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Tag: Race and ethnicity

  • Dock tragedy is latest chapter in Gullah Geechee community’s long struggle

    Dock tragedy is latest chapter in Gullah Geechee community’s long struggle

    (CNN) — For the young daughters of Michael and Kimberly Wood, it was their first time at the annual festival celebrating the culture of the Gullah Geechee community on Georgia’s remote Sapelo Island, the birthplace of their maternal grandmother and other descendants of enslaved Africans.

    After a day of storytelling, poetry, religious dance and hope-filled spirituals a week ago Saturday, the Woods, other family members and dozens of festival goers waited on a floating dock and adjoining gangway for the scenic ferry ride to the mainland across marshy Doboy Sound.

    A loud cracking sound and a sudden shifting of the gangway were the only warning before the relatively new dockside aluminum walkway plunged into the water about 60 miles south of Savannah. The collapse killed seven people, injured several others and gave his two girls what Michael Wood said was their first glimpse of the Gullah Geechee community’s longtime heartache and resilience.

    “It’s that fight to survive,” said Wood, a quality assurance engineer who slid down the collapsed gangway, snatched his 74-year-old mother out of the water and handed her to a stranger on the dock.

    Wood said he unsuccessfully attempted to reach his 8-year-old daughter Hailey, who was eventually rescued by the boyfriend of a relative as she clung to part of the dock. His wife Kimberly, clinging to their 2-year-old daughter Riley and using a book bag as a flotation device, drifted away in the strong current before another stranger pulled them safely to shore.

    The October 19 tragedy is the latest chapter in the struggles of one of the last surviving Gullah Geechee communities in the Georgia Sea Islands. These descendants of Africans who were enslaved on coastal plantations in the Southeast have fought to preserve their ways of life amid what they describe as a long-standing policy of neglect by state and county officials.

    “The call that the community has to its preservation is strong and runs deep, even risking their lives to save a life,” said Joyce White, a professor and interim director of the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Center at Georgia Southern University. “The risk of life, or death in this instance, is for future survival.”

    Four women and three men, all of them older than 70, were killed in the collapse, which the head of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources said appears to have been caused by a “catastrophic failure of the gangway.” An engineering and design firm will conduct an independent investigation in the cause, the DNR said Friday.

    The victims were identified as Jacqueline Crews Carter, 75; Cynthia Gibbs, 74; William Johnson Jr., 73; Carlotta McIntosh, 93; Isaiah Thomas, 79; Queen Welch, 76; and Charles L. Houston, 77. They had traveled to the festival from Jacksonville, Florida, Atlanta and Darien, Georgia.

    Gangway inspected in 2022 after a ‘loud noise’

    Those who died were among 700 visitors to the island for the annual Cultural Day celebration, which residents said used to attract as many as 2,000 people. Only 29 original descendants remain in the small hamlet known as Hogg Hummock or Hog Hammock, where their enslaved ancestors settled after being forcibly brought there in 1802. The state now owns most of the island.

    As festival goers waited to board a ferry returning to the mainland, the gangway came down. At least 20 people plunged into the Duplin River, officials said. There were as many as 40 people on the walkway at the time.

    The ferry dock was rebuilt in 2021 after a group of Gullah Geechee residents reached multimillion-dollar settlement with the state over what they claimed in a 2019 lawsuit were soaring property taxes and inferior treatment compared to the residents on the mainland. In 2015 federal civil rights claims, residents said they were paying high property taxes and receiving inadequate services including “water, emergency medical, fire, road maintenance, trash, and accessible ferry services to members of the community.”

    The lawsuit against the state was settled in 2020 and the case against the county was settled two years later. The state settlement included the construction of the dock and “new aluminum gangways” as well as improved ferry service.

    “There should be very, very little maintenance to an aluminum gangway like that,” DNR Commissioner Walter Rabon told reporters last Sunday, adding there were “almost daily” visual inspections of the structure.

    The gangway passed four safety inspections since 2022, DNR said in a statement on Thursday. A subcontractor inspected the structure in May 2022, one day after the agency was “made aware of a loud noise that had been heard by a group on the gangway,” according to the statement.

    The May 2022 inspection and a follow-up later that year in December both found “no structural concerns with the gangway,” said the agency, which owns and runs the docks and ferries. Two additional inspections were conducted after recent hurricanes Helene and Milton and “no concerns” were identified, the statement said.

    The cause of the collapse is also being looked at by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump – who is representing relatives of some victims – as well as a number of island residents have called for a federal probe.

    ‘See where their grandmother grew up’

    A week ago Saturday, Michael and Kimberly Wood, their two daughters, his mother Susie, and several other family members arrived on Sapelo from their homes throughout the state. The barrier island, about 7 miles off the coast of Georgia, is accessible only by boat or ferry.

    “I wanted my daughters to experience Cultural Day and see where their grandmother grew up,” Michael Wood said.

    On the way back after the event, however, the gangway collapsed and Wood, 43, said his family got a firsthand look at the resilience and strength of an imperiled community that refuses to go away.

    “A lot of people that attended the festival jumped into action,” he said. “People were falling into the water and screaming everywhere. And others rushed over from the festival to save anyone that they could.”

    Video footage from the scene showed people desperately clinging to a section of the walkway, which hung at a steep angle in the water. Others in the water were dragged away by the current. Still, people dove in to help. Some hurled life jackets into the water as survivors drifted away.

    Wood said he learned from his sister on the shore that his 8-year-old daughter had been rescued. He ran up and down the rugged shoreline, desperately looking for Kimberly and Riley, shouting out their names and fearing the worst. “My heart was just dropping,” he said. His sister, a nurse, performed CPR on a number of people along the way.

    Eventually, the couple, their daughters and other family members were reunited and tightly held one another with tears in their eyes.

    “The visitors and everybody at the event jumped in quickly,” said Kimberly Wood, 42, her voice still shaky days after the tragedy.

    “They basically took over. They were throwing life vests. We drifted very far away and I had to wait for a life vest to float over to me. I’m thankful for all the visitors and the descendants for their quick action. I do not know their names, maybe their faces, but thank you.”

    ‘We would want the same type of response’

    J.R. Grovner, 44, who runs an island tour company and had his boat at the dock, said the initial rescue efforts in the first 30 to 45 minutes after the gangway collapse involved mostly locals and festival goers. Vessels and a helicopter from the Coast Guard and DNR appeared later, he said. Others who were there gave similar accounts.

    “For almost an hour we had hell on Sapelo … and it was being tended to by civilians,” he said.

    The DNR said other emergency agencies assisted with the deployment of boats equipped with side-scan sonar and helicopters for search and rescue missions. But officials have not released a specific timeline of the those efforts.

    “This is part of our ongoing investigation. We will provide additional updates as they are made available,” DNR Deputy Commissioner Trevor Santos said in an email Friday.

    At a news conference after the collapse, Rabon, the DNR commissioner, thanked civilians who took time to help. “Their quick response and action saved additional lives,” he said.

    Grovner said when he arrived at the dock shortly after the collapse, he noticed someone had loosened his boat, which had drifted away because they had been unable to start its engine. “It was like a horror scene in a movie,” he said, noting that he momentarily attempted to revive a person on the shore.

    He jumped in the water. Another boater picked him up and delivered Grovner to his own vessel, where he said he found a cousin performing CPR on two people who were already dead. They returned to the dock area and left the two bodies on the shore. Grovner said he then heard his goddaughter yell at him: Her 2-month-old daughter was unconscious after falling in the water.

    Grovner took the baby into his speed boat. A woman at the scene left her child with one of his relatives and volunteered to give the girl CPR as he raced to the mainland. His goddaughter suffered a fractured knee in the collapse. He left her baby girl in the hands of paramedics on the mainland, he said. She survived.

    The other day, Grovner recalled, his granddaughter told him she doubts she’ll return to Sapelo. “You don’t want to hear somebody say that when their roots are from the island,” he said.

    The day of the collapse Grovner eventually returned to the dock area, where he and others covered some bodies with blankets. They also used blankets to carry the injured to boats waiting to transport them to the mainland for emergency care, he said.

    Reginald Hall, 59, an island native who helped chronicle the claims and organize the residents involved in the lawsuits, joined Grovner at a news conference last weekend. They demanded answers from state and county officials.

    “What I saw that day was the human fabric pull together and have an opportunity to make every effort they could – we could – to place ourselves not only in the shoes of the people who were suffering, but to place ourselves inside the rescue effort and say, if that were us, we would want the same type of response,” Hall told CNN.

    White, the Georgia Southern University professor, added: “The Gullah Geechee community has always had to fight for their survival. And the assaults on the culture are unceasing.”

    CNN

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  • Trump’s offensive Madison Square Garden rally triggers fears of an overshadowed message and fallout with Puerto Rican voters

    Trump’s offensive Madison Square Garden rally triggers fears of an overshadowed message and fallout with Puerto Rican voters

    (CNN) — The violent and vulgar rhetoric at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally Sunday has prompted finger-pointing within the former president’s inner circle and deep concern that his message was once again eclipsed by controversy.

    Several of Trump’s allies expressed dismay at the language used by speakers at the New York City event, particularly an off-color joke about Puerto Rico by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who opened the event and set the tone for an evening of disparaging and divisive remarks.

    “I’m livid,” one source close to the former president said, noting that they were stunned the remarks had not been thoroughly vetted before speakers took the stage.

    Throughout Sunday afternoon and evening, a parade of speakers roused the crowd at Trump’s pre-election MAGA celebration, adopting the anything-goes tone of the Republican nominee. Some lobbed racist barbs about Latino and Black Americans; others deployed misogynistic attacks against Trump’s female political adversaries, past and present.

    Many of these remarks appeared to be read from teleprompters, indicating they had been approved by someone within the event’s planning team. One campaign adviser told CNN that speeches were supposed to be vetted ahead of time and was uncertain as to how the overtly racist language had made it to the stage. Another senior adviser said the speeches were vetted but insisted that the more offensive remarks were adlibbed and not on any draft given to the campaign.

    By Monday, there were still disputes within the campaign over who approved Hinchcliffe’s set, which was replete with racial tropes. One adviser suggested no one had reviewed Hinchcliffe’s remarks in full. Another said the campaign was not given a draft that included some of the comedian’s more indecent jokes but did flag one calling Vice President Kamala Harris a “c*nt” as “in poor taste” and nixed it from the set.

    The program diverged sharply from the meticulous staging of this summer’s Republican National Convention, where every speech was carefully scrutinized and tightly choreographed. During the convention, campaign advisers routinely edited and, in some cases, rewrote the remarks of invited speakers, with minimal room for improvisation. Campaign aides acknowledged to CNN that the level of preparation exercised at the Milwaukee convention was not applied to Sunday’s rally.

    Since the RNC in July, a period marked by an extraordinary series of events — including Harris replacing President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket — Trump’s advisers have struggled to keep him focused, and his public appearances have grown increasingly erratic has he veers further off message. Some allies have at times publicly questioned whether the former president was striking an appropriate tone to win over the voters needed to carry the election in battleground states.

    Sunday began with Republicans optimistic that Trump’s campaign was, at least, striking the right tone with a new advertisement that looked ahead to the prospect of a second Trump presidency.

    “President Trump fights for you. His strength kept us safe. Trump cut taxes for families. Prices were lower, and the border secure. Now, President Trump can do it again, and we are going to a new golden age of American success for the citizens of every race, religion, color, and creed,” a narrator intoned.

    Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist and CNN political commentator, praised the ad as a “perfect closing argument” from Trump’s campaign. But by 8 p.m., any hopes that Trump would build on that message at Madison Square Garden had evaporated.

    Yet, the offending comments that evening were not altogether out of place in the context of a Trump rally, where the use of crude slogans, explicit anthems from Kid Rock, and offensive nicknames for political opponents has been the norm. Many of his supporters express themselves through crass messages on T-shirts. Trump himself has often adopted nativist language and increasingly uses profanity in his speeches.

    For nearly a decade, Trump has endured — if not thrived — on the lack of a filter that defines his political brand, leaving Democrats with no clear path to exploit it in the closing stretch of the race. In a similar vein, Future Forward, the leading super PAC supporting Harris’ presidential campaign, recently cautioned that Democrats risk diluting their final message by spending time labeling Trump a fascist.

    Still, the timing of Sunday’s event — so close to Election Day and with a high-profile New York backdrop — has prompted a new wave of concern from Republicans.

    The controversy largely centers around Hinchcliffe’s joke about Puerto Rico, which he called a “floating island of garbage.” A handful of Republicans, some closely aligned with Trump, issued statements condemning the remarks. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, the state with the largest Puerto Rican population, described the comments as “neither funny nor true.” Rep. Byron Donalds, also from Florida, said, “Nobody agreed with that.”

    Allies expressed worry that the remarks could have political repercussions, especially given Puerto Ricans’ growing influence in battleground states, with about half a million residing in Pennsylvania alone. Sources close to the former president confirmed that a number of calls had been made to campaign officials stressing the need to respond to the remarks.

    Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, a New York Republican and Puerto Rican who is facing one of the toughest reelection battles in the country, wrote on X, “The only thing that’s ‘garbage’ was a bad comedy set.”

    “Stay on message,” D’Esposito advised.

    The Trump campaign, generally unapologetic about inflammatory statements, swiftly released a statement on Sunday night distancing itself from Hinchcliffe’s remarks.

    “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” campaign spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez said.

    Trump’s distancing from Hinchcliffe did not extend to the comedian’s other inflammatory remarks — including a stereotype about Black people and watermelons, as well as a crude assertion about Latino immigrants’ sex lives. Nor did the campaign acknowledge other speakers who have drawn condemnation, such as one who referred to Harris as “the devil” and “the antichrist.”

