Wednesday, July 16, 2014

BAUAW NEWSLETTER: WEDNESDAY, JULY 16, 2014

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The Free Palestine Movement asks for your help with this urgent need.

Call for Medical Doctors to Travel Immediately to Gaza


This is a call for medical doctors who are willing and able to travel immediately to Gaza to help treat Palestinians wounded in Israel's latest assault on the besieged Strip. Your entry into Gaza will be facilitated and help with the travel costs is also available. If you are a medical doctor who is interested, please reply to this message.

The FPM Team

Free Palestine Movement:  https://freepalestinemovement.org

Donations:  https://freepalestinemovement.org/donate-2/


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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter

Table of Contents:
A. ARTICLES IN FULL
B. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
D. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.

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A. ARTICLES IN FULL 
(Unless otherwise noted)

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1) Wrongfully Convicted Man Takes $3 Million Settlement
"In Brooklyn alone, the convictions of seven men have been vacated this year, after the district attorney there began examining 90 troubled convictions. Filing claims against the state and the city is standard practice after a vacated conviction."
By




2) Despite a Pledge by Samsung, Child Labor Proves Resilient
By





3) Thousands of Gaza Civilians Flee After Israeli Warning
"The Health Ministry said at least 160 Palestinians, including about 135 civilians - among them some 30 children, have been killed six days of warfare, and more than 1,000 have been wounded."
By REUTERS




4) As Israel Hits Mosque and Clinic, Air Campaign’s Risks Come Home
By





5) Rikers: Where Mental Illness Meets Brutality in Jail
By and




6) Can a Jury Believe What It Sees?
Videotaped Confessions Can Be Misleading
By JENNIFER L. MNOOKIN




7) Poor Sanitation in India May Afflict Well-Fed Children With Malnutrition
By




8) Companies That Offer Help With Student Loans Are Often Predatory, Officials Say
By and





9) Outspoken Immigrant Advocate, Also Undocumented, Is Held in Texas
By




10) Our Bees, Ourselves
Bees and Colony Collapse
By MARK WINSTON





11) Israel Tells 100,000 Gazans to Flee; Both Sides Press Attacks
"A Human Rights Watch report released on Wednesday cited United Nations data showing that, as of Monday, more than three-quarters of the Palestinians killed were civilians, including 36 children, and that approximately 7,500 people had been displaced by the destruction of 1,255 homes. The Human Rights Watch report investigated four Israeli strikes – on the Fun Time Beach cafe in the southern city of Khan Younis; on a car carrying municipal workers in the Bureij refugee camp; and two on homes where victims included a pregnant woman and small children."
By and




12) Documents Show General Motors Kept Silent on Fatal Crashes
By REBECCA R. RUIZ and DANIELLE IVORY




13) A Push to Give Steadier Shifts to Part-Timers
By




14) Gazans, Desiring Deep Change, Are Ambivalent on Egypt Cease-Fire Plan
By




15) Witnesses Testify Against Ex-Blackwater Colleagues in Case of 2007 Iraq Killings
By MATT APUZZO




16) Medicaid Home Care Cuts Are Unjust, Lawsuit Says
By





































 


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1) Wrongfully Convicted Man Takes $3 Million Settlement
"In Brooklyn alone, the convictions of seven men have been vacated this year, after the district attorney there began examining 90 troubled convictions. Filing claims against the state and the city is standard practice after a vacated conviction."
By

A man who spent 15 years in prison for a Brooklyn murder he did not commit agreed to a $3 million settlement approved on Thursday with New York State, one of the largest such settlements in recent history.

The settlement for the man, Jabbar Collins, is among a wave the state is expected to face. In Brooklyn alone, the convictions of seven men have been vacated this year, after the district attorney there began examining 90 troubled convictions. Filing claims against the state and the city is standard practice after a vacated conviction.

Judge Faviola A. Soto of the New York State Court of Claims approved the amount for Mr. Collins at a hearing.

Janet Polstein, an assistant attorney general for the state, said at the hearing, “This is reasonable compensation for the loss of liberty Mr. Collins suffered in state incarceration.”Mr. Collins was convicted of killing a rabbi in 1994 in the Williamsburg section of the borough. He always claimed he was innocent, and, while in prison, began researching the law and his case, filing records requests and appeals from behind bars and interviewing witnesses.

