking, so it’s important to try to correct the damage you did,” Lewis said. “But the next step is, so what are you going to do about it?”

———

Sophie Austin is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow her on Twitter at: twitter.com/sophieadanna

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October 21, 2022
Slavery is on the ballot for voters in 5 US states

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — More than 150 years after slaves were freed in the U.S., voters in five states will soon decide whether to close loopholes that led to the proliferation of a different form of slavery — forced labor by people convicted of certain crimes.

None of the proposals would force immediate changes inside the states’ prisons, though they could lead to legal challenges related to how they use prison labor, a lasting imprint of slavery’s legacy on the entire United States.

The effort is part of a national push to amend the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that banned enslavement or involuntary servitude except as a form of criminal punishment. That exception has long permitted the exploitation of labor by convicted felons.

“The idea that you could ever finish the sentence ‘slavery’s okay when … ’ has to rip out your soul, and I think it’s what makes this a fight that ignores political lines and brings us together, because it feels so clear,” said Bianca Tylek, executive director of Worth Rises, a criminal justice advocacy group pushing to remove the amendment’s convict labor clause.

Nearly 20 states have constitutions that include language permitting slavery and involuntary servitude as criminal punishments. In 2018, Colorado was the first to remove the language from its founding frameworks by ballot measure, followed by Nebraska and Utah two years later.

This November, versions of the question go before voters in Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont.

Sen. Raumesh Akbari, a Democrat from Memphis, was shocked when a fellow lawmaker told her about the slavery exception in the Tennessee Constitution and immediately began working to replace the language.

“When I found out that this exception existed, I thought, ‘We have got to fix this and we’ve got to fix this right away,’” she said. “Our constitution should reflect the values and the beliefs of our state.”

Constitutions require lengthy and technically tricky steps before they can be tweaked. Akbari first proposed changes in 2019; the GOP-dominant General Assembly then had to pass the changes by a majority vote in one two-year legislative period and then pass it again with at least two-thirds approval in the next. The amendment could then go on the ballot in the year of the next gubernatorial election.

Akbari also had to work with the state Department of Correction to ensure that inmate labor wouldn’t be prohibited under her proposal.

The proposed language going before Tennessean voters more clearly distinguishes between the two: “Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime.”

“We understand that those who are incarcerated cannot be forced to work without pay, but we should not create a situation where they won’t be able to work at all,” Akbari said.

Similar concerns over the financial impact of prison labor led California’s Democratic-led Legislature to reject an amendment eliminating indentured servitude as a possible punishment for crime after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration predicted it could require the state to pay billions of dollars at minimum wage to prison inmates.

Scrutiny over prison labor has existed for decades, but the 13th Amendment’s loophole in particular encouraged former Confederate states after the Civil War to devise new ways to maintain the dynamics of slavery. They used restrictive measures, known as the “Black codes” because they nearly always targeted Black people, to criminalize benign interactions such as talking too loudly or not yielding on the sidewalk. Those targeted would end up in custody for minor actions, effectively enslaving them again.

Fast-forward to today: Many incarcerated workers make pennies on the dollar, which isn’t expected to change if the proposals succeed. Inmates who refuse to work may be denied phone calls or visits with family, punished with solitary confinement and even be denied parole.

Alabama is asking voters to delete all racist language from its constitution and to remove and replace a section on convict labor that’s similar to what Tennessee has had in its constitution.

Vermont often boasts of being the first state in the nation to ban slavery in 1777, but its constitution still allows involuntary servitude in a handful of circumstances. Its proposed change would replace the current exception clause with language saying “slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited in this State.”

Oregon’s proposed change repeals its exception clause while adding language allowing a court or probation or parole agency to order alternatives to incarceration as part of sentencing.

Louisiana is the only state so far to have its proposed amendment draw organized opposition, over concerns that the replacement language may make matters worse. Even one of its original sponsors has second thoughts — Democratic Rep. Edmond Jordan told The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate last week that he’s urging voters to reject it.

The nonprofit Council for a Better Louisiana warned that the wording could technically permit slavery again, as well as continue involuntary servitude.

Louisiana’s Constitution now says: “Slavery and involuntary servitude are prohibited, except in the latter case as punishment for a crime.” The amendment would change that to: “Slavery and involuntary servitude are prohibited, (but this) does not apply to the otherwise lawful administration of criminal justice.”

“This amendment is an example of why it is so important to get the language right when presenting constitutional amendments to voters,” the nonprofit group said in a statement urging voters to choose “No” and lawmakers to try again, pointing to Tennessee’s ballot language as a possible template.

Supporters of the amendment say such criticisms are part of a campaign to keep exception clauses in place.

“If this doesn’t pass, it will be used as a weapon against us,” said Max Parthas, state operations director for the Abolish Slavery National Network.

The question stands as a reminder of how slavery continues to bedevil Americans, and Parthas says that’s reason enough to vote yes.

“We’ve never seen a single day in the United States where slavery was not legal,” he said. “We want to see what that looks like and I think that’s worth it.”

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October 20, 2022
US businesses propose hiding trade data used to trace abuse

A group of major U.S. businesses wants the government to hide key import data — a move trade experts say would make it more difficult for Americans to link the products they buy to labor abuse overseas.

The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee is made up of executives from 20 companies, including Walmart, General Motors and Intel. The committee is authorized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to advise on ways to streamline trade regulations.

Last week — ahead of closed-door meetings starting Monday in Washington with senior officials from CBP and other federal agencies — the executives quietly unveiled proposals they said would modernize import and export rules to keep pace with trade volumes that have nearly quintupled in the past three decades. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the proposal from a committee member.

Among the proposed changes: making data collected from vessel manifests confidential.