    As of Monday, there were not plans for Trump to address the comments during his upcoming appearances. The former president held an event Monday in Georgia and travels to Pennsylvania on Tuesday.

    Democrats quickly seized on the outwardly offensive display Sunday. In the aftermath of the rally, Puerto Rican music super star Bad Bunny signaled his support for Harris to his 45 million followers on social media, which her campaign quickly promoted.

    Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is of Puerto Rican heritage, called Trump’s Madison Square Garden event a “hate rally” and suggested the campaign was in damage control mode over Hinchcliffe’s comments.

    “They’re just realizing that they might have made a big error by saying out loud what they’re thinking,” she told MSNBC on Monday.

    It remains to be seen, though, if Trump faces electoral consequences for the remarks disparaging Puerto Rico. Trump himself once called the territory “one of the most corrupt places on earth.” He accused local officials there of inflating the death toll from Hurricane Maria – estimated at 3,000 – to make him look bad.

    Democrats attempted in 2020 to mobilize Puerto Ricans in some battlegrounds by attacking Trump’s handling of the response to Maria. Spanish-language ads and billboards in Florida featured Trump tossing paper towels to survivors who had lost their homes and highlighted his past criticism of the island. In Osceola County, where the population surged after Maria and one in three voters identifies as Puerto Rican, Democrats enlisted storm survivors to reach out to other Puerto Ricans against Trump.

    In the end, Trump won Florida and, in Osceola County, his performance improved by 7 points.

    Steve Contorno, Kristen Holmes and CNN

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  • Analysis: With one week remaining, Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump shore up their bases

    Analysis: With one week remaining, Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump shore up their bases

    There are eight days remaining in the 2024 Presidential Election for Vice President Kamala D. Harris and former President Donald J. Trump. In the last week, Vice President Harris visited Clarkston, an enclave bordered by Decatur to the west and Stone Mountain to the east. Friday, Harris visited Houston, Texas to campaign alongside U.S. Represntative Colin Allred, Kelly Rowland, and Beyoncé. Saturday, Michelle Obama joined Harris to rally voters in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Meanwhile, Trump headlined a rally at Madison Square Garden and is set to return to Atlanta tonight at Georgia Tech.

    What do we know about the race with one week to go?

    First, the early voting turnout in Georgia has surpassed the levels from 2020. As of 6am Monday morning, 38.9% of Georgia’s registered voters have made their choice in this year’s presidential election. More than 2.81 million voters have cast their ballot. Black voters make up nearly 34% of that turnout. The general rule of thumb is if more than 30% of Black voters vote for the Democratic Party, it bodes well for their chances. In the cases for Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Fulton and Henry Counties, total turnout has been north of 40% during the early voting period.

    Additionally, 71,000 Georgians who were registered to vote in 2020, but did not cast a ballot in that election, have already cast a ballot this year during the first week of early voting. Among newly-activated voters, Democrats currently hold an edge. 

    Every single survey has Harris and Trump locked in a dead heat in Georgia. 

    Maya Harris speaks during a campaign rally for Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday, October 18, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo: Itoro N. Umontuen/The Atlanta Voice)

    A Woman’s Right to Choose is central to Democrats closing message

    During each campaign stop, one message was clear: reproductive freedom for women is true freedom for all Americans. The stories of the pain and suffering were told in an effervescent manner. Thursday, the family of Amber Nicole Thurman attended the Harris rally in Clarkston. Friday, Harris rallied voters in Houston on her pledge to codify Roe v. Wade into federal law. Texas, like Georgia, abortion procedures are prohibited at six weeks – before many women know they are pregnant – with exceptions only if the mother’s life is in danger. 

    “So do you think Donald Trump is thinking about the consequences for the millions of women who will be living in medical deserts,” asked Michelle Obama during her speech in Houston. “Does anyone think he has the emotional maturity and foresight to come up with a plan to protect us?”

    During an event hosted by Maya Harris, the women backing the Vice President Harris urged attendees to vote early and in person, emphasizing the significance of youth and diverse voter engagement. Maya Harris also underscored the Vice President’s commitment to reproductive freedom. The message was clear: individual efforts can make a significant impact, and the collective goal is to ensure Kamala Harris becomes the next President.

    Objectives for enshrining Roe

    1. Vote for Kamala Harris in the upcoming election, as she has pledged to protect reproductive rights and expand access to healthcare.
    2. Women must have open and honest conversations important men in their lives to make it clear that protecting women’s health and rights is a priority. Urge the gentlemen to vote accordingly.
    3. Encourage women, especially first-time voters, to exercise their right to vote and make their voices heard on these critical issues.
    4. Support efforts to pass legislation that would restore nationwide protections for reproductive rights.
    5. Advocate against policies and politicians that seek to restrict or undermine access to reproductive healthcare, including abortion, contraception, and maternal care.
    Maya Harris takes a selfie with a crowd during a campaign rally for Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday, October 18, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo: Itoro N. Umontuen/The Atlanta Voice)

    “It is why she has spent her entire life fighting for each of us to be able to have that freedom,” explained Maya Harris. “To put a fine point on it, like the freedom to make our own decisions about our health, our families and our futures. Which includes our reproductive freedom, which is a defining issue, not just in this election, but for our entire country.  And certainly for this room in so many ways. It’s an issue that Kamala has been the strongest, most vocal champion of this issue since the overturning of Roe v Wade.”

    Puerto Rico, an American territory, MAGA’s latest target

    While Kamala Harris was in Philadelphia on Sunday, Donald Trump staged a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City. It was apropos for Trump to hold such an event on an NFL Sunday.  Trump notoriously failed in his attempt to buy the Buffalo Bills and the NFL put the former United States Football League out of business in the 1980s.

    As for modern times, Trump and his surrogates put on a rally that was red meat for conservatives living on Long Island and Staten Island. Comedian Tony Hinchcliff warmed up the crowd by dehumanizing Puerto Ricans when he said, “I don’t know if you know this but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.” That joke did not go over well for U.S. Senator Rick Scott, a Republican from Florida currently fighting to keep his seat. 

    The problem for Scott is that every speaker was vetted by Team Trump. Scott is locked in a battle with Debbie Mucarsel-Powell for his seat in November’s elections. Florida is home to the largest number of Puerto Ricans in the United States outside of the island itself.

    Conversely, Marc Anthony, Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, Luis Fonsi and others have shared a post by Kamala Harris which outlines her plans for Puerto Rico. Each person is supporting Harris in the election. 

    Notably, about 100,000 Puerto Ricans live in Georgia. Also notable, it took the Trump team six hours to clean up the disastrous fallout from the joke. “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” says Trump campaign Senior Advisor Danielle Alvarez. I mean, this too is a lie because Trump spent the week calling America a ‘garbage can.’ Trump also wanted to swap Puerto Rico for Greenland in 2020.

    https://twitter.com/PR_Dems/status/1850664092614426748

    Trump does nothing to distance himself from the fascist labels

    David Rem, a Trump surrogate, called Vice President Harris ‘the antichrist’. Tucker Carlson referred to Harris as, ‘a Samoan, Malaysian, low IQ former California prosecutor.’ Stephen Miller said, ‘America is for Americans and Americans only.’ That quote was directly lifted from Adolf Hitler’s speech in 1934 when he said, ‘Germany is for Germans and Germans only.’ No coincidence here. The Nazi Party held a rally at the World’s Most Famous Arena in 1939, espousing similar views. 

    This story will not directly discuss Trump’s former Chief of Staff John Kelly proclaiming that his former boss is a fascist and wishes he had generals that are loyal to him like Hitler’s. However, Miller’s quote is directly reminiscent of Joseph Goebbels, the philosopher of the Nazi Party. Goebbels drafted its literature which was cloaked in antisemitism. 

    For Trump, he realized his dream of seeing his name in lights on Sunday. Like his rally in Traverse City on Friday, Trump showed up hours late for his event. Trump labeled the Democrats as ‘the enemy from within’ because he believes they’ve done terrible things to America. Trump rattled through his greatest hits Sunday. He attacked the media and referred to America’s generals as ‘weak, stupid people’. Trump also said FEMA’s response to Hurricane Helene in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina was worse than Hurricane Katrina because FEMA paid out money to undocumented immigrants. That is an outright lie.

    Subsequently, his followers left MSG after they could not sit around any longer. 

    Black Men and the Vote

    Former U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during a campaign event for Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, at the James R Hallford Stadium on October 24, 2024 in Clarkston, Georgia. (Photo: Itoro N. Umontuen/The Atlanta Voice)

    During Sunday night’s WinWithBlackMen call, it emphasized the importance of increasing Black voter turnout in key battleground states. Key metrics included Black women voting 34-56 points above Black men in some states, and over 65% of Black voters aged 65+ having already voted. In Georgia, 38% of Black men have voted in the 2024 Elections.

    Many leaders on the call were emphasizing to young voters that their vote can make a critical difference. For example, The Collective PAC is hiring up to 15,000 voting ambassadors in key swing states, including Georgia, to organize their friends and family. They are encouraging young people to sign up as ambassadors and leverage their personal networks to drive voter turnout.

    The idea that Black men are not turning out for Harris is a myth. 72% of Black men are supporting Harris according to a Pew Research Center survey. However, misogyny is what is driving conversation. It is not a myth that misogyny by some Black men are being platformed by the Republican Party. Those pleas got hollowed out when “Dixie” was played before the U.S. Representative, Byron Donalds, was introduced in New York City Sunday afternoon.

    The finish line is approaching

    With eight days remaining, the Harris campaign has momentum. They are packing out stadiums. If polling data is not to be trusted, follow the money. The Harris campaign raised more than $1 billion in the period before September 30th, according to official filings. 

    Conversely, the Trump campaign is resigned to using racism and threats of violence. Trump even winked at the U.S. House Speaker, Mike Johnson, saying: “I think with our little secret we are gonna do really well with the house. Our little secret is having a big impact. He and I have a little secret. We will tell you what it is when the race is over.” Trump hopes the Election has enough chaos that it shall be thrown into the House of Representatives. 

    Donald Trump pledges to use the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. It was created to deport individuals during war with France, to deport undocumented immigrants from the United States. While Trump’s surrogates are making jingoistic and xenophobic remarks, Vice President Kamala Harris is shoring up support within Latino communities in Philadelphia.

    The case for both candidates is now in the collective hands of Georgia voters.

    Itoro N. Umontuen

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  • Trump’s deportation plans worry families with relatives in US illegally

    Trump’s deportation plans worry families with relatives in US illegally

    PHOENIX (AP) — Jocelyn Ruiz remembers when her fifth-grade teacher warned the class about large-scale patrols that would target immigrants in Arizona’s largest metropolitan area. She asked her mom about it — and unearthed a family secret.

    Ruiz’s mother had entered the United States illegally, leaving Mexico a decade earlier in search of a better life.

    Ruiz, who was born in California and raised in the Phoenix area, was overcome by worry at the time that her mother could be deported at any moment, despite having no criminal history. Ruiz, her two younger siblings and her parents quietly persevered, never discussing their mixed immigration status. They lived “as Americans,” she said.

    More than 22 million people live in a U.S. household where at least one occupant is in the country without authorization, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of 2022 Census data. That represents nearly 5% of households across the U.S. and 5.5% in Arizona, a battleground state where the Latino vote could be key.

    If Donald Trump is elected and follows through with a campaign promise to conduct the largest deportation operation in American history, it could not only upend the lives of the 11 million people who according to the U.S. Census Bureau are living in the United States without authorization — it could devastate the U.S. citizens in their families.

    The issue of immigration has been a cornerstone of Trump’s platform since he promised to “build a great wall” in 2015 as he announced his first Republican campaign for president. And despite polling that shows the economy as a top concern for voters, Trump remains fixated on the issue, criticizing the Biden administration’s handling of the southern border as an existential threat to American society as Election Day nears.

    Trump’s plans for a crackdown have motivated some mixed-status families to speak out. America’s success depends on the contributions of immigrants, they argue, and the people doing this work deserve a pathway to legal residency or citizenship.

    Others choose to be silent, hoping to evade attention.

    And there are some who support Trump, even though they themselves could become targets for deportation.

    The political divide over immigration runs deep: 88% of Trump supporters favor mass deportation, according to a recent Pew survey, compared with 27% of the voters who support Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president.

    Trump was asked about the impact so many deportations would have on mixed-status families when he visited the Arizona-Mexico border in August.

    “Provisions will be made, but we have to get the criminals out,” Trump responded to NBC News. He didn’t say what the provisions might include, and his campaign did not share more information when The Associated Press asked for specifics.

    Living in a mixed-status family is inherently precarious, as immigration policies and political rhetoric have ripple effects for U.S. citizens and legal residents, said Heide Castañeda, a professor of anthropology at the University of South Florida.

    “For most Americans, it’s not a familiar thing to navigate your daily life thinking about somebody in your family possibly being taken,” said Castañeda, author of “Borders of Belonging: Struggle and Solidarity in Mixed-Status Immigrant Families.” “But for mixed-status families, of course, that’s always on their minds.”

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    Politicians, she said, “think that they’re targeting a particular group, but these groups live in families and communities and households and neighborhoods.”

    In Nevada, California, New Jersey and Texas, nearly one in 10 households includes people living in the U.S. without legal permission, according to Pew. Many have lived in the country for decades and have U.S. citizens depending on them.

    Michael Kagan, director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said recent arrivals aren’t representative of the population in Nevada.