After a decade of working on his own, he hired a lawyer, Joel B. Rudin. Mr. Rudin filed a motion asking a federal judge to overturn the conviction, arguing that prosecutors had withheld key material and had knowingly presented false testimony at trial. The judge castigated the district attorney’s office for its handling of the trial; the district attorney’s office then agreed to clear Mr. Collins of the conviction and not to seek another prosecution.

Mr. Collins called the settlement “bittersweet,” saying he felt vindicated by it but wished that his mother, who died a year ago, were alive for it. He said he wanted to keep working on wrongful-conviction cases, and was considering going into the ministry. But the memory of prison lingers.

“I still have nightmares,” he said. “Waking up and thinking that I’m still there, that I was dreaming about this part of my life.”

Freed in 2010, Mr. Collins, 42, joined Mr. Rudin’s firm as a paralegal. Mr. Collins sued the state in 2011 under the Unjust Conviction Act, which requires people to show through “clear and convincing evidence that they were unjustly convicted.”

This year, Martin Tankleff, who served 17 years in prison for the murder of his parents before his conviction was overturned, got $3.3 million under the act.

The state attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, proposed legislation in February that amended that act so that people who falsely confessed or who pleaded guilty — not just people who were convicted — but who were later exonerated could also sue the state.

Since 2000, the attorney general’s office under Mr. Schneiderman and his predecessors has settled 66 wrongful-conviction claims; the Collins settlement is the seventh largest.

Mr. Collins has a suit pending against the city on civil rights claims, also filed in 2011. That suit has involved the depositions of the former Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, and some of his subordinates. Mr. Rudin recently received approval from a judge to question Louis Scarcella, a retired detective whose methods have come under question; the current district attorney, Kenneth P. Thompson, is reviewing 57 of Mr. Scarcella’s cases.

Mr. Rudin said it was a strategic victory to secure the state claim before resolving the federal civil rights suit, because the state payout might have been reduced had a federal settlement already been reached. “Traditionally in settlement negotiations in wrongful-conviction cases, the city tries to exploit what it sees as the desperation of the plaintiff,” he said. “This gives Jabbar some financial security and makes him even more determined to see the city case through.”

Mr. Rudin said last month that the city and Mr. Collins had begun talking about a settlement but were far apart on a figure. A judge set an Oct. 20 trial date for the civil rights suit, while encouraging a settlement before then.

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 2) Despite a Pledge by Samsung, Child Labor Proves Resilient
By

DONGGUAN, China — After work, the three teenage girls giggle and pull at one another’s hair. But when questioned, they admit their common secret: They use false papers to work illegally here at the factory that makes mobile phone components for one of the world’s biggest brands, Samsung.

They are 14 and 15 years old, below the legal working age in China. A few weeks ago, they were living at home with their parents in a small village a six-hour drive from here, finishing middle school.

“We also worked at a factory last summer,” said one of the girls, who all spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of getting fired. “But it was much worse. We were making Christmas ornaments, and some workers got huge blisters on their hands.”

The presence of at least three child workers at the factory in southern China casts a cloud over the labor practices of Samsung and its suppliers.A little more than a week ago, Samsung, the South Korean electronics giant, said in an annual review of conditions at its manufacturing centers that it had found no evidence of under-age workers or child laborers in its global supply chain. In recent years, Samsung has promoted its efforts to monitor and evaluate suppliers and manufacturing operations around the world, noting that the policies were aimed at protecting workers and preventing minors from being hired.

For instance, even though the legal working age in China is 16, Samsung considers that too young, and so its suppliers are instructed not to hire workers under 18. To ensure they do not cheat, Samsung says, it has forced all of them to install a sophisticated facial recognition system on factory sites.

But on Tuesday morning, the three young girls met with a reporter from The New York Times after they were initially identified by the labor rights group China Labor Watch. Near their factory here in Dongguan, they explained how easy it was to work for a company that supplies Samsung.

According to the girls, they were part of a “labor dispatch system” that often funnels child laborers to factories during the summer to help meet a surge in orders that comes just ahead of the fall and winter shopping seasons in the United States and Europe. They were hired as temporary workers, they said, and paid through an agency that has recruitment channels in poor regions.

After they told their story, the three girls locked arms and walked past the security guards and into the Shinyang Electronics factory, which employs more than 600 workers in Dongguan, one of China’s biggest manufacturing centers.

“As part of our pledge against child labor, Samsung routinely conducts inspections to monitor our suppliers to ensure they follow our commitment,” Samsung said in a statement. “We are urgently looking into the latest allegations and will take appropriate measures in accordance with our policies to prevent any cases of child labor in our suppliers.”