The information is vitally important for researchers and reporters seeking to hold corporations accountable for the mistreatment of workers in their foreign supply chains.

Here’s how it works: Journalists document a situation where laborers are being forced to work and cannot leave. They then use the shipping manifests to show where the products end up, and sometimes even their brand names and whether they’re on a shelf at a local supermarket or a rack of clothes at a local mall.

The proposal, if adopted, would shroud in secrecy customs data on ocean-going freight responsible for about half of the $2.7 trillion in goods entering the U.S. every year. Rail, truck and air cargo is already shielded from public disclosure under U.S. trade law.

“This is outrageous,” said Martina Vandenberg, a human rights lawyer who has filed petitions with CBP seeking to block shipments of goods suspected of being made by forced labor.

“Every year we continue to import and sell millions of dollars in goods tainted by forced labor,” said Vandenberg, president of the Washington-based Human Trafficking Legal Center. “Corporate America should be ashamed that their answer to this abuse is to end transparency. It’s time they get on the right side of history.”

CBP said it would not comment on ideas that have not been formally submitted by its advisory committee but said that the group’s proposals are developed with input gathered in public meetings.

But one of CBP’s stated goals in creating what it has dubbed a “21st Century Customs Framework” is to boost visibility into global supply chains, support ethical sourcing practices and level the playing field for domestic U.S. manufacturers.

Reports by the AP and other media have documented how large quantities of clothing, electronics and seafood make their way onto U.S. shelves every year as a result of illegal forced labor that engages 28 million people globally, according to the International Labor Organization. Much of that investigative work — whether into clothing made by Uyghurs at internment camps in China’s Xinjiang region, cocoa harvested by children in the Ivory Coast or seafood caught by Philippine fishermen toiling in slave-like conditions — starts with shipping manifests.

“Curtailing access to this information will make it harder for the public to monitor a shipping industry that already functions largely in the shadows,” said Peter Klein, a professor at University of British Columbia, where he runs the Hidden Costs of Global Supply Chains project, an international collaborative between researchers and journalists.

“If anything, CBP should be prioritizing more transparency, opening up records of shipments by air, road and rail as well.”

In its 34-page presentation, the business advisory panel said its goal in further restricting access to customs data is to protect confidential business information from “data breaches” that it says “have become more commonplace, severe and consequential.”

The group also wants CBP for the first time to provide importers with advance notice whenever it suspects forced labor is being used. Activists say such a move puts whistleblowers overseas at risk of retaliation.

GM declined to comment, referring all inquiries to the Customs Operations Advisory Committee. Neither Intel nor Walmart responded to AP requests for comment.

In August alone, CBP targeted shipments valued at more than $266 million for inspection due to suspected use of forced labor, including goods subject to the recently passed Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. Additionally, last month the U.S. Department of Labor added 32 products — among them acai berries from Brazil, gold from Zimbabwe and tea from India — to its list of goods possibly made with child or forced labor, making them targets for future enforcement actions.

The proposal to make vessel data confidential comes as American companies are under increasing pressure from consumers to provide greater transparency regarding their sourcing practices, something reflected in the ambitious language found in many corporate social responsibility statements.

But Vandenberg said the proposed restrictions are in line with less-touted litigation and lobby efforts by major companies to water down enforcement of the U.S. ban on forced labor.

She cited a brief filed last week by the American Chamber of Commerce, the world’s largest business federation, in a case now before a federal appeals panel in Washington. At issue is whether tech companies can be held responsible for the death and injury of children in the Democratic Republic of Congo forced to mine cobalt that ends up in products sold in the U.S.

The lawsuit was brought by families of dead and maimed children against tech giants Alphabet (the parent company of Google), Apple, Dell Technologies, Microsoft and Tesla under what’s known as the U.S. Trafficking Act, which allows victims to sue ventures that benefit financially from forced labor. The case was dismissed last year after a district judge found the companies lacked sufficient ties to the tragic working conditions in the DRC.

The Chamber of Commerce, in asking the appeals panel to uphold that decision, said the serious global problem of forced labor is best addressed by private industry initiatives, Congress and the executive branch — not U.S. courts.

Such suits “often last a decade or more, imposing substantial legal and reputational costs on U.S. companies that transact business overseas,” the Chamber of Commerce wrote in a friend-of-the-court filing.

The mismatch in rules governing disclosure of trade data for different forms of transportation goes back to 1996, when lobbying by the airline industry reversed a law passed by Congress that same year that for the first time required air freight manifests be made public.

In 2017, Scottsdale, Arizona-based ImportGenius — a platform used to search shipping data — was among companies that unsuccessfully sued the federal government seeking to obtain aircraft manifests.

“Suppressing information about goods coming into our country is breathtakingly stupid,” said Michael Kanko, CEO of ImportGenius. “From discovering imports of human hair linked to forced labor, to understanding the flow of PPE during the pandemic, to tracking importers of tainted, deadly dog treats, public access to this data has empowered journalism and kept consumers safe. We need more transparency in trade, not less.”

———

AP Writer Martha Mendoza contributed to this report.

Follow Goodman on Twitter: @APJoshGoodman

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October 17, 2022
US businesses propose hiding trade data used to trace abuse

A group of major U.S. businesses wants the government to hide key import data — a move trade experts say would make it more difficult for Americans to link the products they buy to labor abuse overseas.

The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee is made up of executives from 20 companies, including Walmart, General Motors and Intel. The committee is authorized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to advise on ways to streamline trade regulations.

Last week — ahead of closed-door meetings starting Monday in Washington with senior officials from CBP and other federal agencies — the executives quietly unveiled proposals they said would modernize import and export rules to keep pace with trade volumes that have nearly quintupled in the past three decades. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the proposal from a committee member.