    “The vast majority have been here more than 10 years,” Kagan said, warning that their U.S. citizen relatives could inadvertently be swept up.

    Erika Andriola, 37, a longtime advocate for immigrants in Arizona, witnessed her mother and brother being detained by immigration agents in 2013. She waged a successful campaign that led to their release, but she now suffers from PTSD and separation anxiety as a result of that day.

    “It was just this like constant nightmares. I would wake up crying,” Andriola said. She and her brother are now legal residents, but their 66-year-old mother has been challenging her deportation in court since 2017.

    It’s an experience Andriola doesn’t wish upon anyone — and she says the emotional and economic tolls can affect entire communities.

    Betzaida Robinson’s brother was deported to Mexico several years ago despite never having lived there. An integral member of the family in Phoenix, he had helped pay bills and raise her two children.

    Robinson said Trump and his supporters must not be thinking about what it’s like to have a loved one taken away.

    “How about if you were in that position, what would you do and how would you feel?” she said.

    Still, there are people living in the country illegally who do support Trump, said Castañeda, the university professor. Even Andriola says she has family members who do.

    “They’re not necessarily thinking about what can happen to people like my mom,” Andriola said, “but they’re thinking about their own lives and what they think is best for them.”

    Victoria Castro-Corral is a self-described optimist from a mixed-status family in Phoenix who advises students at Chandler-Gilbert Community College. She said she has faith that a mass deportation plan will never happen — and credits her Mexican parents, who crossed the border illegally decades ago, for teaching her how to remain positive.

    “We’re here to stay,” she said.

    ___

    Gabriel Sandoval 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.

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  • A century after Native Americans got the right to vote, they could put Trump or Harris over the top

    A century after Native Americans got the right to vote, they could put Trump or Harris over the top

    RED SPRINGS, N.C. — Native American communities were decisive voting blocs in key states in 2020, and with the 2024 race remaining stubbornly close both campaigns have tried to mobilize Native voters in the final weeks of the presidential election.

    But when it comes to messaging, the two campaigns could not be more different, many Native voters said. It’s been 100 years since Native Americans were given the right to vote, with the passage of the Snyder Act in 1924, and whichever campaign is able to harness their power in this election could swing some of the most hotly contested counties in the country.

    In swing states like Arizona, North Carolina, Michigan, and Nevada, the candidates — particularly Vice President Kamala Harris — have been targeting Native Americans with radio ads and events on tribal lands featuring speakers like Bill Clinton and Donald Trump Jr.

    Native American voters tend to favor Democrats, but they’re more likely to vote Republican than Latinos or African Americans, said Gabriel R. Sanchez, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He said they are one of the least partisan and youngest voting demographics in the country, often motivated by issues that directly impact their communities, like land rights and environmental protections.

    In 2020, the Biden administration campaigned in several tribal nations in critical states like Wisconsin and Arizona, and precincts on tribal lands there helped narrowly tip the election for the Democrats. “Arizona was kind of like a textbook example of what that could look like if you make those early investments,” Sanchez said.

    As part of a $370 million ad campaign released this month, including on several reservations, Harris said the U.S. should honor treaty rights and uphold tribal sovereignty. Crystal Echo Hawk, CEO of Illuminative, a nonprofit that works to increase the visibility of Native Americans, said those commitments, along with the economy and environmental protections, are the top issues Native voters have identified in Illuminative’s surveys.

    Echo Hawk said those investments could pay off again for the Democrats. “I haven’t seen the same kind of targeted messaging and outreach from the Trump campaign,” she said. Harris also stands to inherit some of the goodwill left from the administrations of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, she said.

    Obama increased consultation with tribes on matters like land protections and criminal justice, and Biden appointed more than 80 Native Americans to senior administration roles.

    “The minute that the announcement came that Harris was stepping into the race, you saw people organize overnight,” Echo Hawk said. And Trump, she said, will have to contend with his reduction of Bears Ears National Monument by 85% and his revival of the Keystone XL pipeline, both unpopular with Indigenous peoples. “I think a lot of these people remember that,” she said.

    On Friday, Biden formally apologized for the country’s support of Native American boarding schools and its legacy of abuse and cultural destruction. While seen as long overdue, it was met with praise from tribal leaders. On Saturday, vice presidential candidate and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will campaign in the Navajo Nation.

    The Trump campaign hasn’t released ads targeting Native Americans, but U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a Republican from Oklahoma and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, has stumped for the former president in Native communities in North Carolina, a swing state that was decided by less than one point in 2020.

    On a crisp evening earlier this month, Mullin sat alongside Donald Trump Jr. and former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat who recently announced she is joining the Republican Party, on a small stage in front of several bales of hay to take questions from an audience of a couple hundred people. They discussed issues ranging from the economy to tribal self-determination.

    The event took place on a small farm in Red Springs, North Carolina, part of the traditional homelands of Mullin’s ancestors and current home to the Lumbee Tribe, a state-recognized tribe with about 55,000 members.

    The federal recognition of the Lumbee has been opposed by several tribal nations, including the nearby Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and Mullin’s own tribe, the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. The Lumbee’s push for federal recognition has become a focal point for both campaigns and a rare issue where both parties agree. Last month, Trump said he would sign legislation granting federal recognition to the Lumbee. Harris called the Lumbee’s tribal chairman last week to discuss the legislation.

    “This is an injustice that needs to be fixed when it comes to Lumbees,” Mullin told the crowd. “This is absolutely absurd. It needs to be done. I was so proud to hear President Trump say that he would sign it.”

    But Mullin soon touched on one of the many areas where the two candidates differ: energy policy. Highlighting the fact that he believed a second Trump term would mean a better economy and lower energy costs, Mullin laid out Trump’s policy in one recognizable term that was echoed by the audience, “Drill, baby, drill.”

    Both the Biden and Trump administrations pushed to produce more oil and gas than ever, including extractive energy projects that were opposed by Indigenous peoples. However, Native leaders have expressed concern that Trump is more likely to further erode protections for tribal lands.

    Mullin suggested that if tribal nations are truly sovereign, they should be able to conduct energy extraction without the burden of federal intervention. He said just like the Lumbee’s fight for federal recognition, the rights of tribes to govern their own lands is the victim of federal bureaucracy.

    “Why is tribal land treated like public land?” Mullin asked, questioning why the federal government should have any oversight on tribal nations that extract natural resources on their own lands. “You have natural resources being pulled out of the ground right across the fence from reservations. You have private land owners that are extremely wealthy and you have people that are literally starving inside reservations,” he said, comparing some to third-world countries.

    He promised Trump would have a deep understanding of tribal sovereignty.

    That message resonated with Robert Chavis Jr., a physical education teacher and Army veteran who was at the rally and will be voting for Trump. Chavis, a member of the Lumbee Tribe, said tribal nations aren’t just governments, they’re businesses, and the U.S. is no different. “I feel like you don’t need a politician in there. We need a businessman to run the country like it should be.”

    But other Lumbee voters aren’t as convinced. At her art gallery a few miles away in Pembroke, Janice Locklear said Trump promised he would federally recognize the Lumbee last time he was in office, and she had no reason to believe he could accomplish it this time. But looking broader than her community, she said what Trump did on Jan. 6, 2021, represents a nationwide threat to democracy.

    “He thought he could actually be a dictator, go in there and take over. Even though he had lost the election; he knew he had lost the election. So what do you think he’ll do this time,” she said.

    Locklear said as a woman of color, she trusts that Harris will have a deeper understanding of the unique challenges facing Native Americans. “I’m sure she’s had to face the same problems we face,” Locklear said. “Discrimination, I’m sure she’s faced it.”

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  • Potential jurors in subway chokehold death trial are asked about their own transit use

    Potential jurors in subway chokehold death trial are asked about their own transit use

    NEW YORK — Potential jurors’ own subway-riding experiences came into focus Friday in the case against a white U.S. Marine Corps veteran charged with killing a troubled Black man on a subway train.

    No jurors have yet been chosen for the manslaughter trial of Daniel Penny, who put Jordan Neely in a chokehold that, medical examiners said, killed him. But in a Manhattan case that concerns perceptions of safety in the nation’s largest subway system, the jury pool so far is full of people with a mix of comfort levels with riding the trains.

    Most of the roughly 20 potential panelists who underwent questioning Friday were at least occasional subway riders, and many said they’d seen people have outbursts. Some said the episodes hadn’t left them feeling personally threatened or harassed, but several said they had.

    One recalled an unsettling subway-riding moment years ago when he and a woman sitting near him were approach by a disheveled man who was upset that she was ignoring him. The prospective juror got off the train, he said, as another man stood up as if poised to intervene.

    Another potential jury member said he’d seen things on the subway that made him nervous in recent years. A third said he hadn’t ridden the subway throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and while he wasn’t afraid of the underground, he’d “heard of some criminal violence” there.

    And after a prosecutor explained that Penny isn’t charged with an intentional killing and asserts he was protecting himself and other subway riders, a fourth prospective juror had had enough.

    “This all seems incredibly complicated,” he said, and soon after asked to be excused. His request hadn’t been decided by the time court broke for the day.

    Jury selection is set to continue Monday in the case, which has become a crucible for opinions about public safety, mental illness, the line between intervention and vigilantism, and the role of race in how people perceive all of it.

    Some demonstrators have rallied to decry Penny, others to defend him. Some prominent Democratic officials went to Neely’s funeral, while high-profile Republican politicians portrayed Penny as a hero who confronted Neely to protect others. Penny’s legal defense fund has raised millions of dollars.

    Prospective members of the anonymous jury were asked whether they or their loved ones had served in the military, taken martial arts or self-defense training, or had problems with drug addiction, mental illness or homelessness.

    Neely had once been familiar to some subway riders for his Michael Jackson impersonations. But relatives have said he struggled with mental health problems after his mother was killed and was found stuffed in a suitcase in 2007.

    Over the years, Neely became homeless and developed a history of drug use, disruptive behavior and arrests, including a guilty plea to assaulting a stranger in 2021.

    On May 1, 2023, Neely boarded a subway and began shouting and acting erratically, witnesses said.

    Neely’s family and supporters have said he was only appealing for help, not menacing anyone.

    Other passengers differed on whether he was a danger. Some told police he was frightening people by making sudden movements and statements about being willing to die or go to jail. Yet at least one witness described Neely’s behavior as “like another day, typically, in New York,” according to a court filing.

    Penny, who told officers that Neely threatened “to kill everybody,” put an arm around his neck. With two other riders helping to pin Neely to the floor, the Marine veteran held him around the neck for more than three minutes, until his body went limp.

    Penny later told detectives in an interview that he was “just trying to de-escalate,” not to injure or kill Neely.

    City medical examiners determined that he died from compression of the neck. Penny’s lawyers have indicated they plan to argue that he wasn’t applying pressure in a way that could have killed Neely, and that his death could have been caused by other factors, including the use of the synthetic cannabinoid known as K2.

    Noting Neely’s mental health problems, K2 use and conduct on the train, prosecutor Dafna Yoran probed prospective jurors about whether they might think he brought his death on himself.

    “You don’t really know what the person’s going to do on K2,” one potential panelist responded, adding: “Not that I would think he deserved it.”

    “Under the law, all life is equal,” the prosecutor reminded the group, emphasizing that anyone selected as a juror will have to judge the evidence, not Neely’s history — or Penny’s.

    The 25-year-old former Marine was discharged in 2021 and has since taken college classes, his lawyers have said.

    “You can be grateful” for his service, Yoran told the prospective jurors. “Can you understand that you are not here to judge the defendant as a person?”

    “Law is law,” one responded. “And if the evidence proves itself correct, then it is what it is.”

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  • Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela served as a cultural ambassador for Mexican Americans, Mexicans

    Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela served as a cultural ambassador for Mexican Americans, Mexicans

    For baseball fans, “Fernandomania” marked a flash of pitching brilliance, the emergence of a unique talent in the history of one of the sport’s most storied franchises.

    For Mexicans and Mexican Americans, Fernando Valenzuela was something even greater: a beacon of hope, inspiration and pride.

    Valenzuela, a Mexican-born phenomenon for the Los Angeles Dodgers, died Tuesday night at a Los Angeles hospital, the team said. He was 63.

    For some, his death prompted memories of watching the left-hander pitch at home with their parents, not out of a love of sports but because of a surge of Mexican or Latino pride. They reflect on the doors he opened for future generations and the cultural impact he ushered as a Mexican.

    Valenzuela’s rise from humble beginnings as the youngest of 12 children in Mexico and his feats on the mound made him hugely popular and influential in the Latino community while helping attract new fans to Major League Baseball. Their fondness for him continued after his retirement.

    Baseball fanatic or not, there isn’t a person in Mexico who does not know who Valenzuela is, said Mexican journalist Arturo Angel. He was born in 1983 and said his knowledge of Valenzuela came from his dad, who isn’t a sports fan, among other people. The way people talked about him made Angel realize how much of an idol he was to many.

    Nathaly Morga, who knows of Valenzuela because of her parents, said no matter how many other Latinos in baseball there are, “Fernando was always the big one, like the God.”

    Angel said that the explosion of television in the 1980’s and the broadcast of Dodgers games in Mexico catapulted Valenzuela into the phenomenon he became. The Dodgers, who had broadcast games in Spanish since 1959, saw a ratings increase and interest in expanding their radio network into Mexico once Valenzuela started playing. Years after his playing career ended, Valenzuela joined those radio broadcasts as a color commentator.

    “The LA Dodgers in Mexico have a great fan base,” Angel said. “The taste of baseball expanded in Mexico, that is because of Fernando Valenzuela.”