The situation at the factory in Dongguan underscores some of the challenges multinational corporations face in sourcing goods from here. Wages and working conditions in China have steadily improved over the last decade. But ensuring that supplier factories comply with guidelines set by global brands, as well as China’s labor laws, is difficult, even though larger factories are regularly audited by outside inspectors.

Many global brands have struggled with labor problems in their Chinese operations. In the last few years, Apple has come under scrutiny in China over labor and safety problems, notably a spate of worker suicides and unrest at facilities run by its biggest contract manufacturer, the Taiwanese company Foxconn.

Apple declined to comment for this article, but the company has said it has taken steps to address labor issues in its supply chain, including deeper audits on its partners and a program that punishes suppliers that hire under-age workers.

Now, Samsung — whose smartphones are popular worldwide — is also the target of labor rights activists. In a report released on Thursday, China Labor Watch, which is based in New York, accused Samsung of allowing a supplier in Dongguan to hire under-age workers, cheating those workers on pay, denying them overtime wages and failing to give them government-mandated labor contracts.

“After allegedly inspecting hundreds of Chinese suppliers, Samsung did not find one child worker,” China Labor Watch said in a statement released on Thursday. “Yet in just one Samsung supplier factory, C.L.W. has uncovered several children employed without labor contracts, working 11 hours per day and only being paid for 10 of those hours.”

For the last decade, labor rights groups have tried to draw attention to labor abuse and health and safety violations in some of China’s biggest factories. They often send young activists to work undercover in the workshops, document conditions, secretly interview workers and examine their pay stubs and employment contracts.

In the Samsung case, a young activist at China Labor Watch was hired by the Dongguan factory and began collecting evidence and making friends with workers suspected of being under-age. According to the account by the labor rights group, the activist ate with the three young girls, and also with two young boys who were believed to be under-age, and secretly recorded their conversations.The activist also took photographs of conditions inside the Shinyang facility, which is owned and managed by a company in South Korea. The Dongguan factory now works exclusively for Samsung to produce plastic components for mobile phones.

A Shinyang spokeswoman, who gave her name as Ms. Fang, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday that Samsung audited the company on June 25 and that the auditors found no evidence of workers below age 18, let alone 16.

Samsung says in its own exhaustive audits of hundreds of factories in China during the last two years that third-party auditors found not a single under-age worker. But a Samsung spokeswoman says the company is now conducting its own investigation into the Shinyang facility.

According to its annual sustainability report, which includes a review of human rights and labor conditions at its global centers, Samsung says it has “zero tolerance” for child labor and could “suspend transactions” with suppliers that do not comply with its rules.

In its 2014 report, released on June 30, Samsung acknowledged weaknesses in its supply chain. For instance, the report said that a majority of the facilities Samsung had audited in China failed to comply with the country’s law on the maximum hours of overtime workers are permitted, which is 36 hours a month. The company said it was trying to rectify the situation.

If Samsung verifies that at least three young girls were working at its supplier factory, experts say that would cast some doubts on what the company considers stringent audits, including the use of facial recognition software to determine whether the faces of workers matched their government-issued identity cards.

According to the three young girls, they began working at Shinyang on June 30, just five days after the Shinyang factory says it was audited. They said they were hired as “temporary workers,” given fake ID cards and asked to work the most difficult shift, 8:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m., and then to put in an additional three hours of overtime, six days a week.

The work was grueling but tolerable, they said. The girls complained that they were paid about $1.20 an hour because they had been hired by a middleman or “labor dispatch company.” A typical worker, they said, was paid $1.45 an hour. Labor rights activists say this is an increasingly common way factories reduce costs and skirt the labor law.

China Labor Watch said the girls were allowed to avoid the facial recognition system, which is supposed to help prevent under-age workers. And when asked how the factory could provide them with false government-issued ID cards, one of the girls said: “The factory can just borrow real identification cards from other factories to register us. And the system for checking employees as they enter the factory is not that strict.”

Stephanie Yifan Yang contributed research and Brian X. Chen contributed reporting.
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3) Thousands of Gaza Civilians Flee After Israeli Warning
"The Health Ministry said at least 160 Palestinians, including about 135 civilians - among them some 30 children, have been killed six days of warfare, and more than 1,000 have been wounded."
By REUTERS

GAZA/JERUSALEM — Thousands fled their homes in a Gaza town on Sunday after Israel warned them to leave ahead of threatened attacks on rocket-launching sites, on the sixth day of an offensive that Palestinian officials said has killed at least 160 people.