Among the proposed changes: making data collected from vessel manifests confidential.

The information is vitally important for researchers and reporters seeking to hold corporations accountable for the mistreatment of workers in their foreign supply chains.

Here’s how it works: Journalists document a situation where laborers are being forced to work and cannot leave. They then use the shipping manifests to show where the products end up, and sometimes even their brand names and whether they’re on a shelf at a local supermarket or a rack of clothes at a local mall.

The proposal, if adopted, would shroud in secrecy customs data on ocean-going freight responsible for about half of the $2.7 trillion in goods entering the U.S. every year. Rail, truck and air cargo is already shielded from public disclosure under U.S. trade law.

“This is outrageous,” said Martina Vandenberg, a human rights lawyer who has filed petitions with CBP seeking to block shipments of goods suspected of being made by forced labor.

“Every year we continue to import and sell millions of dollars in goods tainted by forced labor,” said Vandenberg, president of the Washington-based Human Trafficking Legal Center. “Corporate America should be ashamed that their answer to this abuse is to end transparency. It’s time they get on the right side of history.”

CBP said it would not comment on ideas that have not been formally submitted by its advisory committee but said that the group’s proposals are developed with input gathered in public meetings.

But one of CBP’s stated goals in creating what it has dubbed a “21st Century Customs Framework” is to boost visibility into global supply chains, support ethical sourcing practices and level the playing field for domestic U.S. manufacturers.

Reports by the AP and other media have documented how large quantities of clothing, electronics and seafood make their way onto U.S. shelves every year as a result of illegal forced labor that engages 28 million people globally, according to the International Labor Organization. Much of that investigative work — whether into clothing made by Uyghurs at internment camps in China’s Xinjiang region, cocoa harvested by children in the Ivory Coast or seafood caught by Philippine fishermen toiling in slave-like conditions — starts with shipping manifests.

“Curtailing access to this information will make it harder for the public to monitor a shipping industry that already functions largely in the shadows,” said Peter Klein, a professor at University of British Columbia, where he runs the Hidden Costs of Global Supply Chains project, an international collaborative between researchers and journalists.

“If anything, CBP should be prioritizing more transparency, opening up records of shipments by air, road and rail as well.”

In its 34-page presentation, the business advisory panel said its goal in further restricting access to customs data is to protect confidential business information from “data breaches” that it says “have become more commonplace, severe and consequential.”

The group also wants CBP for the first time to provide importers with advance notice whenever it suspects forced labor is being used. Activists say such a move puts whistleblowers overseas at risk of retaliation.

GM declined to comment, referring all inquiries to the Customs Operations Advisory Committee. Neither Intel nor Walmart responded to AP requests for comment.

In August alone, CBP targeted shipments valued at more than $266 million for inspection due to suspected use of forced labor, including goods subject to the recently passed Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. Additionally, last month the U.S. Department of Labor added 32 products — among them acai berries from Brazil, gold from Zimbabwe and tea from India — to its list of goods possibly made with child or forced labor, making them targets for future enforcement actions.

The proposal to make vessel data confidential comes as American companies are under increasing pressure from consumers to provide greater transparency regarding their sourcing practices, something reflected in the ambitious language found in many corporate social responsibility statements.

But Vandenberg said the proposed restrictions are in line with less-touted litigation and lobby efforts by major companies to water down enforcement of the U.S. ban on forced labor.

She cited a brief filed last week by the American Chamber of Commerce, the world’s largest business federation, in a case now before a federal appeals panel in Washington. At issue is whether tech companies can be held responsible for the death and injury of children in the Democratic Republic of Congo forced to mine cobalt that ends up in products sold in the U.S.

The lawsuit was brought by families of dead and maimed children against tech giants Alphabet (the parent company of Google), Apple, Dell Technologies, Microsoft and Tesla under what’s known as the U.S. Trafficking Act, which allows victims to sue ventures that benefit financially from forced labor. The case was dismissed last year after a district judge found the companies lacked sufficient ties to the tragic working conditions in the DRC.

The Chamber of Commerce, in asking the appeals panel to uphold that decision, said the serious global problem of forced labor is best addressed by private industry initiatives, Congress and the executive branch — not U.S. courts.

Such suits “often last a decade or more, imposing substantial legal and reputational costs on U.S. companies that transact business overseas,” the Chamber of Commerce wrote in a friend-of-the-court filing.

The mismatch in rules governing disclosure of trade data for different forms of transportation goes back to 1996, when lobbying by the airline industry reversed a law passed by Congress that same year that for the first time required air freight manifests be made public.

In 2017, Scottsdale, Arizona-based ImportGenius — a platform used to search shipping data — was among companies that unsuccessfully sued the federal government seeking to obtain aircraft manifests.

“Suppressing information about goods coming into our country is breathtakingly stupid,” said Michael Kanko, CEO of ImportGenius. “From discovering imports of human hair linked to forced labor, to understanding the flow of PPE during the pandemic, to tracking importers of tainted, deadly dog treats, public access to this data has empowered journalism and kept consumers safe. We need more transparency in trade, not less.”

———

AP Writer Martha Mendoza contributed to this report.

Follow Goodman on Twitter: @APJoshGoodman

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October 17, 2022
Turkey calls Greek claims on migrant mistreatment fake news

ISTANBUL — Turkish officials on Sunday shot back at Greek allegations that Turkey forced 92 naked migrants into Greece, calling it “fake news” and accusing Greece of the mistreatment.

Greek migration minister Notis Mitarachi was “sharing false information” after the official tweeted a photo of the naked migrants on Saturday and blamed Turkey, said Fahrettin Altun, the communications director of Turkey’s president.

Altun tweeted in Turkish, Greek and English that this was to “cast suspicion on our country,” while calling on Athens to abandon its “harsh treatment of refugees.”