    Morga grew up in Tijuana in a soccer family. Yet they all knew Valenzuela. Morga recalls her mom, who does not understand how baseball is played, telling her how at the height of “Fernandomania,” she would watch Dodgers games at a local burger joint because Valenzuela was pitching.

    The Dodgers, longing for a star to connect with the Latino population in LA, finally found one in Valenzuela, whose impact would transform what had been predominantly a white fan base. The city’s Mexican community began to flock to Dodger Stadium during his starts. The Dodgers, who had become the first franchise to draw 3 million fans in 1978, averaged 48,430 fans during Valenzuela’s home starts and 42,523 overall during the strike-interrupted 1981 season — the highest average attendance in Dodger Stadium history to that point. That year, Valenzuela became the first in baseball history to win Rookie of the Year and a Cy Young Award as baseball’s top pitcher in the same season.

    “In Mexico, obviously everyone knows him,” Morga said. “Everybody loves the Dodgers because of him.”

    Rob Martinez said for those growing up in Mexico, Valenzuela was the baseline. With Dodgers games always broadcasted in Mexico, Valenzuela became all anyone could talk about and someone to look up to, he said.

    Watching Valenzuela was a family affair. Martinez said he remembers having cookouts to watch the games with his dad and friends. When Valenzuela would be taken out of a game, everyone would stop watching.

    But seeing Valenzuela on television made Martinez believe that his dreams were achievable, too. Martinez has played baseball since he was 3 and is now the associate head coach and recruiting coordinator for the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley baseball team.

    “It was a big push for everyone, watching him compete and be the guy in the big leagues,” Martinez said. “It gave us all hope.”

    Valenzuela is widely considered one of Mexico’s top athletes of all time, along with soccer player Hugo Sánchez and boxer Julio César Chávez.

    Valenzuela’s rise from his tiny hometown of Etchohuaquila in the Mexican state of Sonora to stardom in the U.S. was improbable. He was the youngest child in a large family who tagged along when his older brothers played baseball.

    His rise inspired many athletes. Martinez said he was able to have the career he has had because he saw Valenzuela, a guy who came from an identical background as him be successful.

    ″I don’t have to be (6-foot-3), 240 pounds to do what I love to do,” Martinez said. “As long as you work hard at it. So that was a big deal for me. Just giving us a chance to believe that, hey, man, you know, we can do it coming from someone else.”

    In 2013, Morga was living in California and met Valenzuela at Petco Park in San Diego.

    “He invited me to sit at the table with him,” Morga said. “Which was crazy for me because this was a person that my parents talked about, such an idol, and he was just a typical Mexican dad.”

    Angel said reading profiles on Valenzuela published since his death, he has a better understanding of how not only was he a baseball legend but a cultural ambassador at a time when the racial discourse was looked at differently than it may be now.

    “The fact that we are not baseball fans and know him shows that his figure was important,” Angel said. “Younger people now may have more representation in other sports but for that generation Valenzuela was it.”

    ___

    The Associated Press received financial support from the Sony Global Social Justice Fund to expand certain coverage areas. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Thelma Mothershed Wair, a member of the Little Rock Nine who integrated an Arkansas school, has died

    Thelma Mothershed Wair, a member of the Little Rock Nine who integrated an Arkansas school, has died

    Thelma Mothershed Wair, one of the nine Black students who integrated a high school in Arkansas’ capital city of Little Rock in 1957 while a mob of white segregationists yelled threats and insults, has died at age 83.

    Mothershed Wair died Saturday at a hospital in Little Rock after having complications from multiple sclerosis, her sister, Grace Davis, confirmed Sunday to The Associated Press.

    The students who integrated Central High School were known as the Little Rock Nine.

    For three weeks in September 1957, Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus used the National Guard to block the Black students from enrolling in Central High, three years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared segregated classrooms were unconstitutional. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent members of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division to escort the students into school on Sept. 25, 1957.

    Davis said she was enrolled at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville when her sister and the other students — Minnijean Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Melba Pattillo, Gloria Ray, Terrence Roberts, Jefferson Thomas and Carlotta Walls — integrated Central High School.

    “I didn’t think anybody was really going to hurt her because, you know, we’ve had racial incidents in Little Rock over the years,” Davis said of her sister. “People would say things that were mean, but they never really hurt anybody.”

    Davis said in the years that followed she and her sister spoke about the experience.

    “I think one time somebody put some ink on her skirt or something when she was coming through the hallway. And, of course, there was always name-calling,” Davis said. “But she never really had any physical confrontations with any of the students up there.”

    Faubus closed all of the schools in Little Rock in 1958 to try to avoid further integration. Mothershed went out of state to finish her remaining high school classes. The academic credits transferred back to Little Rock, and she ultimately earned her diploma from Central High School.

    “She was always a fighter,” Davis said of her sister. “She’s been sick her entire life. She was born with a congenital heart defect and was told at an early age that she would never get out of her teens. So as she approached her 16th birthday, I remember Mother talking about how afraid she was because she thought she was going to die. But she did what she wanted to do. She enjoyed life.”

    Mothershed earned a bachelor’s degree in home economics education from Southern Illinois University Carbondale and a master’s degree in guidance and counseling from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

    Mothershed married Fred Wair in 1965. The couple have one son, Scott; two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Her husband died in 2005, and Mothershed Wair moved back to Little Rock, Davis said.

    According to the National Park Service, Mothershed Wair worked in the East St. Louis, Illinois, school system for 10 years as a home economics teacher and for 18 years as a counselor for elementary career education before retiring in 1994. She also worked at the Juvenile Detention Center of the St. Clair County Jail in Illinois, and was an instructor of survival skills for women at the American Red Cross.

    Each member of the Little Rock Nine was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal, and they donated them to the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum in Little Rock in 2011.

    ____

    Wagster Pettus reported from Jackson, Mississippi.

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  • Man charged in NYC subway chokehold death set to stand trial

    Man charged in NYC subway chokehold death set to stand trial

    NEW YORK — To some New Yorkers, he’s the white vigilante who choked an innocent Black man to death on the subway. To others, he’s the U.S. Marine Corps veteran whose attempt to subdue a mentally ill man ended in tragedy.

    A Manhattan jury will soon have its say on Daniel Penny, who is charged with manslaughter for placing Jordan Neely in a fatal chokehold on May 1, 2023. Jury selection in Penny’s trial begins Monday.

    The court proceedings, which are expected to last six weeks, will shed light on a killing that was a flashpoint in the nation’s debate over racial injustice and crime.

    Neely’s death also divided a city grappling with what to do about people experiencing mental health crises in a transit system where some subway straphangers still don’t feel safe, despite a drop in violent crime rates.

    “There is simply no reason for Jordan Neeley to be dead today,” David Giffen, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “So many systems failed Jordan and contributed to his death.”

    Penny, 25, has been free on a $100,000 bond. He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of second-degree manslaughter and up to four years if convicted of criminally negligent homicide.

    Witnesses said Neely — a 30-year-old former Michael Jackson street impersonator struggling with drug addiction, mental illness and homelessness — had been shouting, throwing things and acting erratically on a subway train in Manhattan when Penny approached him.

    With the help of two other passengers, Penny pinned Neely to the ground and placed him in a chokehold for more than three minutes until Neely’s body went limp and he lost consciousness. The medical examiner’s office ruled the death a homicide caused by compression of the neck.

    The encounter sparked nearly two weeks of protests before Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office brought an indictment.

    Meanwhile, millions of dollars in donations poured in from across the country to help Penny cover his legal costs, including from prominent conservative personalities and Republican candidates for president.

    Penny’s lawyers have argued that the Long Island native didn’t intend to kill Neely, just to hold him down long enough for police to arrive, as he was concerned for the safety of others.

    “If Danny is convicted, his conviction will have a chilling effect on every New Yorker’s right and duty to stand up for each other,” Penny’s lawyer Steven Raiser said Wednesday. “Our sincerest hope is that New Yorkers selected for this jury will stand up for Danny just like Danny stood up for them back on that train over a year ago today.”

    Penny, who served four years in the Marines before being discharged in 2021, claimed that Neely shouted “I’m gonna’ kill you” and that he was “ready to die” or go to jail for life.

    But Neely’s family and supporters have said he was simply crying out for help. They said his mental health deteriorated after his mother’s body was found stuffed in a suitcase in the Bronx and he testified at her boyfriend’s murder trial.

    Some witnesses, including a freelance journalist who captured video of some of the altercation, also said Neely had been acting aggressively and frightening people but hadn’t attacked anyone before Penny pulled him to the floor.

    Neely’s surviving family members say they’ve been anticipating this moment and intend to attend the trial.

    “I just want to look into his face and wonder why he would do something like that,” said Mildred Mahazu, Neely’s 85-year-old aunt and primary caretaker after his mother died. “Jordan was somebody’s child. He was loved by his family.”

    Neely’s uncle, Christopher Neely, agreed.

    “Justice for Jordan is all we think about,” the 45-year-old Manhattan resident said. “We can’t let Jordan’s name be added to the list of Black people killed by a racist white person with no justice.”

    Prosecutors argued in court filings that Penny’s actions were unwarranted, reckless and negligent, even if he didn’t have the intention to kill.

    They’ve focused on recorded statements Penny made to police in which he describes Neely as a “crackhead,” touts his armed forces experience and demonstrates to officers the submission technique he used.

    “I just put him out. I just put him in a chokehold,” Penny said, according to a transcript of the recordings included in court filings. “He was threatening everybody.”

    “I’m not trying to kill the guy,” Penny said at another point to police. “I’m just trying to deescalate the situation.”

    Bragg’s office declined to comment beyond what its said in court filings. Prosecutors, in pretrial hearings, sought to exclude evidence about Neely’s medical and psychological history, including his record of substance abuse. The judge hadn’t released his ruling on that request as of Friday.

    Raiser said Penny’s defense will offer up other potential causes for Neely’s death, including high levels of the synthetic cannabinoid known as K2 that were identified in toxicology reports.

    They’ll also argue that video shared widely on social media proves Penny was not applying pressure consistently enough to render Neely unconscious, much less kill him, he said.

    “If he was applying that kind of pressure, Mr. Neely would have been rendered unconscious long before the video, circulating online, ever started,” Raiser said.

    In January, Penny’s lawyers lost their bid to have the case dismissed outright. Then earlier this month, Judge Maxwell Wiley rejected their request to prevent jurors from hearing Penny’s statements to police, as well as body camera footage from officers who initially responded.

    Penny’s attorneys argued that police should have read Penny his Miranda rights sooner and that his questioning at the police station amounted to an illegal arrest.

    But Wiley, in a written ruling, determined that Penny’s statements were admissible. The judge said Penny had waived his rights against self-incrimination in the interrogation room and willingly spoke to officers without a lawyer present.

    As for Christopher Neely, he hopes what’s not lost in the trial is the memory of his late nephew.

    “I want people to remember his strengths and his conquests to greatness and his conquering of fears,” he wrote. “I want people to remember that mental health is a serious issue and that it needs tenderness, not spontaneous rage. Most importantly, I want people to know that Jordan Neely was supremely loved and still is.”

    ___

    Follow Philip Marcelo at twitter.com/philmarcelo.

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  • Lowriding is more than just cars. It’s about family and culture for Mexican Americans

    Lowriding is more than just cars. It’s about family and culture for Mexican Americans

    CHICAGO (AP) — For Luis Martinez, competing in lowriding bike and car competitions is about more than glory and bragging rights. The lowrider clubs in the Chicago area have become like one big family and a source of mutual support.

    “It just starts with the metal,” said Martinez, who got his introduction to lowrider culture when his mother took him to a flea market. He had his first bike when he was 12.

    “To me, it’s about expressing my art and what I can do with my own hands,” Martinez told The Associated Press as he polished a shiny red bike at his home in Mishawaka, Indiana.

    Luis Martinez, a member of the Uso Chicago Car Club, sits on his custom-built lowrider bike in Mishawaka, Ind., Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

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    Luis Martinez, 29, a member of the Uso Chicago Car Club, cleans his custom-built lowrider bike in Mishawaka, Ind., Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

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    A detail on the hub of the lowrider bike custom-built by Luis Martinez, a member of the Uso Chicago Car Club, in Mishawaka, Ind., Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

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    Fluffly dice hang on the lowrider bike custom-built by Luis Martinez, 29, a member of the Uso Chicago Car Club, in Mishawaka, Ind., Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024, (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

    A movement of expression with origins in Mexican American and Chicano communities, lowriding is an aspect of Latino history in the U.S. in which people show their pride, honor family and uplift culture. But misrepresentation of the culture in entertainment and media has often associated the lowriding’s “low and slow” motto with gang culture.

    Still, decades since its emergence, and as the Hispanic U.S. population increases, lowriding has experienced a boom, as evidenced by an increase in car shows and conventions nationwide.

    A movement of cultural expression with origins in Mexican American and Chicano communities, lowriding is a way for a person to show their pride for family and culture. (AP Video: Melissa Perez Winder)

    Lowriding involves the customization of a vehicle — from the tires to the sound system — with vivid designs and colors. Unlike hot rods or muscle cars, which are often modified to have big tires and move at high speeds, the lowrider community modified the cars and bikes to go “low and slow,” said Alberto Pulido, the chair of the Ethnic Studies department at the University of San Diego.

    “It was a way to speak to an identity, a presence and it was done with few resources,” said Pulido, who also directed the award-winning documentary, “Lowriding: Everything Comes From the Streets.”

    “Our community didn’t have a lot of money,” he said. “They might have had a little bit expendable income to buy a car but then they were kind of on their own to create their vehicles. We call that Chicano ingenuity.”