Militants in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip kept up rockets salvoes deep into the Jewish state and the worst bout of Israel-Palestinian bloodshed in two years showed no signs of abating, and Western foreign ministers meeting on Sunday said a ceasefire was an urgent priority.

Israeli forces dropped leaflets into the town of Beit Lahiya near Gaza's northern border with Israel. They read: "Those who fail to comply with the instructions to leave immediately will endanger their lives and the lives of their families. Beware."

The Israeli military told the residents of three of Beit Lahiya's 10 neighborhoods to get out of the town of 70,000 by midday on Sunday. U.N. officials said some 4,000 people had fled south to eight schools run by the world body in Gaza City.

A senior Israeli military officer, in a telephone briefing with foreign reporters, said Israel would "strike with might" in the Beit Lahiya area from the late evening hours on Sunday.

He did not say if this would include an expansion of an air and naval offensive into a ground operation in the north of the narrow, densely populated Mediterranean enclave.

"The enemy has built rocket infrastructure in-between the houses (in Beit Lahiya)," the officer said. "He wants to trap me into an attack and into hurting civilians."

At schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Gaza City, Beit Lahiya residents arrived in donkey carts filled with children, luggage and mattresses, while others came by car or taxi. One man, still in his pajamas, said some inhabitants had received phone calls warning them to clear out.

"What could we do? We had to run in order to save the lives of our children," said Salem Abu Halima, 25, a father of two.

The Gaza Interior Ministry, in a statement on Hamas radio, dismissed the Israeli warnings as "psychological warfare" and instructed those who left their homes to return and others to stay put.

Dozens of houses in parts of Beit Lahiya were leveled by Israeli bulldozers during a month-long Gaza war in late 2008 and early 2009. Israel says such structures provide cover for militants and rocket launchers.

The leaflets marked the first time Israel had warned Palestinians to vacate dwellings in such a wide area. Previous warnings, by telephone or so-called "knock-on-the-door" missiles without explosive warheads, had been directed at individual homes slated for attack.

135 PALESTINIAN CIVILIAN DEATHS

A Palestinian woman and a girl aged 3 were killed in Israeli air strikes early on Sunday, the Gaza Health Ministry said.

Hours before, 17 people were killed when the house of Gaza's police chief was bombed from the air - the single deadliest attack of Israel's offensive. Palestinian officials originally said 18 were dead, but doctors later revised the figure.

The Health Ministry said at least 160 Palestinians, including about 135 civilians - among them some 30 children, have been killed six days of warfare, and more than 1,000 have been wounded.

Hostilities along the Israel-Gaza frontier first intensified last month after Israeli forces arrested hundreds of Hamas activists in the Israeli-occupied West Bank following the abduction there of three Jewish teenagers who were later found killed. A Palestinian youth was then killed in Jerusalem in a suspected revenge attack by Israelis. Despite intensified Israeli military action - which included a commando raid overnight in what was Israel's first reported ground action in Gaza during the current fighting - militants continued to launch rocket after rocket across the border.

A long-range burst on Sunday morning triggered air raid sirens at Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion international airport, which has not been struck in the hostilities and where flights have been operating normally, and some city suburbs.

On Saturday night, Hamas - the Islamist movement that rules Gaza - made good on a threat to send rockets streaking toward Tel Aviv at 9 p.m. (2.00 p.m. EDT) and other areas in heavily populated central Israel.

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis sought shelter as Palestinians in the streets of Gaza City cheered the launchings, the biggest strike yet on the Tel Aviv metropolitan area.

Those rockets and the ones unleashed on Sunday were intercepted by the Israeli-built, and partly U.S.-funded, Iron Dome missile defense system that has proved effective against Hamas's most powerful weaponry.

ISRAELI BEACHGOERS WATCH AS ROCKETS SHOT DOWN

No one has been killed by the more than 800 rockets the Israeli military said has been fired by Palestinians since the offensive began. During Saturday night's barrage, customers in Tel Aviv beachfront cafes shouted their approval as they watched the projectiles being shot out of the sky.

"We will continue to act with patience, forbearance, with determination, responsibility and aggression to achieve the goal of the campaign - restoring calm for a long period by dealing a significant blow to Hamas and other terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in broadcast remarks after meeting his cabinet.

"We don't know when this operation will be over, it may take a long time and we need your support and also your discipline," he said in a message to the Israeli public.

International pressure on both sides for a return to calm has increased, with the U.N. Security Council calling for a cessation of hostilities and Western foreign ministers meeting on Sunday to weigh strategy.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier will travel to the Middle East on Monday and meet Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, German media reported.