“Greece has shown once again to the entire world that it does not respect the dignity of refugees by posting these oppressed people’s pictures it has deported after extorting their personal possessions,” he said.

Deputy Interior Minister Ismail Catakli tweeted that the photo showed Greece’s cruelty. “Spend your time to obey human rights, not for manipulations & dishonesty!”

Greek police said Saturday that police officers found the migrants stark naked on Friday, “some with bodily injuries” who had entered the country using plastic boats to cross the Evros River, which forms a border between the two countries.

Relations between the two neighboring countries have been tense over a variety of issues, including migration.

Turkey regularly accuses Greece of violently pushing back migrants entering the country by land and sea. Turkey’s coast guard frequently shares videos of such pushbacks.

Greece accuses Turkey, which hosts the largest number of refugees in the world, of “pushing forward” migrants to put pressure on the EU.

The U.N. refugee agency said it was “deeply distressed by the shocking reports,” condemning the “degrading treatment” and calling for an investigation.

———

Follow AP’s coverage of migration issues at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

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October 16, 2022
‘Don’t Look Back’: Refugee, plant worker writes of survival

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — As Achut Deng lay in her apartment bedroom in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, sickened alongside hundreds of her co-workers at a South Dakota meatpacking plant, she worried she was going to die.

It wasn’t the first time she felt the imminent threat of death.

Her childhood, shattered by war in South Sudan, had been filled with it. But as she focused on building a new life for her family — filled with long hours at the Smithfield Foods pork processing plant — she kept those traumatic memories to herself.

In the spring of 2020, however, she spoke out to tell of the fear gripping the Sioux Falls workforce, adding to pressure that prodded the plant to implement new safety protocols that helped protect Deng and her colleagues.

Now, Deng is telling her whole story — from fleeing massacres to the trauma she experienced as a refugee in the United States — through a memoir that she hopes will bring awareness of both the hardships, as well as the healing, for refugees.

Deng’s book for young adults, co-authored with Keely Hutton, draws its name from the words Deng’s grandmother uttered as they fled when their village came under attack: “Don’t Look Back.”

For decades, she followed that advice to survive. The book details her grandmother’s sacrifice to literally shield Deng from bullets during a 1991 massacre, to a refugee journey where a deadly river, a snake bite and malaria all nearly killed her. And even after arriving in the U.S., Deng writes, she suffered sexual abuse from a male guardian as well as accompanying suicidal thoughts.

“I’m tired of being strong. I’m done being embarrassed. I’m done being ashamed of what I’ve been through,” Deng, now 37, told The Associated Press in an interview at her home in Sioux Falls.

For years, she quietly kept her story buried beneath her work at the plant, a side hustle of catering sambusa and caring for her three sons.

“There’s a reason why I created this busy schedule — because I don’t want to have time to myself so that I can think of the past,” she said.

The hard work allowed Deng to achieve the life she dreamed of when she came to the U.S. as a teenager. She saved for a down payment on a home, paid for family vacations and even sponsored her parents’ immigration to America.

When COVID-19 infections spread among Deng’s colleagues, however, her dreams came under attack once again. Sickened by the virus, she worried her sons would find her body and be left with only the stories others told about her. Deng was still haunted by finding that her own grandmother had been struck and killed by the bullets that might have hit Deng during that 1991 massacre.

“I found myself at the very lowest point again,” Deng recounted.

In the past, she had quietly focused on survival. This time, she spoke out. Deng appeared twice on the New York Times’ “The Daily” podcast.

She described in compelling detail the suffering and fear among her colleagues — many of them immigrants — as the pork processing plant became one of the country’s worst hotspots for infections in the spring of 2020. Four of her colleagues died after being infected.

Many workers at the time worried about the consequences of speaking with reporters, but Deng says she was only describing her own experience and that she does not blame Smithfield for the coronavirus. She says the plant requires hard work, but Smithfield also provides the wages, benefits and a schedule that allow a single mother to provide for her family.

When a publicist at Macmillan Publishing heard Deng on the podcast, it sparked talks that led to the memoir. Deng wrote the book with Hutton, her co-author, in between working 12-hour shifts at Smithfield and ferrying her sons to school. She often slept just four hours between her overnight job as a supervisor and video calls with Hutton.

Delving into the trauma of her past was difficult, Deng said, and required therapy sessions.

Then, every Sunday, when Deng had a day off, she would sit with her sons around their dining table and read the draft of the latest chapter.

“We cry together; we talk about it; then we put it behind; then we start the new week,” Deng said.

She hopes that readers will come to understand refugees have their lives upended and are traumatized by forces beyond their control, but show incredible resilience by choosing to come to the U.S. She described the book’s cover, illustrated with the face of a girl overlaid by a night sky, as capturing her feelings at publication.

“She’s wounded but fearless,” Deng said. “You can see the pain in her eye. But she’s not afraid.”

———

Follow Stephen Groves on Twitter at https://twitter.com/stephengroves

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October 15, 2022
Biden’s pot pardons could boost states’ legalization drives

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — There are few surprises expected on Election Day in solidly Republican Arkansas, where Donald Trump’s former press secretary is heavily favored in the race for governor and other GOP candidates are considered locks.

But one big exception is the campaign to make Arkansas the first state in the South to legalize recreational marijuana. A proposal to change the state’s constitution is drawing millions of dollars from opponents and supporters of legalization, with ads crowding the airwaves.

President Joe Biden’s recent announcement that he will pardon thousands of people for simple marijuana possession has shined a new spotlight on the legalization efforts in Arkansas and four other states. Voters in Maryland, Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota are also taking up measures on recreational marijuana.