    Lowriding blends Latino and American culture

    AP correspondent Ed Donahue reports on the growing popularity of lowriders.

    According to Pulido, lowriding originated in the Southwest, although there are disputes about where exactly it first appeared. Pulido said lowriders in Los Angeles would like to make the claim they were the first, while those in San Diego want their undeniable influence in the culture acknowledged.

    The culture can be traced to post-World War II, when veterans were coming home with an expendable income. And with the growth of highways and freeways in California, people wanted to modify their vehicles, Pulido said.

    Today, conventions attract enthusiasts from all over the U.S. Last month, what was once a small showcase with only 40 lowriders at Lincoln Park in El Paso, Texas, grew to over 300 lowriders from clubs across the U.S.

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    Hugo Cardenas and Araceli Martinez, wearing Zoot suits of the Mexican American subculture known as Pachucos, dance while attending a lowrider exhibition during the 20th anniversary of Lincoln Park in El Paso, Texas, Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrés Leighton)

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    The decorated interior of a vintage car is pictured during a lowrider exhibition for the 20th anniversary of Lincoln Park in El Paso, Texas, Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrés Leighton)

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    University of San Diego professor Alberto Lopez Pulido smiles while speaking with attendees of a lowrider exhibition during the 20th anniversary of Lincoln Park in El Paso, Texas, Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrés Leighton)

    Hector Gonzalez, of the Lincoln Park Conservation Committee, said the car clubs help members travel to all the showcases in the nation. In the ’70s and ’80s, lowrider clubs became a representation of the community and offered mutual aid such as ride-sharing and food donations when the local government could not or would not, Gonzalez said.

    “It is something that gets passed on from generation to generation,” said Gonzalez, who, like most lowriders, was introduced to the community with a bike at the young age of 13. He has passed on his love for lowriding to his own children, nephews and cousins

    “Kids grow up seeing the cars, they pick it up and they carry on the tradition,” Gonzalez said.

    Lauren Pacheco, co-founder and co-curator of the Slow and Low Chicago Low Rider Festival, described lowriding as a global, multibillion-dollar phenomenon of self-expression and innovation.

    “It’s a marvel of mechanical innovation,” Pacheco said. “It is the beautiful artistry in the creative practice of muralism, storytelling and upholstery.”

    Within the last decade, lowrider conventions have grown so much that they’ve made their way to Japan. In Nagoya, Japanese lowriders have modified their cars, created clubs and even come to events at Chicano Park in San Diego.

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    Daniel Marquez, 8, is reflected in the mirror of his chrome lowrider bike, built by himself and family friends in memory of his late father Alberto, a longtime member of lowrider car clubs, at his home in Frankfort, Ill., Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

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    Daniel Marquez, 8, sits inside his late father Alberto’s 1963 Chevy Impala lowrider car in Frankfort, Ill., Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

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    A photo of Daniel Marquez sitting on his late father’s lap inside their 1963 Chevy Impala lowrider car, is displayed with a custom chrome lowrider bike built by Daniel and family friends, in Frankfort, Ill, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

    Lowrider community sheds gang culture stereotype

    Appreciation for lowriding has increased in recent years, enthusiasts say. But that was not always the case.

    In the beginning, lowriding was associated with harmful stereotypes about Latinos as gangsters, Pulido said. Because the culture involved predominantly Latino participants, lowriding became racialized and that overshadowed the artistic and community service aspects of the movement.

    The 1979 thriller-drama “Boulevard Nights” also helped to perpetuate the lowriders as gangsters trope. The film’s main character, Raymond Avila, played by Richard Yñiguez tried to avoid getting lured into the violent street gangs of East Los Angeles. Lowriding vehicles and the lowrider “cholo” aesthetic was featured throughout the film.

    While the perception of lowriding has since gotten better, Pulido said he has been to lowriding car shows where police immediately show up.

    Martinez, the Indiana lowrider, said lowriding misconceptions grew in the Chicago area because the community members were tattooed in ways often associated with gang affiliation. Pacheco said the Chicago festival works to dispel those misconceptions.

    “We really try not to create a space that glamorizes or romanticizes gang culture,” she said. “It’s really a celebration of creativity and innovation and family.”

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    A Day of the Dead altar is placed next to a lowrider car on display at the Slow & Low Chicago Lowrider Festival at Navy Pier in Chicago, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

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    Santos Gonzalez sits between a 1939 and a 1949 Chevy vintage cars during a lowrider exhibition for the 20th anniversary of Lincoln Park in El Paso, Texas, Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrés Leighton)

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    The decorated interior of a Monte Carlo vintage car is pictured during a lowrider exhibition for the 20th anniversary of Lincoln Park in El Paso, Texas, Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrés Leighton)

    Lowriding culture becomes a booming industry

    Gonzalez, the Texas lowriding showcase organizer, said the culture’s focus on wheels, hydraulic systems and accessories, has helped lowriding become a booming industry.

    In El Paso, people have opened small businesses orientated to the lowriding community. In the last couple of years, at least 25 new businesses opened, including body shops, upholstery shops and apparel shops, Gonzalez said.

    “It has become a mainstream business,” he said. “Back in the 70s and 80s, it was more of a local thing. Everybody helping each other do things on their own. Now there’s just all kinds of opportunities to purchase things and have things done to your vehicle.”

    Originally from Dallas, Texas, Martinez said he would buy the parts he needed from a man in his neighborhood, who would buy in bulk from Lowrider magazine. He said the unfortunate thing about lowriding becoming so big is parts are now mass produced from China instead of being Mexican made.

    Lowriding carries family legacy

    But lowriding is not just about the often pricey task of modifying cars, Pulido said. It is about building a community that is always there for each other, throughout generations, he said.

    “We have grandparents that are lowriders and then their kids and their grandkids are in tune already,” Pulido said.

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    Wearing Zoot suits of the Mexican American subculture known as Pachucos, Paula, Jacob, center, and Junior Hernandez pose for a photo while attending a lowrider exhibition during the 20th anniversary of Lincoln Park in El Paso, Texas, Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrés Leighton)

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    American and Mexican flags decorate a vintage car during a lowrider exhibition for the 20th anniversary of Lincoln Park in El Paso, Texas, Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrés Leighton)

    It’s a legacy that Sonia Gomez wants for her 8-year-old son, Daniel Marquez. His late father, Alberto Marquez, had been a member of a Chicago area lowrider club. Too young to drive the car left to him by his father, Daniel has a lowriding bike that is more of a memorial to his dad.

    “The bike is what he’s doing to build it up,” Gomez said.

    The family will do an ofrenda, a display often associated with Mexican Dia de los Muertos celebrations, when local lowriding festivals are held. As part of the ofrenda, Daniel takes an image he has with his father on a lowriding bike and places it next to his actual bike, which he named “Wishing on a Star.”

    “We would either go on a (lowriding) cruise with my uncle, or we would go to actual car shows,” Daniel recently recalled, while sitting at the driver’s seat of his dad’s lowriding car parked in the driveway of their home in Frankfort, Illinois.

    “My mom would be there,” he said pointing to the passenger seat. “And I’d be back there all squished.”

    ___

    The Associated Press received financial support from the Sony Global Social Justice Fund to expand certain coverage areas. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Grammy-winner Jermaine Dupri campaigns for Harris-Walz ticket in Georgia

    Grammy-winner Jermaine Dupri campaigns for Harris-Walz ticket in Georgia

    Two-time GRAMMY award winner Jermaine Dupri will campaign for the Harris-Walz ticket tomorrow in Georgia. JD is launching an effort to reach Black men who are undecided before the start of early voting, which is October 15th. These efforts are critical if the Harris campaign is to win Georgia in November.

    Dupri will headline a “Brothas and Brews” event at an Atlanta brewery on Friday, October 11th at 6:30pm. Joining JD will be singer, actor, activist Isaac Hayes III; rapper, singer, and activist Armani White. Additionally, Atlanta Public Schools Board Member Alfred ‘Shivy’ Brooks and Fulton County Democrats Chair Dontaye Carter will be in attendance.

    In a recent interview, Dupri says, “A lot of times we don’t have all the information and we also don’t know how important we are. I think this election … sounds like it’s very important for us to be focused and know what’s going on.”

    This event is part of the campaign’s ongoing efforts to reach Black men and underscore the stakes of the election. Vice President Kamala Harris has promoted her record of delivering for Black communities and her vision for a New Way Forward. She has put forth economic plans that promises to lower costs. Plus, Harris has plans that seek to make it easier to build generational wealth, and protect rights and freedoms.


    Itoro Umontuen currently serves as Managing Editor of The Atlanta Voice. Upon his arrival to the historic publication, he served as their Director of Photography. As a mixed-media journalist, Umontuen…
    More by Itoro N. Umontuen

    Itoro N. Umontuen

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  • Federal court reviews civil rights lawsuit alleging environmental racism in a Louisiana parish

    Federal court reviews civil rights lawsuit alleging environmental racism in a Louisiana parish

    NEW ORLEANS — A federal appellate court is reviewing a civil rights lawsuit alleging a south Louisiana parish engaged in racist land-use policies to place polluting industries in majority-Black communities.

    The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans heard oral arguments on Monday for a lawsuit filed by community groups claiming St. James Parish “intentionally discriminated against Black residents” by encouraging industrial facilities to be built in areas with predominantly Black populations “while explicitly sparing White residents from the risk of environmental harm.”

    The groups, Inclusive Louisiana, Rise St. James and Mt. Triumph Baptist Church, seek a halt to future industrial development in the parish. They say they have suffered health impacts from pollution, diminished property values and violations of religious liberty as a result of the parish’s land use system.

    The plaintiffs say that 20 of the 24 industrial facilities were in two sections of the parish with majority-Black populations when they filed the complaint in March 2023.

    The parish is located along a heavily industrialized stretch of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, known as the Chemical Corridor, often referred to by environmental groups as “Cancer Alley” because of the high levels of suspected cancer-causing pollution emitted there.

    The lawsuit comes as the federal government has taken steps during the Biden administration to address the legacy of environmental racism. Federal officials have written stricter environmental protections and committed tens of billions of dollars in funding.

    “The decisions made in this courtroom will resonate far beyond our borders, impacting frontline communities nationwide who are yearning for acknowledgment and accountability,” said Shamell Lavigne, a St. James Parish resident and a leader with Rise St. James, a local environmental justice organization. “We are advocating for our future and the wellbeing of our children.”

    In November 2023, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier of the Eastern District of Louisiana had dismissed the lawsuit against St. James Parish largely on procedural grounds, ruling the plaintiffs had filed their lawsuit too late. But he added, “this Court cannot say that their claims lack a basis in fact or rely on a meritless legal theory.”

    Barbier had accepted the parish’s argument that the lawsuit hinged on its 2014 land-use plan, which generally shielded white neighborhoods from industrial development and left majority-Black neighborhoods, schools and churches without the same protections. The plan also described largely Black sections of the parish as “future industrial” sites, a classification described by the plaintiffs as a form of “racial cleansing.”

    Regardless, the plaintiffs had missed the legal window to sue the parish by not filing their lawsuit within one year after the land-use plan was formalized, as required by statute of limitations laws, the judge had ruled.

    During the appeals hearing, Fifth Circuit Court Judge Catharina Haynes said that the argument raised by the parish “basically makes it sound like if you didn’t sue within a year, well, heck, you can be discriminated against in a bunch of different ways for the rest of eternity.”

    Carroll Devillier, Jr., a lawyer representing the parish, responded that residents had already had the opportunity to challenge the 2014 land use plan when it was being formulated. He also said the plaintiffs “have nothing” to prove they suffered from harms from discrimination in the year before they filed their lawsuit in March 2023.

    Haynes also observed that parish officials, including those representing majority Black areas, had voted to support the 2014 land-use plan. “Why would you vote to discriminate against yourself?” she asked.

    Pamela Spees, a lawyer for the Center of Constitutional Rights representing the plaintiffs, said the land-use plan could be approved by government officials but still reinforce discrimination.

    After the hearing, Spees said that the approval of the land use plan had to be understood in the context of ongoing structural racism.

    At its core, the lawsuit alleges civil rights violations under the 13th and 14th amendments, stating the land-use system in the parish allowing for industrial buildout primarily in majority-Black communities remains shaped by the history of slavery, white supremacy and Jim Crow laws and governance.

    The parish’s 2014 land use plan is just one piece of evidence among many revealing persistent and ongoing discrimination by the parish, Spees said.

    As evidence of more recent alleged discrimination, the lawsuit highlights the parish’s decision in August 2022 to impose a moratorium on large solar complexes after a proposed 3,900-acre (1,580-hectare) solar project upset residents of the mostly white neighborhood of Vacherie, who expressed concerns about lowering property values and debris from storms. The parish did not take up a request for a moratorium on heavy industrial expansion raised by the plaintiffs, the lawsuit states.

    The parish’s lawyer, Devillier, Jr., told judges the solar moratorium had applied to the entire parish and that the plaintiffs’ request for a moratorium on industrial expansion, which initially came in the form of a letter sent by the plaintiffs in 2019, was “never formally considered” by the parish.

    The lawsuit also argues the parish failed to identify and protect the likely hundreds of burial sites of enslaved people by allowing industrial facilities to build on and limit access to the areas, preventing the descendants of slaves from memorializing the sites. The federal judge tossed out that part of the lawsuit, noting the sites were on private property not owned by the parish.

    Lawyers for St. James Parish have said the lawsuit employed overreaching claims and “inflammatory rhetoric.” Victor J. Franckiewicz, who has served as special counsel to St. James Parish for land-use matters since 2013, declined to comment after the hearing. St. James Parish did not respond to a request for comment.