Germany mediated a prisoner swap in 2011 in which an Israeli soldier held by Hamas was freed in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinians jailed by Israel.

Israel says a ground invasion of Gaza remains an option, and it has already mobilized more than 30,000 reservists to do so, but most attacks have so far been from the air, hitting some 1,200 targets in the territory.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius spoke of "a dangerous escalation" between Israel and Hamas and told reporters before talks in Vienna with his U.S., German and British counterparts that securing a ceasefire was "an absolute priority".

He and British Foreign Secretary William Hague said there was an urgent need to reinstate the truce struck in 2012.

Giving details of the naval commando operation early on Sunday, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman, said four members of the force were wounded in exchanges of fire with militants but the long-range rocket launching site they attacked was hit.

Hamas said its fighters had fired at the Israeli force offshore, preventing them from landing. Lerner said the forces had "completed their mission".

Hundreds of mourners attended the funerals on Sunday of the 17 Palestinians killed in the bombing of Gaza police chief Taysee Al-Basth's home. "With our souls and blood we will redeem the martyrs!" the crowd chanted as armed men fired in the air.

A Hamas source said Batsh was in critical condition and that all the dead were members of his family.

Ashraf Al-Qidra, spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry, said 45 people were wounded in the bombing. An Israeli teenager was wounded on Sunday by a rocket that struck the southern town of Ashkelon, emergency services said.

(Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell, Ari Rabinovitch and Allyn Fisher-Ilan in Jerusalem, John Irish, Fredrik Dahl and Louis Charbonneau in Vienna; Editing by Mark Heinrich)


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4) As Israel Hits Mosque and Clinic, Air Campaign’s Risks Come Home
By

BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip — As Israel’s air war against Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters in Gaza entered its sixth day on Saturday, a pair of bombings threw the difficulties of the campaign into painful relief: Israel bombed a mosque, which its aerial photos indicated was harboring a weapons cache, and a center for the disabled, killing two residents and wounding three, as well as a caretaker.

A separate strike on the house of a police commander killed at least 18 people, the highest toll so far this conflict, bringing the total number of dead to at least 140, Palestinian officials said.

In response, Hamas fired a barrage of rockets at Tel Aviv, Israel’s largest city, garnering much attention despite causing no deaths or injuries, as three of them were intercepted. There were also signs of imminent escalation as the Israeli military said it was going to send messages to northern Gaza residents to vacate their homes “for their own safety,” amid preparations for a possible invasion.

The Interior Ministry in Gaza urged Palestinians to ignore the warnings, calling them psychological warfare.

But the Israeli military said early Sunday that four soldiers were slightly wounded during a brief incursion into northern Gaza to destroy a rocket launching site, according to The Associated Press. It is the first time that Israeli ground troops are known to have entered Gaza in this offensive, The A.P. said, but the raid was carried out by special forces and did not appear to be the beginning of a broad ground offensive.

The Israeli bombing of the center for the disabled, the Mabaret Palestine Society here in northern Gaza, occurred just before dawn, when a missile crashed through the roof and exploded. Because it was the weekend, only five of the 19 severely disabled residents were at the center, while the rest were with their families, said Jamila Elaiwa, who founded the center 20 years ago.

She spoke at Al Shifa hospital’s burn unit, while she was visiting the wounded, including Mai Hamada, 30, and Salwa Abu al-Qomssan, 53, the caretaker, both of them with severe burns. Two more residents were in intensive care. The dead were identified as Ula Wisha, 31, and Suha Abusada, 39, whose family said she had been born severely disabled and unable to speak.

Muhammad Abu al-Qomssan, 32, the caretaker’s eldest son, said that his mother “has a soft heart,” and felt fortunate to have found this new job only three weeks ago. She had been to predawn prayers and told him she had arrived only a few minutes before the bomb struck, he said.

Ms. Elaiwa, 59, said that her center was well-known in the neighborhood and that it had been in the same building for almost a decade. She said she had no idea why it would be bombed. “No one lived there except us,” she said. “There was no one else in the building.”

At the site, neighbors picked through the rubble of modest medical equipment and scattered children’s books, from the small neighborhood children’s library Ms. Elaiwa ran. There was a seared copy of “Jane Eyre,” condensed, in English with Arabic translation, and an English-language copy of “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.”

Neighbors like Yasir Abu Shoodq, 32, stared up at the sky through the holes the missile cut through the roof and each floor before making a crater in the ground. Children picked up the chunks of sharp steel from the crater and made off with them.