Biden’s step toward decriminalizing the drug could provide a boost for legalization in some of the most conservative parts of the country, experts say.

“The most powerful elected leader in the world has publicly declared it was a mistake to criminalize people for using cannabis and I think that will go a long way with regard to voters who may be on the fence,” said Mason Tvert, partner at VS Strategies, a cannabis policy and public affairs firm.

Biden’s announcement only covers people convicted under the federal law. But he has called on governors to issue similar pardons for those convicted of state marijuana offenses, which reflect the vast majority of marijuana possession cases. The president also directed his health secretary and attorney general to review how marijuana is scheduled under federal law.

The moves come as opposition to legalization has softened around the country, with recreational marijuana legal in 19 states, despite resistance at the federal level. Advocates say it shows that states are ahead of the federal government on the issue.

“I think it’s an example of state level leadership and citizens pushing the federal government in the right direction,” said Eddie Armstrong, a former state legislator who leads the Responsible Growth Arkansas group campaigning for legalization.

In 2016, Arkansas became the first Bible Belt state to approve medical marijuana, with voters approving a legalization measure. More than 91,000 people have cards to legally buy marijuana from state-licensed dispensaries, which opened in 2019. Patients have spent more than $200 million so far this year, the state says.

An ad by Responsible Growth Arkansas points to benefits such as the thousands of jobs it says legalization would create. The main group opposing the measure is running an ad that urges voters to “protect Arkansas from big marijuana.”

The proposal faces opposition from Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a former head of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration who criticized Biden’s pardon announcement. Former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, the Republican front-runner to succeed Hutchinson, has said she will vote against the measure. Her Democratic rival, Chris Jones, said he supports it.

In neighboring Missouri, a proposed constitutional amendment would legalize recreational marijuana for adults 21 and older and expunge records of past arrests and convictions for nonviolent marijuana offenses, except for selling to minors or driving under the influence.

Supporters said they do not expect Biden’s pardon announcement for some federal marijuana offenses to have much of an impact on the Missouri measure, which could expunge several hundred thousand state marijuana offenses.

“There is some danger of confusion, but I think most people understand the distinction of the federal and state processes,” said John Payne, campaign manager for Legal Missouri 2022.

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican and former sheriff, opposes the ballot measure but has not aggressively campaigned against it. He has no plans to emulate Biden’s pardon announcement.

Parson has granted pardons “to individuals who demonstrate a changed life-style, commitment to rehabilitation, contrition and contribution to their communities — rather than as a blanket approach to undermine existing law,” said Parson spokesperson Kelli Jones.

Similarly, North Dakota’s legalization campaign does not expect to incorporate Biden’s pardons into its messaging. Mark Friese, treasurer of the New Approach Initiative backing the legalization ballot proposal, said he doubts Biden’s pardon will have much of an impact in North Dakota or sway the legalization effort.

“The number of North Dakotans convicted in federal court is small,” said Friese, a prominent North Dakota lawyer and former police officer. “Small amounts of marijuana are typically and historically not prosecuted in North Dakota.”

Matt Schwiech, who is running South Dakota’s ballot initiative campaign to legalize recreational marijuana possession for adults, said the president’s pardons may hand the campaign a boost with older Democrats. It also underscores the campaign’s message that convictions for pot possession hurt people on job or rental applications, as well as that enforcing pot possession laws are a waste of time and resources for law enforcement, he said.

South Dakotans, including a sizable number of Republicans, voted to legalize marijuana possession in 2020, but that law was struck down by the state Supreme Court in part because the proposal was coupled with medical marijuana and hemp. This year, recreational pot is standing by itself as it goes before voters.

It remains unclear whether Biden’s pardon move will inject party politics into an issue that supporters say crosses partisan lines. For example, Arkansas voters in 2016 approved medical marijuana the same year they overwhelmingly backed Trump.

All of the states with recreational marijuana on the ballot next month, except for Maryland, voted for Trump in the 2020 presidential election. And the issue is going before voters as GOP candidates have been stepping up their anti-crime rhetoric.

“From our perspective the people of Arkansas, they didn’t vote for Biden initially and so we don’t anticipate this really having any sort of influence over anybody’s decision,” said Tyler Beaver, campaign manager for Safe and Secure Communities, the main group campaigning against the proposal.

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Associated Press writers David A. Lieb in Jefferson City, Missouri; Stephen Groves in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and James MacPherson in Bismarck, North Dakota; contributed to this report.

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For more information on the midterm elections, go to: https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections

Follow AP’s coverage of marijuana at https://apnews.com/hub/marijuana

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October 15, 2022
New report: A record 4.7 million Haitians face acute hunger

UNITED NATIONS — A record 4.7 million people in Haiti are facing acute hunger, including 19,000 in catastrophic famine conditions for the first time, all in a slum controlled by gangs in the capital, according to a report released Friday.

The U.N. World Food Program and Food and Agriculture Organization said unrelenting crises have trapped Haitians “in a cycle of growing desperation, without access to food, fuel, markets, jobs and public services, bringing the country to a standstill.”

The Cite Soleil district of the capital, Port-au-Prince, where violence has increased as armed gangs vye for control, is facing the most urgent need of humanitarian assistance, they said.

The report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, which is a global partnership of 15 U.N. agencies and international humanitarian groups, paints a grim picture of escalating hunger in Latin the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country,

The partnership uses five categories of food security, from Phase 1 in which people have enough to eat to Phase 5 in which households have an extreme lack of food and face famine, starvation, death and destitution. The 19,000 people in Cite Soleil are now in the latter group, the report said.

According to the analysis, a record 4.7 million Haitians are in the three worst categories — 2.9 million in “crisis” Phase 3 characterized by gaps in food consumption and acute malnutrition, 1.8 million in “emergency” Phase 4 in which there are large gaps in food consumption, very high acute malnutrition and excess deaths, and 19,000 in “famine” Phase 5.