    “How can a judge rule a statute of limitations on clean air, clean water and clean soil? There should be none,” said Gail LeBoeuf, 72, a life-long St. James resident and a plaintiff in the case who co-founded Inclusive Louisiana.

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found in a 2003 report that St. James Parish ranked higher than the national average for certain cancer deaths. Both majority Black sections of the parish are ranked as having a high risk of cancer from toxic pollutants according to an EPA screening tool based on emissions reported by nearby facilities, the complaint noted.

    ___

    Jack Brook 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 Brook on the social platform X: @jack_brook96.

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  • Kamala Harris meets with Arab and Muslim American leaders in Michigan as frustrations boil over Middle East escalation

    Kamala Harris meets with Arab and Muslim American leaders in Michigan as frustrations boil over Middle East escalation

    (CNN) — Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to meet Friday with a group of Arab American and Muslim leaders in Flint, Michigan, according to three sources familiar with her plans, but frustration over the Harris campaign’s outreach efforts is boiling over amid Israel’s recent escalations in Lebanon.

    The gathering comes as the Harris campaign works to garner support within the community in the face of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war that has expanded to a multifront conflict involving Iran, which launched missiles at Israel this week, and Iranian-backed groups in Lebanon and Yemen.

    Michigan, which Joe Biden narrowly won in 2020, will be a crucial battleground again this November and is home to a large Arab American population.

    Emgage Action, an organization aimed at boosting the Muslim American vote, endorsed Harris last month while acknowledging “strong disappointment” with the Biden administration’s stance on Gaza. The leaders of Emgage Action are expected to participate in the meeting, according to one of the sources.

    CNN has reached out to the Harris campaign for comment about the meeting.

    Absent from the guest list were leaders of the “Uncommitted” movement, which sprung up during the Democratic primaries this year in opposition to the Biden administration’s policy on the war in Gaza. Harris interacted with leaders of the group in early August during a photo line at the Detroit airport.

    The group has called on the vice president to hold meetings with families affected by the war after her campaign and national Democrats denied the group’s previous request for a Palestinian American to speak during the Democratic convention in Chicago this summer.

    Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to meet Friday with a group of Arab American and Muslim leaders in Flint, Michigan as frustrations boil over Middle East escalation. In this September 2 photo, Pro-Palestinian activists demonstrate in Detroit where Harris was scheduled to speak. (Scott Olson/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

    Uncommitted leaders have since announced that their group will not endorse Harris, though they also warned against a vote for Donald Trump or, in states where they might appear on the ballot, third-party candidates.

    Uncommitted movement co-founder Abbas Alawieh, a former Capitol Hill staffer, confirmed Friday that his group was not invited to the meeting with Harris.

    In a social media post, Alawieh said he was “glad our pressure is helping yield more engagement. What we need right now is for the @VP to specifically say that as president she will respect international humanitarian and U.S. law and stop sending the Israeli military weapons for war crimes.”

    James Zogby, a co-founder of the Arab American Institute and a Democratic National Committee member for more than 30 years who addressed the Uncommitted movement during the Chicago convention, told CNN he turned down an invitation to Friday’s meeting with Harris. He cited growing frustration with what he described as a campaign more concerned with optics than addressing the anger and anxiety among Arab American voters.

    Zogby was part of a Wednesday call with Harris national security adviser Phil Gordon that the White House described as a virtual gathering with “Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian American community leaders” to discuss the latest developments in the Middle East.

    “There was no ground broken. I wasn’t quite sure what the intent was other than to just say … that they met with leaders. There were no leaders,” Zogby said of the Wednesday conversation.

    That call and other communications with the Harris campaign, and Biden’s before that, have irked the longtime Democratic pollster. And Israel’s escalation in Lebanon has also turned up the heat in states like Michigan, where Lebanese Americans have made up a major part of the Democratic coalition.

    “With Lebanon in flames, they’ve got a bigger job. And I don’t think they’re ready to handle it,” Zogby said of the Harris campaign. “It’s sort of like trying to sell a car to somebody with terminal cancer. ‘What’re you talking for? I have bigger things on my mind right now.’”

    Abed Ayoub, the national executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said there have been “many meetings with both the campaign and administration. They know our concerns and demands.”

    “Our position and work is focused on bringing an immediate ceasefire, and an end to the genocide in Palestine and the war on Lebanon,” said Ayoub, who noted that his group has nearly 130,000 active voters as members, including 7,500 in Michigan.

    This week, Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, took the campaign’s pitch to Emgage Action’s “Million Muslim Votes: A Way Forward” summit.

    “I know the pain of this community is deep. Our hearts are broken. The concern of the vice president and Harris and I – it’s on our minds every day. The scale of death and destruction in Gaza is staggering and devastating. Tens of thousands of innocent civilians killed, families fleeing for safety, over and over again,” Walz said at the virtual event.

    Harris has occasionally been disrupted at campaign rallies by pro-Palestinian protesters. In those moments, the vice president, who has spoken about the devastation in Gaza, has stressed that the administration is working toward a ceasefire deal.

    Zogby said Friday he “desperately” wants Harris to win but is concerned about the campaign’s efforts to stage-manage the issue.

    “They have to say something about the issue that’s on people’s minds,” Zogby said, “and they just don’t seem able to bring themselves to talk about it.”

    CNN

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  • Civilization 7 makers work with Shawnee to bring sincere representation of the tribe to the game

    Civilization 7 makers work with Shawnee to bring sincere representation of the tribe to the game

    MIAMI, Okla. — Shawnee Tribe Chief Ben Barnes grew up playing video games, including “probably hundreds of hours” colonizing a distant planet in the 1999 title Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri.

    So when that same game studio, Firaxis, approached the tribal nation a quarter-century later with a proposal to make a playable character out of their famous leader Tecumseh in the upcoming game Civilization 7, Barnes felt a rush of excitement.

    “I was like, ‘This can’t be true,’” Barnes said. “Do they want us to participate in the next version of Civilization?”

    Beloved by tens of millions of gamers since its 1991 debut, Meier’s Civilization series sparked a new genre of empire-building games that simulated the real world while also diverging into imaginary twists. It has captivated nerdy fans like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and a young Barnes with its intricate and addictive gameplay and rich historical context.

    Choosing among leaders that can range from Cleopatra to Mahatma Gandhi, players build a civilization from its first settlement to a sprawling network of cities, negotiate with or conquer neighbors, and develop trade, science, religion and the arts. Circana, which tracks U.S. game sales, says it’s the bestselling strategy video game franchise of all time.

    But things have changed since the early days of Civilization. Of course, video game technology has advanced, but so too has society’s understanding of cultural appropriation and the importance of accurate historical framing.

    Firaxis dropped plans to add a historical Pueblo leader in 2010 after tribal leaders objected. The game incorporated a Cree leader in 2018 but faced public criticism in Canada after its release.

    Developers knew that to properly represent the Shawnee leader, they would need the input and blessing of the Shawnee people.

    For Barnes, it was an opportunity to not only showcase the power and might of the Shawnee but also a way for tribal citizens to see themselves represented in popular culture in a new, imagined future for the tribe.

    “For us, it’s really about a cultural expression of cultural hegemony,” Barnes said. “Why not us? Why not? Of course we should be in a video game title. Of course we should see ourselves reflected in every media. So we took advantage of the opportunity to make our star shine.”

    For designers at Firaxis, the partnership represented a chance to improve a game development system that has been criticized by Indigenous leaders for misrepresenting their cultures, and for the Shawnee, it was a way to promote their language and history in a new way.

    In interviews with The Associated Press, series founder Meier and other studio executives acknowledged past missteps in the Civilization franchise’s casual treatment of history, including how it incorporated Indigenous groups and colonization more broadly.

    That led to careful thought and months of collaboration to “make sure it’s an authentic, sincere recreation” of Shawnee culture, said game producer Andrew Frederiksen, speaking on a September visit to the tribe’s headquarters. That meant asking the Shawnee questions about what a Shawnee university or library building of the future would look like and creating new Shawnee words to describe futuristic concepts.

    Meier, who started developing computer games in the 1980s, said the Shawnee partnership is “kind of special” and was borne out of meetings with Barnes where the chief talked about the challenges of preserving the Shawnee language. As part of the partnership, Firaxis and its publishing label 2K Games — subsidiary of gaming giant Take-Two Interactive — are donating hundreds of thousands of dollars in language revitalization programs and facilities.

    When Shawnee actor Dean Dillon auditioned for a part that involved speaking the Shawnee language, he didn’t know he’d be voicing Tecumseh. The military and political leader from what is currently Ohio united a confederation of Native American tribes to resist U.S. westward expansion in the early 19th century.

    “I just gave it my best shot,” Dillon said. “And then a few weeks later, I heard back and they said, ‘We’d like to offer you the role of Tecumseh.’ And my head exploded and I ran around the house yelling, ‘My gosh! My gosh!’”

    “It was surreal, to say the least, to see Tecumseh’s face but to hear my voice come out of that,” Dillon said.

    While the franchise has always had Indigenous leaders, starting with Montezuma of the Aztecs in the original 1991 game, Meier said game developers at the time were looking for familiar figures without much thought into the weight of history. Playable characters in that game included Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong, whose totalitarian regimes were still in many people’s memory.

    “We never realized people would take it as seriously as they do,” Meier said. “We always kind of felt, ‘Here’s a way that you can change history.’ Maybe we can make Stalin a good guy. But that might have been stretching things a little too far.”

    “We learned a lot as time went on,” he added. The seventh edition, due out in February, will for the first time do away with barbarians — or at least no longer use that term for hostile characters that are not part of a playable civilization. Players can instead create diplomatic relations with them.

    And as the game’s audience expanded beyond the U.S. and Europe, with more than 70 million games sold worldwide, so too did players want their societies or heritage reflected. More recent editions include themed music and spoken languages from dozens of playable civilizations, from the Māori people of New Zealand to the Mapuche of South America.

    “It is now a badge of honor for a nation to be included in Civilization,” Meier said. “We’ve been lobbied by different countries, et cetera.”

    That’s not to say everyone has been happy about their inclusion in a game centered around settling land and exploiting resources. Civilization is one of the pioneers of the genre known as 4X — for “explore, expand, exploit and exterminate.”

    After the franchise added a 19th-century Cree leader to its gameplay in 2018, a prominent Cree leader complained to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that it “perpetuates this myth that First Nations had similar values that the colonial culture has, and that is one of conquering other peoples and accessing their land. That is totally not in concert with our traditional ways and worldview.”

    One of the game’s two resident historians, Andrew Johnson, said the studio wanted to make Tecumseh a playable leader, but after reaching out to some academics, “we were told repeatedly, ‘No, this is a really bad idea, and nobody’s going to sign off on this.’”

    So Johnson suggested reaching out to Shawnee leaders directly to ask what they think, and how it could help them.

    “I think so often you get people assuming that representation in Civ is a reward of some sort. It’s not,” said Johnson, who’s also an anthropologist who studies Southeast Asia. “This is a company and we’re selling a product and we’re using an image and likeness to make a profit. And getting your ‘civ’ in Civilization doesn’t really help you very much if you’re struggling to preserve your culture.”

    The game studio and the tribal nation decided on a partnership that would help the Shawnee people preserve and expand some of that culture, particularly language. Chief Barnes said the tribe was in dire need of resources for language education, and creating dialogue for a Shawnee civilization of the future was another way to help revitalize their language.

    “Firaxis was asking questions about language we never would have thought to ask,” Barnes said in September at the opening of a new language education center in northeastern Oklahoma.

    Barnes hasn’t had a chance to play the new version of the game yet, but he is already imaging the future he can build virtually, as well as how doing so will inspire other Shawnee gamers. “What I do know is that with the efforts we’re making here today, I expect Shawnee to be spoken in 2500.”

    —————-

    O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

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  • Climate change destroyed an Alaska village. Its residents are starting over in a new town

    Climate change destroyed an Alaska village. Its residents are starting over in a new town

    MERTARVIK, Alaska (AP) — Growing up along the banks of the Ninglick River in western Alaska, Ashley Tom would look out of her window after strong storms from the Bering Sea hit her village and notice something unsettling: the riverbank was creeping ever closer.

    It was in that home, in the village of Newtok, where Tom’s great-grandmother had taught her to sew and crochet on the sofa, skills she used at school when students crafted headdresses, mittens and baby booties using seal or otter fur. It’s also where her grandmother taught her the intricate art of grass basket weaving and how to speak the Yupik language.

    An abandoned home is locked up in Newtok, Alaska on Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

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    Permafrost melts on the coast in Newtok, Alaska on Friday, Aug. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

    Today, erosion and melting permafrost have just about destroyed Newtok, eating about 70 feet (21.34 meters) of land every year. All that’s left are some dilapidated and largely abandoned gray homes scraped bare of paint by salt darting in on the winds of storms.

    “Living with my great-grandmother was all I could remember from Newtok, and it was one of the first houses to be demolished,” said Tom.

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    Ashley Tom tends to her plants at her home in Mertarvik, Alaska, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

    In the next few weeks, the last 71 residents will load their possessions onto boats to move to Mertarvik, rejoining 230 residents who began moving away in 2019. They will become one of the first Alaska Native villages to complete a large-scale relocation because of climate change.

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    EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of a series on how tribes and Indigenous communities are coping with and combating climate change.

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    Newtok village leaders began searching for a new townsite more than two decades ago, ultimately swapping land with the federal government for a place 9 miles (14.48 kilometers) away on the stable volcanic underpinnings of Nelson Island in the Bering Strait.