Mr. Abu Shoodq said, and Ms. Elaiwa confirmed, that there had first been a warning rocket, “a knock on the roof,” a few minutes before the missile hit. “But no one understood what it meant,” she said. “No one could imagine the center would be a target for anyone.” In any case, she said, the severity of the residents’ disabilities would have prevented them from fleeing on their own.

Azzedin Ali, 26, another neighbor, said angrily: “They are bankrupt of targets and of pity. What would the handicapped have been resisting? This is the enemy striking civilians in the places they think they are safe.”

As he spoke, perhaps a mile away, a rocket was launched from Gaza toward Israel, its contrail slightly wobbly in a hot, hazy sky.

In a rare Saturday briefing for reporters at Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv, a senior military official said, when asked, that the army was looking into what happened at the center for the disabled. “A group is investigating now what was the target, what was the intelligence,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with military protocol.

The briefing was an apparent effort to rebuff growing international alarm at the rising death toll from the airstrikes in Gaza and the calls for restraint.

The official spoke of the difficulties the air force faced in minimizing collateral damage in the densely populated environment of Gaza, describing the mission as “very challenging,” and showed video clips from the air that he said demonstrated the military’s care in targeting.

One clip showed a mission that was aborted because civilians, including children, were spotted in the vicinity of the target. Another showed a strike on a three-story house the official said belonged to a Hamas brigade commander in a crowded neighborhood of Khan Younis, which set off huge secondary explosions, indicating a weapons cache.

“Hamas’s operational infrastructure is not in specific military camps or posts,” he said. A building with two floors may have a weapons storage site on the first floor, he said, “and above it, regular families.”

At the mosque that was bombed on Saturday, in the Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, only the minaret was left standing. Young men joined the junior imam, Muhammad Hamad, 25, in digging through the rubble to save copies of the Quran and other religious works.

But this attack, one of two mosques hit on Saturday, was no mistake. Here Israeli intelligence was convinced, and issued photographs to support its case, that the mosque also served as “a Hamas rocket cache and a gathering point for militants,” the army’s spokesman, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, said in a statement.Mr. Hamad, the young imam, denied categorically that any weapons had been in the mosque, but it was impossible for an untrained eye to tell, in part because it was considered too dangerous to try to enter the collapsed structure. “That charge is baseless,” he said. “This is the house of God.”

Neighbors said that there had been a “knock on the roof,” followed by the bomb a few minutes later, and that only four people were wounded because it was still too early for the predawn Ramadan prayers.

Mr. Hamad said he had found a Quran open to a page with a particular sura that he felt had special meaning. “Victory is imminent for those who remain steadfast,” he read.

The strike on the house of the police commander killed people in the house, in eastern Gaza City, as well as people coming out of a nearby mosque after evening prayers. The apparent target, Gen. Tayseer al-Batsh, was seriously wounded, medics said.

A rocket strike outside an apartment building in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighborhood killed six Palestinians. The son of a local Hamas leader, Ismail Haniya, said the attack had targeted his aunt’s home and two of the dead were her children.

The United Nations Security Council issued a statement on Saturday calling on both sides to return to a 2012 cease-fire. The statement did not point a finger, but called for “respect for international law including the protection of civilians.”

The statement, endorsed by all 15 members of the Council, was largely symbolic; it does not have the force of a resolution, which Arab countries have called for.

The difficulties for Hamas and its allies in Gaza were also on display on Saturday as they fired at least 90 rockets at Israel, causing no deaths or injuries, two of them even falling into the West Bank towns of Hebron and Bethlehem.

In its most audacious attack yet, the military wing of Hamas announced at 8 p.m. that it would fire rockets at Tel Aviv an hour later. The news set off a flurry of air-raid sirens and people running to shelters but the rockets caused no injuries or damage, according to initial reports.

Hamas said it fired 10 J-80 rockets at Tel Aviv and central Israel. At least three of them were intercepted above the city while others fell in open areas.

Earlier, a rocket struck a residential neighborhood of Netivot, a southern Israeli town, causing property damage.

At least two rockets were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel late Saturday, the military said. In response, Israeli forces fired artillery rounds toward the launch site in Lebanon.


Reporting was contributed by Fares Akram from Gaza, Isabel Kershner from Tel Aviv, Nayef Hashlamoun from Hebron, and Somini Sengupta from New York.