The report said food security has also continued to deteriorate in Haiti’s rural areas, with several dropping from the “crisis” phase into the “emergency” phase.

The World Food Program and the Food and Argiculture Organization said food insecurity has increased over the past three years and 65% of Haitians “are in high levels of food insecurity with 5% of them in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.”

Haiti has been gripped by inflation and political gridlock that have exacerbated protests and brought society to the breaking point.

Daily life in the country began to spin out of control last month just hours after Prime Minister Ariel Henry said fuel subsidies would be eliminated, causing prices to double. Rising prices have put food and fuel out of reach of many Haitians, clean water is scarce, and the country is trying to deal with a cholera outbreak.

“Harvest losses due to below average rainfall and last year’s earthquake that devastated parts of the country’s south are among the shocks that worsened conditions for people,” U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said.

He said violence, unrest and tensions in Cite Soleil have limited access by humanitarian workers to the district.

“So, we don’t know necessarily how bad it’s getting, although it’s very clear it’s very bad, indeed. And we need to get access to people; we need to make sure that we can get food to people,” he said.

The World Food Program is seeking $105 million for the next six months, while the Food and Agriculture Organization said it urgently needs some $33 million.

Jean-Martin Bauer, country director in Haiti for the World Food Program, said, “We all need to be steadfast and focus on delivering urgent humanitarian assistance and supporting long-term development.”

The Food and Agriculture Organization’s representative in Haiti, Jose Luis Fernandez Filgueiras, said, “We need to help Haitians produce better, more nutritious food to safeguard their livelihoods and their futures.”

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October 14, 2022
‘She Said,’ drama of Weinstein reporting, premieres in NYC

NEW YORK — Five years after a pair of exposés revealed Harvey Weinstein’s long trail of sexual abuse of women, “She Said,” a film that dramatizes the dogged fight to uncover years of allegations against the movie mogul, premiered Thursday at the New York Film Festival.

The film stars Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan as New York Times reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor, who helped uncover the many allegations against Weinstein. When news of their impending report was first leaked by Variety, Weinstein at the time commented: “The story sounds so good, I want to buy the movie rights.”

Instead, the movie that would become “She Said” was adapted from Twohey and Kantor’s 2019 book about the investigation. It unspooled Thursday at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, with numerous women who came forward to tell their story in attendance, including Ashley Judd. Weinstein, meanwhile, is currently being tried in Los Angeles for 11 counts of rape and sexual assault. He has pled not guilty.

The 70-year-old Weinstein is currently serving a 23-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2020 for committing a criminal sexual act and third-degree rape.

One of the loudest of the film’s numerous standing ovations was for Judd, whose on-the-record account led The Times’ first report and whose bravery emboldened many others to speak out. Other women who came forward were also in the audience. Judd plays herself in the film.

“I just want to remember when I was speaking to my mother about all this, she said, ‘Oh, you go get ’em, honey,” Judd said in an on-stage conversation following the film, recalling that her father was with her after her 1996 meeting with Weinstein at the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel. “When I came down from the hotel room, he knew something devastating had just happened to me by the look on my face.”

“It was very validating that someone finally wanted to listen and do something about it,” Judd added. “The film was the next step in that.”

That “She Said” was premiering in New York at a festival Weinstein once frequented made the evening particularly poignant. Eugene Hernandez, executive director of the festival, noted that “it’s a room Harvey Weinstein has been in.”

The movie, too, has been a subject in Weinstein’s current trial. During pre-trial hearings, Weinstein’s attorneys requested that the trial be delayed because of the release of “She Said,” arguing that it could influence jurors. Universal Pictures will open “She Said” in theaters Nov. 18. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench rejected the motion.

But the array of women on stage — including the stars, the Times reporters, director Maria Schrader and screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz — made a powerful statement. “She Said” follows the ups and downs of Kantor and Twohey’s persistent investigation, battling against a decades-old wall-of-silence, a litany of NDAs and Weinstein’s own belligerent responses.

“The number of people who shared information with us was relatively small, and yet their impact was so large,” Kantor. said “We hope this film helps people remember that these personal stories really can make an enormous difference.”

The Times’ reporting on Weinstein, along with that of The New Yorker, was the catalyst not just for Weinstein’s dramatic downfall but the rapid expansion of the #MeToo movement begun by activist Tarana Burke that would spread throughout Hollywood and many other industries.

“She Said” follows in the tradition of investigative journalism films like “All the President’s Men” and “Spotlight,” with the notable difference that its protagonists are women balancing their 24/7 work lives with their young families. The film takes care to show the reporters as hard-working professionals not so unlike the young, ambitious women Weinstein preyed on.

Kazan took a moment to reflect on what’s changed in Hollywood in the five years since. There are now intimacy coordinators on set for sex scenes and a more open conversation about gender imbalance. But, she said, “there’s so much change left to be effected.”

“Anybody reading the newspaper headlines since let’s just say the beginning of May would know that we’re still living in an oppressive patriarchy,” said Kazan. “That’s not special to our industry.”

Judd added that, thanks to SAG-Aftra agreements, auditions no longer happen in hotel rooms. But she also made the point that something deeper has changed within women.

“I have reframed the experiences that I have had to understand that they were, in fact, harassment and assault, when I had previously minimized them,” Judd said. “I think that the individual transformation a lot of us have had as a result of what Tarana started and as a result of this reporting, has allowed women’s consciousness to transform and to set boundaries and reclaim autonomy and say, ‘This is the up with which I will not put. This is the hill on which I’m willing to die.’ ”

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Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

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October 13, 2022
Sheriff charged with civil rights violations to stand trial

ATLANTA — An Atlanta-area sheriff stands accused of punishing detainees by having them strapped into a restraint chair for hours even though they posed no threat and obeyed instructions. Now a jury must decide whether he violated the men’s civil rights.