    But the move has been slow, leaving Newtok a split village. Even after most residents shifted to Mertarvik, the grocery store and school remained in Newtok, leaving some teachers and students separated from their families for the school year.

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    Power poles lean in the village of Newtok, Alaska on Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

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    A resident drives along a flooded boardwalk on Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024, in Newtok, Alaska. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

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    A young man drives an ATV on Friday, Aug. 16, 2024, Mertarvik, Alaska. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

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    Homes of people who relocated from Newtok, Alaska are visible in Mertarvik, Alaska on Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

    Calvin Tom, the tribal administrator and Ashley’s uncle, called Newtok “not a place to live anymore.” Erosion has tilted power poles precariously, and a single good storm this fall will knock out power for good, he said.

    For now, the rush is on to get 18 temporary homes that arrived in Mertarvik on a barge set up before winter sets in.

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    Calvin Tom, the tribal administrator, stands along the eroded coastline in Newtok, Alaska on Friday, Aug. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

    Alaska is warming two to three times faster than the global average. Some villages dotting the usually frigid North Slope, Alaska’s prodigious oil field, had their warmest temperatures on record in August, prompting some of Ashley Tom’s friends living there to don bikinis and head to Arctic Ocean beaches.

    It’s the same story across the Arctic, with permafrost degradation damaging roads, railroad tracks, pipes and buildings for 4 million people across the top of the world, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Arctic Institute. In the Russian Arctic, Indigenous people are being moved to cities instead of having their eroding villages relocated and across Scandinavia, reindeer herders are finding the land constantly shifting and new bodies of water appearing, the institute said.

    About 85% of Alaska’s land area lies atop permafrost, so named because it’s supposed to be permanently frozen ground. It holds a lot of water, and when it thaws or when warmer coastal water hits it, its melting causes further erosion. Another issue with warming: less sea ice to act as natural barriers that protect coastal communities from the dangerous waves of ocean storms.

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    Calvin Tom, left, the tribal administrator, lifts his son Brady Tom into his boat in Mertarvik, Alaska on Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

    The Yupik have a word for the catastrophic threats of erosion, flooding and thawing permafrost: “usteq,” which means “surface caves in.” The changes are usually slow — until all of a sudden they aren’t, as when a riverbank sloughs off or a huge hole opens up, said Rick Thoman, a climate specialist with the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

    There are 144 Alaska Native communities that face some degree of infrastructure damage from erosion, flooding or permafrost melt, according to a report in January from the the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. Six of them — Kivalina, Koyukuk, Newtok, Shaktoolik, Shishmaref and Unalakleet — were deemed imminently threatened in a Government Accountability Office report more than two decades ago.

    Communities have three options based on the severity of their situations: Securing protection to stay where they are; staging a managed retreat, moving back from erosion threats; or a complete relocation.

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    Water and patches of green are visible near Mertarvik, Alaska Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

    Moving is hard, starting with finding a place to go. Communities typically need to swap with the federal government, which owns about 60% of Alaska’s land. But Congress has to approve swaps, and that’s only after negotiations that can drag on: Newtok, for example, began pursuing the Nelson Island land in 1996 and didn’t wrap up until late 2003.

    “That’s way too long,” said Jackie Qatalina Schaeffer, the director of climate initiatives at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.

    “If we look back a decade at what’s happened as far as climate change in Alaska, we’re out of time,” she said. “We need to find a better way to help communities secure land for relocation.”

    Kivalina last year completed a master plan for relocation and is negotiating with an Alaska Native regional corporation for the land, a process that could take 3 to 5 years, Schaeffer said.

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    A girl plays with a dog on Friday, Aug. 16, 2024, in Mertarvik, Alaska. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

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    Children play along the tundra on Friday, Aug. 16, 2024, in Mertarvik, Alaska. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

    Another big hurdle is cost. Newtok has spent decades and about $160 million in today’s dollars on its move. Estimates to relocate Kivalina vary from $100 million to $400 million and rising, and there’s currently no federal funding for relocation. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has disaster funding and programs, Schaeffer said, but that comes only after a disaster declaration.

    In 2018, a resource for Alaska communities identified 60 federal funding sources for relocation, but according to the Unmet Needs report, only a few have been successfully used to address environmental threats. But an infusion of funding into these existing programs by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act could provide benefits to threatened Alaska communities, the report said.

    About $4.3 billion in 2020 dollars will be needed to mitigate infrastructure damage over the next 50 years, the health consortium report says. It called for Congress to close an $80 million annual gap by providing a single committed source to assist communities.

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    Bosco and Jennifer Carl say grace with their children before a meal at their home on Saturday, Aug. 17, 2024, in Mertarvik, Alaska. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

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    Marie Carl, 75, sits at the kitchen table at her home on Saturday, Aug. 17, 2024, in Mertarvik, Alaska. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

    “Alaska Native economic, social, and cultural ways of being, which have served so well for millennia, are now under extreme threat due to accelerated environmental change,” the report said. “In jeopardy are not just buildings, but the sustainability of entire communities and cultures.”

    After five years of separation and split lives, the residents of Newtok and Mertarvik will be one again. The school in Newtok closed and classes started in August for the first time in a temporary location in Mertarvik. A new school building should be ready in 2026. The Newtok grocery recently moved to Mertarvik, and there’s plans for a second grocery and a church, Calvin Tom said.

    The new village site has huge benefits, including better health, Tom said. For now, most of the people of Mertarvik are still using a “honey bucket” system rather than toilets. But that method of manually dumping plastic buckets of waste should be replaced by piped water and sewer within the next few years. The new homes in Mertarvik are also free of black mold that crept into some Newtok homes on moisture brought by the remnants of Typhoon Merbok two years ago.

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    Girlie Carl, 4, plays with her grandmother Marie Carl, 75, on Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024, Mertarvik, Alaska. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

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    A young girl prepares to participate in an Indigenous drum and dance on Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024, Mertarvik, Alaska. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

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    Marie Carl, 75, performs during an Indigenous drum and dance in Mertarvik, Alaska on Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

    Tom said there’s talk of someday renaming the relocated town Newtok. Whatever the name, the relocation offers assurance that culture and traditions from the old place will continue. An Indigenous drum and dance group is practicing at the temporary school, and subsistence hunting opportunities — moose, musk ox, black bear, brown bear — abound.

    A pod of belugas that comes by every fall should arrive soon, and that hunt will help residents fill their freezers for the harsh winter ahead.

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    Jennifer sits with her daughter Girlie, 4, at their home on Saturday, Aug. 17, 2024, in Mertarvik, Alaska. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

    Ashley Tom is excited by the arrival of the last Newtok residents in Mertarvik. Although their home will be different than what they’ve known for most of their lives, she’s confident they will come to appreciate it as she has.

    “I really love this this new area, and I just feel whole here,” she said.

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    Thiessen reported from Anchorage.

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    This story was first published on Sep. 26, 2024. It was updated on Sep. 28, 2024 to correct the number of villages facing infrastructure damage from erosion, 144 not 114. It also corrects the name of the organization that authored the Unmet Needs report, and where Jackie Qatalina Schaeffer works as the director of climate initiatives. It is the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, not the Alaska Native Travel Health Consortium.

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    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Abortion-rights groups are courting Latino voters in Arizona and Florida

    Abortion-rights groups are courting Latino voters in Arizona and Florida

    PHOENIX (AP) — When Lesley Chavez found out she was pregnant at age 16, she saw her daughter as a blessing from God and never considered an abortion, a view reinforced by her devout Christian mother. If she could have voted at the time, Chavez would have opposed expanding abortion access.

    But 10 years later — as she and other Arizona residents braced for a possible ban on nearly all abortions — Chavez drove over 300 miles (480 kilometers) to California to help a friend get one. That experience with someone she knew who was struggling financially and couldn’t support another child was the final push that changed Chavez’s stance on the issue.

    “I just kind of felt like, dang, if I didn’t have nobody, I would want someone like me to be there. I would want someone that’s not going to judge me and actually help,” she said.

    Now, she helps deliver that message to other Latinos in Arizona, one of nine states that is considering constitutional amendments to enshrine abortion rights.

    As abortion-rights groups court Latino voters through door-knocking and Spanish-language ads, they say the fast-growing group could determine the outcome of abortion ballot measures across the U.S., particularly in states such as Arizona and Florida with large Latino populations.

    Like other Americans, Latinos have an array of personal feelings and connections to the issue that can be impacted by religion, culture, country of origin and other things, organizers say. But their views are often misunderstood and oversimplified by people who assume they are all Catholic and, therefore, anti-abortion, said Natasha Sutherland, communications director for Floridians Protecting Freedom, which is behind an abortion measure in that state.

    A recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about two-thirds of Hispanic Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. About 4 in 10 U.S. Hispanics identify as Catholic, about one-third as Protestant or “other Christian,” and about one-quarter as religiously unaffiliated.

    Efforts to reach Latino voters often hinge on one-on-one conversations — “old-school, boots on the ground organizing,” said Alex Berrios, co-founder of the grassroots Florida group Mi Vecino, or “my neighbor.”

    Overall, about 14.7% of eligible voters, or 36.2 million people, are Latino, according to the Pew Research Center.

    In Florida, 18% of registered voters are Hispanic, or 2.4 million people, according to an October 2023 analysis by the nonpartisan Latino advocacy organization NALEO Educational Fund. More than 855,000 Latinos are expected to cast ballots in Arizona for the November election, making up about 1 in 4 Arizona voters, according to NALEO.

    As a lead canvasser for the grassroots Arizona group Poder in Action, Chavez has knocked on the doors of ambivalent Latino voters, persuading them to support a measure that would guarantee access to abortion until fetal viability, a term used by health care providers to describe whether a pregnancy is expected to continue developing normally or whether a fetus might survive outside the uterus. It’s generally considered to be around 23 or 24 weeks.

    Living United for Change in Arizona, or LUCHA, moved the measure to the top of its canvassing script because voters kept bringing up the issue. LUCHA campaigns to low-income Latino, Black and Indigenous voters.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    “People initiated the conversation like, ‘Oh yeah I just heard on the news what happened with the 1800 abortion ban,’” Abril Gallardo, chief of staff for LUCHA, said, referring to the 1864 abortion ban that the Arizona Supreme Court signaled in April the state could enforce but that lawmakers later repealed.

    Another group, Mi Familia Vota, has put $200,000 toward its efforts to mobilize Latino voters to support the measure.

    The official campaign against the proposal— It Goes Too Far — has enlisted Hispanic volunteers in its effort to sway voters.

    Abortion is one of the most important issues in the upcoming election to about 4 in 10 Hispanic voters, below the economy, crime, and health care, and about on par with immigration, according to the AP-NORC poll.

    In Florida, abortion is illegal after the first six weeks of pregnancy. The November ballot measure would legalize abortion until fetal viability.

    “The Latino community is a huge part of any campaign in Florida,” Sutherland said. “We can’t win this without Latinos, so Latino outreach is essential.”

    Sutherland said her group uses bilingual phone banking and canvassing efforts, hosted a bilingual campaign launch rally, hired a Latino outreach manager and holds weekly Spanish-language meetings to discuss strategy.

    The opposing campaign has ads in Spanish and has a Spanish version of its website called “Vota No En La 4.”

    Berrios’ group, Mi Vecino, has focused on Florida’s 9th Congressional District, which includes Osceola County and Orlando and was the first majority Hispanic district to meet the signature requirement for putting abortion rights on the ballot. Berrios tells supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump that they can vote for him and for abortion rights.

    “We saw a need for a culturally competent nonpartisan effort to engage and educate Hispanic voters on reproductive freedom,” Berrios said.

    For Latino men especially, it has been helpful to include messaging about limiting government decisions in family and health care decisions, several Florida organizers said.

    “You need to have conversations that are tailored to the person in front of you. For folks in Florida, for example, who escaped communism in their own countries, they’re really moved by things having to do with freedom and the power to determine the conditions of their own lives. We try to be as nuanced as possible,” said Lupe Rodriguez, executive director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice.

    Rocio Garcia, an assistant professor of sociology at Arizona State University, said that over time, Latinas, including those who are Catholic, have swung toward supporting abortion access, even if they would not get an abortion themselves.

    Alyssa Sanchez, a 23-year-old Mexican American who is Catholic, plans to vote for Arizona’s measure. Her family members have been supportive of the issue as long as she could remember.

    “You do still have to take Bibles, sayings, everything about the Catholic religion to your own interpretation,” said Sanchez, a lifelong Arizona resident. “And then battling that thought it just comes down to, I believe in people’s choice to their own bodies stronger than I believe in anything else.”

    Sinsi Hernández-Cancio, vice president for health justice at the National Partnership for Women & Families, said abortion-rights supporters cannot afford to assume Latino voters do not support abortion rights, especially in majority-Republican Florida, which requires 60% voter support to pass a constitutional amendment.

    “If you’re going to approach any voter with false assumptions, you’re not going to be able to connect,” she said.

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    Fernando reported from Chicago.

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  • California to apologize for state’s legacy of racism against Black Americans under new law

    California to apologize for state’s legacy of racism against Black Americans under new law

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California will formally apologize for slavery and its lingering effects on Black Americans in the state under a new law Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Thursday.

    The legislation was part of a package of reparations bills introduced this year that seek to offer repair for decades of policies that drove racial disparities for African Americans. Newsom also approved laws to improve protections against hair discrimination for athletes and increase oversight over the banning of books in state prisons.