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5) Rikers: Where Mental Illness Meets Brutality in Jail
By and

After being arrested on a misdemeanor charge following a family dispute last year, Jose Bautista was unable to post $250 bail and ended up in a jail cell on Rikers Island.

A few days later, he tore his underwear, looped it around his neck and tried to hang himself from the cell’s highest bar. Four correction officers rushed in and cut him down. But instead of notifying medical personnel, they handcuffed Mr. Bautista, forced him to lie face down on the cell floor and began punching him with such force, according to New York City investigators, that he suffered a perforated bowel and needed emergency surgery.Just a few weeks earlier, Andre Lane was locked in solitary confinement in a Rikers cellblock reserved for inmates with mental illnesses when he became angry at the guards for not giving him his dinner and splashed them with either water or urine. Correction officers handcuffed him to a gurney and transported him to a clinic examination room beyond the range of video cameras where, witnesses say, several guards beat him as members of the medical staff begged for them to stop. The next morning, the walls and cabinets of the examination room were still stained with Mr. Lane’s blood.

The assaults on Mr. Bautista and Mr. Lane were not isolated episodes. Brutal attacks by correction officers on inmates — particularly those with mental health issues — are common occurrences inside Rikers, the country’s second-largest jail, a four-month investigation by The New York Times found.

Reports of such abuses have seldom reached the outside world, even as alarm has grown this year over conditions at the sprawling jail complex. A dearth of whistle-blowers, coupled with the reluctance of the city’s Department of Correction to acknowledge the problem and the fact that guards are rarely punished, has kept the full extent of the violence hidden from public view.

But The Times uncovered details on scores of assaults through interviews with current and former inmates, correction officers and mental health clinicians at the jail, and by reviewing hundreds of pages of legal, investigative and jail records. Among the documents obtained by The Times was a secret internal study completed this year by the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which handles medical care at Rikers, on violence by officers. The report helps lay bare the culture of brutality on the island and makes clear that it is inmates with mental illnesses who absorb the overwhelming brunt of the violence.

The study, which the health department refused to release under the state’s Freedom of Information Law, found that over an 11-month period last year, 129 inmates suffered “serious injuries” — ones beyond the capacity of doctors at the jail’s clinics to treat — in altercations with correction department staff members.

The report cataloged in exacting detail the severity of injuries suffered by inmates: fractures, wounds requiring stitches, head injuries and the like. But it also explored who the victims were. Most significantly, 77 percent of the seriously injured inmates had received a mental illness diagnosis.

Covering Jan. 1, 2013, to Nov. 30, 2013, the report included no names and had little by way of details about specific cases. But The Times was able to obtain specific information on all 129 cases and used it to take an in-depth look at 24 of the most serious incidents, including Mr. Bautista’s and Mr. Lane’s. The Times also examined numerous other attacks on inmates by jail employees uncovered independently of the report.

What emerges is a damning portrait of guards on Rikers Island, who are poorly equipped to deal with mental illness and instead repeatedly respond with overwhelming force to even minor provocations.

The report notes that health department staff members interviewed 80 of the 129 inmates after their altercations with correction officers. In 80 percent of the cases, inmates reported being beaten after they were handcuffed.

The study also contained hints of efforts to cover up the assaults. More than half of the inmates reported facing “interference or intimidation” from correction officers while seeking treatment after an altercation.

In five of the 129 cases, the beatings followed suicide attempts.

Many of the cases were similar to Mr. Bautista’s and Mr. Lane’s, in which several guards ganged up on a single inmate. At times, a slight aimed at a correction officer set off a chain of events that ended savagely.

While it was often hard to know what precipitated the altercation or who was at fault, the severity of the inmates’ injuries makes it clear that Rikers guards regularly failed to meet basic professional standards.

Even so, none of the officers involved in the 129 cases have been prosecuted at this point, according to information from the Bronx district attorney’s office. None have been brought up on formal administrative charges in connection to the cases so far either, though that process can sometimes be lengthy, and the Correction Department does not comment on pending investigations.

The assaults took place as guards have been struggling to contain surging violence at Rikers. The number of fights between inmates has increased year by year since at least 2009, according to Correction Department data. Assaults on correction officers and civilian staff members have also risen.

The growing numbers of mentally unstable inmates, with issues like depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, are a major factor in the violence. Rikers now has about as many people with mental illnesses — roughly 4,000 of the 11,000 inmates — as all 24 psychiatric hospitals in New York State combined. They make up nearly 40 percent of the jail population, up from about 20 percent eight years ago.