A federal grand jury in April 2021 indicted Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill, saying he violated the civil rights of four people in his custody. Three more alleged victims were added in subsequent indictments. Prosecutors say placing the seven men in restraint chairs was unnecessary, was improperly used as punishment, and caused pain and bodily injury.

Jury selection is set to begin Wednesday and the trial is expected to last at least two weeks.

Hill calls himself “The Crime Fighter,” and uses Batman imagery on social media and in campaign ads. He has been a divisive figure — attracting both fans and critics — since he first became sheriff in 2005. This will be his second trial on criminal charges. The voters of Clayton County returned him to office in 2012 while he was under indictment, accused of using his office for personal gain — charges he ultimately beat.

Hill and his lawyers have said said his prosecution is baseless and politically motivated.

“We fervently maintain that throughout his tenure, Sheriff Hill has employed legal and accepted law enforcement techniques and has never exceeded his lawful authority,” defense attorneys Drew Findling and Marissa Goldberg said in a statement. “(W)ith the commencement of the trial of this case, the process will begin of restoring him back to his constitutionally elected position as Sheriff of Clayton County.”

Gov. Brian Kemp in June 2021 suspended Hill pending the resolution of the charges.

The U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment. When Hill was first indicted, then-Acting U.S. Attorney Kurt Erskine said the sheriff’s alleged actions not only harmed the detainees but also eroded public trust in law enforcement.

Prosecutors say Hill approved a policy saying the restraint chair can be used for a violent or uncontrollable person to prevent injury or property damage if other techniques don’t work and that the chair “will never be authorized as a form of punishment.”

The most recent indictment details what prosecutors say happened when each man was brought to the Clayton County Jail in Jonesboro, a suburb south of Atlanta.

In April 2020, a deputy arrested a teenager accused of vandalizing his family home during an argument with his mother. The deputy texted Hill a photo of the teen in a patrol car.

“How old is he?” Hill texted, according to an indictment.

“17,” the deputy responded.

“Chair,” Hill responded.

Also that month, Hill called a man in another county who’d had a dispute with one of Hill’s deputies over payment for landscaping work. Hill confronted the landscaper by phone and text and then instructed a deputy the next day to take out a warrant for harassing communications, the indictment says. After instructing the man to turn himself in, Hill sent a fugitive squad to try to arrest the man on the misdemeanor charge, the indictment says.

The man hired a lawyer and turned himself in. He cooperated with jail staff, but then Hill arrived and ordered him placed in the restraint chair, the indictment says.

A man arrested in May 2020 on charges of speeding and driving with a suspended driver’s license was also strapped into the restraint chair on Hill’s orders. A sheriff’s office employee then put a hood over the man’s head and he was hit twice in the face, causing him to bleed, the indictment says.

Hill also ordered that the other four men be placed in the chair, some left so long they urinated in the chair, the indictment says. The alleged victims are expected to testify at trial.

Hill fired 27 deputies on his first day in office in 2005, and his tough-on-crime stance has included using a tank owned by the sheriff’s office during drug raids.

He lost a reelection bid in 2008 and was indicted in early 2012 on felony corruption charges stemming from his first term in office. As with the current charges, his defense team blamed attacks by political rivals. Even though he remained under indictment during the election later that year, he defeated the man who had beaten him four years earlier. A jury later acquitted him on all 27 charges.

Hill raised eyebrows again in May 2015 when he shot and injured a woman in a model home in Gwinnett County, north of Atlanta. He and the woman said the shooting was an accident that happened while they were practicing police tactics. Hill pleaded no contest to a reckless conduct charge in August 2016.

In a ruling on pretrial motions, U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross made it clear that she wants the trial starting this week to be narrowly focused on the current charges.

Prosecutors won’t be allowed to bring up evidence of other alleged uses of force at the jail or the general conditions there. They also can’t talk about past lawsuits against Hill or his suspension by the governor. They’re also barred from making arguments about alleged retaliation against jail employees and obstruction by Hill. His affinity for Batman is off limits, as well.

Hill’s attorneys can’t compare his prosecution to other cases of alleged misconduct by law enforcement officers. They also can’t mention his good acts or suggest that his suspension has negatively affected Clayton County. They further can’t talk about the detainees’ behavior except as it relates directly to the arrests related to their alleged mistreatment.

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October 11, 2022
Books on empire, migrant crisis up for Baillie Gifford prize

LONDON — Books about Britain’s imperial past and the human face of the present-day refugee crisis are among the finalists for Britain’s leading nonfiction book award, the Baillie Gifford Prize.

The shortlist announced Monday includes Harvard professor Caroline Elkins’ hard-hitting “Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire” and Irish journalist Sally Hayden’s “My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World’s Deadliest Migration Route.”

Four books by British writers are also among the finalists for the 50,000 pound ($55,000) prize.

They are Jonathan Freedland’s true Holocaust story “The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World;” Anna Keay’s “The Restless Republic: Britain Without a Crown,” which charts Britain’s brief period as a republic in the 17th century; Polly Morland’s “A Fortunate Woman: A Country Doctor’s Story;” and Katherine Rundell’s poetic biography “Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne.”

Journalist Caroline Sanderson, who is chairing the judging panel, said the six books “are marvelously wide-ranging, in terms of setting, era, and the creative approaches on display. But however different the canvas, all have enthralling human stories at their heart.”

The Baillie Gifford Prize recognizes English-language books from any country in current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts.