    “The State of California accepts responsibility for the role we played in promoting, facilitating, and permitting the institution of slavery, as well as its enduring legacy of persistent racial disparities,” the Democratic governor said in a statement. “Building on decades of work, California is now taking another important step forward in recognizing the grave injustices of the past –- and making amends for the harms caused.”

    Newsom signed the bills after vetoing a proposal Wednesday that would have helped Black families reclaim or be compensated for property that was unjustly seized by the government through eminent domain. The bill by itself would not have been able to take full effect because lawmakers blocked another bill to create a reparations agency that would have reviewed claims.

    California entered the union as a free state in 1850. In practice, it sanctioned slavery and approved policies and practices that thwarted Black people from owning homes and starting businesses. Black families were terrorized, their communities aggressively policed and their neighborhoods polluted, according to a report published by a first-in-the-nation state reparations task force.

    Efforts to study reparations at the federal level have stalled in Congress for decades. Illinois and New York state passed laws in recent years creating reparations commissions. Local officials in Boston and New York City have voted to create task forces studying reparations. Evanston, Illinois, launched a program to provide housing assistance to Black residents to help atone for past discrimination.

    California has moved further along on the issue than any other state. But state lawmakers did not introduce legislation this year to give widespread direct payments to African Americans, which frustrated some reparations advocates.

    Newsom approved a $297.9 billion budget in June that included up to $12 million for reparations legislation that became law.

    He already signed laws included in the reparations package aimed at improving outcomes for students of color in K-12 career education programs. Another proposal the Black caucus backed this year that would ban forced labor as a punishment for crime in the state constitution will be on the ballot in November.

    State Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, a Democrat representing Culver City, called legislation he authored to increase oversight over books banned in state prisons “a first step” to fix a “shadowy” process in which the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation decides which books to ban.

    The corrections department maintains a list of disapproved publications it bans after determining the content could pose a security threat, includes obscene material or otherwise violates department rules.

    The new law authorizes the Office of the Inspector General, which oversees the state prison system, to review works on the list and evaluate the department’s reasoning for banning them. It requires the agency to notify the office of any changes made to the list, and it makes the office post the list on its website.

    “We need transparency in this process,” Bryan said. “We need to know what books are banned, and we need a mechanism for removing books off of that list.”

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    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 Austin on X: @sophieadanna

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  • Boyfriend of a Navajo woman is sentenced to life in prison in her killing

    Boyfriend of a Navajo woman is sentenced to life in prison in her killing

    PHOENIX — After family members of a slain Navajo woman described their grief in a federal courtroom, the judge on Monday sentenced her boyfriend to life imprisonment for first-degree murder in a case that became emblematic of what officials call an epidemic of missing and slain Indigenous women.

    Five years after Jaime Yazzie was killed, her relatives and friends cheered as they streamed out of the downtown Phoenix courthouse after U.S. District Court Judge Douglas L. Rayas handed down the sentence for Tre C. James.

    Yazzie was 32 and the mother of three sons when she went missing in the summer of 2019 from her community of Pinon on the Navajo Nation. Despite a high-profile search, her remains were not found until November 2021 on the neighboring Hopi reservation in northeastern Arizona.

    James was convicted last fall in Yazzie’s fatal shooting. The jury also found James guilty of several acts of domestic violence committed against three former dating partners.

    Yazzie’s three sons, now ages 18, 14, 10, and other relatives attended Monday’s sentencing, along with several dozen supporters. Another dozen or so supporters stayed outside to demonstrate on the sidewalk, chanting and beating drums.

    “There is no sentence you can impose that will balance the scale,” Yazzie’s mother, Ethelene Denny, told the judge before the announcement. Denny detailed the pain the family has suffered from the moment Yazzie disappeared, through a desperate 2 1/2-year search and the ultimate shock and heartbreak when her remains were found.

    Federal prosecutors also played an earlier recorded video statement from Yazzie’s father, James Yazzie, who has since died.

    “It’s not right,” the elder Yazzie said in the video, who was clearly ailing and had trouble speaking. “Taking my daughter away and taking my grandkids’ mom. It hits me right in the heart.”

    “Today’s sentence underscores the fact that Jamie Yazzie was not forgotten by the FBI or our federal and tribal partners,” FBI Phoenix Special Agent in Charge Jose A. Perez said in a statement. “Our office is committed to addressing the violence that Native American communities in Arizona face every day and we will continue our efforts to protect families, help victims and ensure that justice is served in each case we pursue.”

    Yazzie’s case gained attention through the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women grassroots movement that draws attention to widespread violence against Indigenous women and girls in the United States and Canada.

    The U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Indian Affairs characterizes the violence against Indigenous women as a crisis.

    Women from Native American and Alaska Native communities have long suffered from high rates of assault, abduction and murder. A 2016 study by the National Institute of Justice found that more than four in five American Indian and Alaska Native women — 84% — have experienced violence in their lifetimes, including 56% who have been victimized by sexual violence.

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  • Trump vows to be ‘best friend’ to Jewish Americans, as allegations of ally’s antisemitism surface

    Trump vows to be ‘best friend’ to Jewish Americans, as allegations of ally’s antisemitism surface

    WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump on Thursday decried antisemitism hours after an explosive CNN report detailed how one of his allies running for North Carolina governor made a series of racial and sexual comments on a website where he also referred to himself as a “black NAZI.”

    North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson vowed to remain in the race despite the report, and the Trump campaign appeared to be distancing itself from the candidate while still calling the battleground state a vital part to winning back the White House. Trump has frequently voiced his support for Robinson, who has been considered a rising star in his party despite a history of inflammatory remarks about race and abortion.

    Trump did not comment on the allegations during his Thursday address to a group of Jewish donors in Washington. His campaign issued a statement about the CNN story that did not mention Robinson, saying instead that Trump “is focused on winning the White House and saving this country” and that North Carolina was a “vital part of that plan.”

    Robinson’s reported remarks — including a 2012 comment in which he said he preferred Adolf Hitler to the leadership in Washington — clashed with Trump’s denunciations of antisemitism in Washington and his claim that Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, sympathized with enemies of Israel. The story also could threaten Trump’s chances of winning North Carolina, a key battleground state, with Robinson already running well behind his Democratic opponent in public polls.

    “This story is not about the governor’s race in North Carolina. It’s about the presidential race,” said Paul Shumaker, a Republican pollster who’s worked for Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and warned that Trump could risk losing a state he won in 2016 and 2020.

    “The question is going to be, does Mark Robinson cost Donald Trump the White House?” Shumaker added.

    After allegations against Robinson became public, a spokesman for Harris’ campaign, Ammar Moussa, reposted on social media a photo of Trump and the embattled candidate. “Donald Trump has a Mark Robinson problem,” he wrote.

    The North Carolina Republican Party issued a statement standing by Robinson, noting he “categorically denied the allegations made by CNN but that won’t stop the Left from trying to demonize him via personal attacks.”

    Trump has angled to make inroads among Black voters and frequently aligned himself with Robinson along the campaign trail, which has more and more frequently taken him to North Carolina. At a rally in Greensboro, he called Robinson “Martin Luther King on steroids” in reference to the civil rights leader, for his speaking ability.

    Robinson has been on the trail with Trump as recently as last month, when he appeared with the GOP nominee at an event in Asheboro, North Carolina.

    Recent polls of North Carolina voters show Trump and Harris locked in a close race. The same polls show Democrat Josh Stein with a roughly 10-point lead over Robinson.

    Both Trump and Harris, the Democratic nominee, were making appearances meant to fire up their core supporters, with Harris participating in a livestream with Oprah Winfrey.

    Trump appeared Thursday with Miriam Adelson, a co-owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks and widow of billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.

    “My promise to Jewish Americans is this: With your vote, I will be your defender, your protector, and I will be the best friend Jewish Americans have ever had in the White House,” Trump said during the donor event in Washington, titled “Fighting Anti-Semitism in America.”

    “But in all fairness, I already am,” Trump added.

    Trump also has been criticized for his association with extremists who spew antisemitic rhetoric such as far-right activist Nick Fuentes and rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West. And when former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke endorsed Trump in 2016, Trump responded in a CNN interview that he knew “nothing about David Duke, I know nothing about white supremacists.”

    But during his four years in office Trump approved a series of policy changes long sought by many advocates of Israel, such as moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognizing Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights.

    In his remarks, Trump criticized Harris over the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war and for what he called antisemitic protests on college campuses and elsewhere.

    “Kamala Harris has done absolutely nothing. She has not lifted a single finger to protect you or to protect your children,” Trump said. He also repeated a talking point that Jewish voters who vote for Democrats “should have their head examined.”

    Multiple attendees at the event said they weren’t familiar with the story about Robinson or declined to discuss it. Rep. Virginia Foxx, a conservative North Carolina Republican who was asked about the CNN report beforehand, told reporters she wasn’t taking questions.

    Later Thursday, Trump was scheduled to address the Israeli-American Council National Summit to honor the victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. That summit will also focus on the fight against antisemitism.

    Harris on Thursday faced pressure from parts of her liberal base over the war. Leaders of the Democratic protest vote movement “Uncommitted” said the group would not endorse Harris for president, but also urged supporters to vote against Trump. The group, which opposes the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, has called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an end to U.S. weapons transfers to Israel.

    “Uncommitted” drew hundreds of thousands of votes in this year’s Democratic primaries, surfacing a rift within the party. The group has warned that some Democratic voters may stay home in November, particularly in places like Michigan.

    Harris’ campaign did not directly address the group’s announcement, but said in a statement that she will “continue working to bring the war in Gaza to an end in a way where Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.”

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    Gomez Licon reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Associated Press writer Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.

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  • Why is Congo struggling to contain mpox?

    Why is Congo struggling to contain mpox?

    KAVUMU, Congo — Health authorities have struggled to contain outbreaks of mpox in Congo, a huge central African country where a myriad of existing problems makes stemming the spread particularly hard.

    Last month, the World Health Organization declared the outbreaks in Congo and about a dozen other African countries a global health emergency. And in Congo, scientists have identified a new strain of mpox that may spread more easily. It has reached areas where conflict and the displacement of a large number of people have already put health services under pressure.

    Overall, Congo has more than 21,000 of the 25,093 confirmed and suspected mpox cases in Africa this year, according to WHO’s most recent count.

    Yes, Congo is one of the African countries where mpox has been endemic for decades.

    Mpox, once known as monkeypox, comes from the same family of viruses as smallpox but causes milder symptoms such as fever. People with more serious cases can develop skin lesions. More than 720 people in Africa have died in the latest outbreaks, mostly in Congo.

    Mpox is a zoonotic disease, meaning it can spread to humans from infected animals. In the global mpox outbreak of 2022, the virus spread between people primarily through sex and close physical contact.

    In September 2023, mpox spread to Congo’s eastern province of South Kivu; it had previously been seen in the center and far west. Scientists then identified a new form of mpox in South Kivu that may be more infectious.

    The WHO said that from the outbreak in South Kivu, the virus spread among people elsewhere in the country, arriving in neighboring province North Kivu. Those two provinces — some 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) from the capital, Kinshasa — face escalating violence, a humanitarian crisis and other issues.

    More than 120 armed groups have been fighting each other and the Congolese army for years in the eastern part of the country over the control of minerals. That has forced millions of people fleeing violence into refugee camps or nearby towns.

    That means mpox is hitting already-stretched health facilities. Dr. Musole Mulambamunva Robert, medical director of the Kavumu hospital in eastern Congo, said it is “truly a challenge” — sometimes treating as many as four times the facility’s capacity for patients.

    With more than 6 million displaced people in the east, authorities and aid agencies were already struggling to provide food and healthcare, while fighting other diseases such as cholera. Many people have no access to soap, clean water or other basics.

    Some eastern Congo communities are out of reach of health clinics — roads are unreliable, and hourslong risky boat trips are sometimes the only means of transport, said Mercy Muthee Lake of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent.

    People can be more susceptible to severe mpox cases because of malnutrition and undiagnosed HIV, she said.

    She also said health workers in eastern Congo have requested more mpox training as medications to treat fever and ease pain run out.

    Health authorities “are up against it because it’s such a complex area,” said Chris Beyrer, of Duke University’s Global Health Institute.

    Africa has no capacity to produce mpox vaccines. Around 250,000 doses have arrived in Congo from the European Union and the United States, and more are expected. Congolese authorities say they need around 3 million vaccines. It will likely be weeks before any vaccines reach people in eastern Congo.

    For now, the vaccine is approved only for adults. There’s limited evidence of how it works in children.

    Vaccines are desperately needed, but they’re just “an additional tool,” said Emmanuel Lampaert, the Congo representative for Doctors Without Borders. The key, Lampaert said, is still identifying cases, isolating patients, and executing grassroots health and education campaigns.

    Local conditions make that trying — Lampaert noted it’s almost impossible to isolate cases among poor, displaced people.

    “Families with six to eight children are living in a hut, which is maybe the space of the bed we are sleeping in,” he said. “So, this is the reality.”

    Unlike the millions of dollars that poured into Congo for Ebola and COVID aid, the response to mpox has been sluggish, many critics say.

    Health experts say the sharp contrast is due to a lack of both funds and international interest.

    “Ebola is the most dangerous virus in the world, and COVID wiped out the world economy,” said professor Ali Bulabula, who works on infectious diseases in the medical department at Congo’s University of Kindu. “While mpox is a public health emergency of international concern, there is a lack of in-depth research and interest in the virus, as it’s still seen as a tropical disease, localized to Africa with no major impact on Western economies.”

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    Asadu reported from Abuja, Nigeria, and Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa. AP reporter Sam Mednick contributed from Kamituga, Congo.

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    For more news on Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse

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    The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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