Last year’s winner was Patrick Radden Keefe’s “Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty,” an expose of the family that helped unleash the United States’ opioid epidemic.

The winner of the 2022 prize will be announced on Nov. 17 at a ceremony in London.

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October 10, 2022
Arizona weighing in-state tuition rate for some non-citizens

PHOENIX — Arizona voters this November will decide whether to allow students regardless of their immigration status to obtain financial aid and cheaper in-state tuition at state universities and community colleges.

At least 18 states, including California and Virginia, as well as the District of Columbia now offer in-state tuition to all students who otherwise qualify regardless of status, according to a website that tracks higher education and immigration data.

But there has been little past voter support in Arizona for granting in-state tuition, which is about a third of the rate for out-of-state undergraduate students, to those who arrived in the United States without approval, even if they attended high school in the state for years. Voters in 2006 overwhelmingly approved a proposition that prevented students who entered the U.S. without authorization from getting in-state tuition and other financial benefits.

The current proposal known as Proposition 308, which was referred to this year’s Nov. 8 ballot by Arizona’s Legislature, would repeal some parts of the earlier initiative and allow all students including non-citizens to receive in-tuition rates as long as they graduated from and attended public or private high school or the home school equivalent for two years in Arizona.

Tens of thousands of immigrant students could potentially benefit from the proposition in a state where an estimated 275,000 migrants are living without authorization.

Arizona Republican State Sen. Paul Boyer introduced the measure for the ballot and it was passed by both houses. But a majority of Republicans opposed it.

“They’re here illegally,” Republican state Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita said last month during a televised debate on the initiative. “And while I very much sympathize with so-called Dreamers or individuals who no fault of their own have been brought to this country, the reality is their immigration status does not qualify them for in-state tuition.”

Reyna Montoya, CEO of Aliento, a community organization led by immigrant youth, argued for the initiative, saying that students and their parents had been paying taxes for years.

“It’s about fairness and giving a pathway for education,” she said during the debate.

The Arizona Board of Regents this spring approved base in-state undergraduate tuition of $10,978 for the 2022-2023 school year and a $29,952 base tuition rate for out-of-state undergraduate students.

Luis Acosta, who was born in Mexico, has argued for Proposition 308, saying he was forced to seek a university education in Iowa because he could not afford the higher costs in Arizona, where he had lived his entire life after arriving at age 2. He graduated in Iowa with a bachelor’s degree in international studies and English.

Diego Diaz, a junior at Arizona State University, was brought to the U.S. by his family when he was 4. He said higher out-of-state tuition costs created an economic burden.

“I’m currently having to take a break from school to get finances under check,” Diaz said at a September news conference promoting the proposition.

Some Arizona business owners say it makes sense to make sure the smartest young people remain and seek jobs in the state, no matter what their immigration status.

“We need more talented workers with degrees and we have now more than ever,” John Graham, chairman and CEO of Sunbelt Holdings, said at the news conference. “That is why I’m supporting this initiative.”

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October 5, 2022
Groups: Retaliation after migrants report detention center

ESTANCIA, N.M. — Migrants held by U.S. authorities at a detention center in rural New Mexico have endured retaliation rather than aid after reporting unsanitary conditions at the government-contracted jail, a coalition of civil rights advocacy groups said Wednesday.

A public letter signed this week by at least a dozen migrants within the Torrance County Detention Facility describes broken plumbing, insect infestations, insufficient access to medical care and rationed bottles of drinking water.

A companion complaint Wednesday to the office of civil rights at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security documents retaliation, including restrictions on access to legal representation and a falsified accusation of misconduct against an immigrant under the Prison Rape Elimination Act.

The new complaint adds to concerns raised in August by the coalition — which includes the American Civil Liberties Union, Innovation Law Lab, the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center and the El Paso, Texas-based Justice for Our Neighbors — drawing on information from interviews with scores of migrants at the center.

The Torrance County Detention Facility, privately operated by CoreCivic, is among about 130 detention centers used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold migrants while their immigration cases are reviewed, though in many cases it allows people to remain free under monitoring.

Representatives for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately return messages seeking comment. However, officials with CoreCivic disputed the allegations, saying the migrants were making false claims about conditions at the lockup.

Matthew Davio, a spokesperson for CoreCivic, said the detention center is monitored closely by ICE and is required to undergo regular reviews and audits to ensure an appropriate standard of living for all detainees. He also said ICE employs a compliance officer to ensure the detention center adheres to the agency’s strict standards and policies.

Orlando de los Santos Evangelista, a 39-year-old construction worker from the Dominican Republic, told The Associated Press on Thursday that he stopped eating Monday with five other inmates to protest conditions. He said he ate reluctantly on Wednesday after jail officials threatened to force- feed inmates through a tube.

Jail officials said Thursday that no one had missed a meal.

De Los Santos said detainees also fear being placed in a solitary cell that he called “the hole.” He said the corridors at the detention facility smell of feces, and water enters his sleeping area through a broken window, soaking his bed and immigration paperwork.

The Dominican national said he arrived in the U.S. in June and was shocked to be transfer to a prison-like facility.

″The conditions are inhumane. I’ve suffered from verbal mistreatment and psychological torture,” he said. “We ask that you listen to us.”

A government watchdog in March cited unsafe and unsanitary conditions at the detention facility and suggested everyone held there should be removed and transferred elsewhere.

Those findings from the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General were based on an unannounced inspection in February. The findings were disputed by CoreCivic and ICE.

More recently, a 23-year-old Brazilian national held at the Torrance County Detention Facility was found unresponsive by staff on Aug. 17 and died several days later at a hospital in Albuquerque. The death is under review by ICE, while the ACLU says it appears to be linked to a suicide attempt.

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Associated Press writer Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed to this report.

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September 29, 2022