The jail is not equipped for them. Inmates are housed on cellblocks supervised by uniformed men and women who are often poorly trained to deal with mental illness, and rely on pepper spray, take-down holds and fists to subdue them.

At Rikers, inmates with mental health problems are especially vulnerable, often the weakest in a kind of war of all against all, preyed upon by correction officers and other inmates. The prolonged isolation, extremes of hot and cold temperatures, interminable stretches of monotony punctuated by flashes of explosive violence can throw even the most mentally sound off balance and quickly overcome those whose mental grip is already tenuous.

Surrounded and overwhelmed, some withdraw into themselves. Others lash out. Almost daily, correction officers and civilian staff members are splashed with urine and other bodily fluids. And sometimes they are attacked. This year, two interns working in mental health units were assaulted. One suffered a broken nose, eye socket and jaw.

Inmates with mental illnesses commit two-thirds of the infractions in the jail, and they commit an overwhelming majority of assaults on jail staff members.

Yet, by law, they cannot be medicated involuntarily at the jail, and hospitals often refuse to accept them unless they harm themselves or others.

Shakima Smith-White drew a sharp contrast between how her son Michael Megginson, who has bipolar disorder, was treated during the three years he was committed to state psychiatric hospitals and the year he has spent at Rikers after being jailed on a robbery charge. “The hospital gave him a shot in his backside to knock him out, and then put him in a padded room for a few hours until he was calm,” she said.

At the jail, on Oct. 8, after a violent encounter with guards, he was found by clinicians curled up on the concrete floor of a holding cell, his wrist fractured, an eye swollen shut and bruises all over his body.

The violence continues to worsen, even as Mayor Bill de Blasio and his new reform-minded correction commissioner have vowed to bring Rikers Island under control. Correction officers used force on inmates 1,927 times in the first six months of 2014, an increase of more than one-third compared with the same period last year, according to Correction Department data. Use of force by officers is up nearly 90 percent over the last five years, even as the jail population has declined.

“There’s lots of brutality,” said Daniel Selling, who, until two months ago, was the director of the jail’s mental health services. “Horrible brutality.”

Four Guards, One Inmate

Conditions inside Rikers have rarely been a priority for city officials, but several recent episodes involving mentally disturbed inmates have heightened scrutiny of the jail complex and spurred calls for change. In February, a mentally ill homeless veteran died after the temperature in his cell reached more than 100 degrees. A month later, federal authorities indicted a correction officer on charges of violating the civil rights of an inmate with schizophrenia who swallowed toxic detergent and died, despite begging for medical attention for hours.

Those cases, however, reflected indifference and neglect. What the health department study documented was different: It showed that violence committed by guards against inmates is pervasive and routine.

Among the 129 inmates the study was based on, 45 had to be transported off the island to the emergency rooms of local hospitals for treatment. The rest were referred to an emergency service on the island.

Correction Department regulations say that a blow to the face or head should be the last resort when restraining an inmate. But that is exactly where inmates were injured in 73 percent of the violent encounters with officers. Just over a third of the assaults resulted in broken bones; more than 40 percent led to cuts that required stitches.

In August, Carlos Gonzalez, who suffered from depression and schizophrenia, was holding hands with his fiancée in a visiting area when a guard told him to let go. The guard threw him against a wall and told him to apologize for continuing to hold on, according to a Legal Aid Society complaint. In Mr. Gonzalez’s version of the events, he said he was sorry, but the guard told him to say it louder. When Mr. Gonzalez, who was arrested for violating an order of protection, refused, he said two guards punched him in the face. Mr. Gonzalez’s eardrum was ruptured, and he was so bloodied the guards made him change into a clean jumpsuit before he was taken to a clinic and later to Elmhurst Hospital Center.

In Brian Mack’s case, guards were allegedly settling a score. Mr. Mack, 57, who has been convicted of grand larceny, told investigators and health officials that he was assaulted in May 2013 by a captain and another officer after the captain challenged him over complaints he made about guards stealing inmates’ food. The captain struck him in the eye with his radio and the officer punched him in his jaw, Mr. Mack told investigators from the correction board.

Medical workers later reported that he had sustained “serious head trauma,” including a broken jaw and eye socket. Correction Department officials claimed Mr. Mack’s injuries came from a fight with other inmates, but board investigators could find no record of such a fight in the department’s log books.

In many of the cases examined by The Times, the guards’ responses seemed to grossly outweigh the perceived offense. The altercation involving Mr. Bautista early last year is especially puzzling.

After the four guards cut him down from his makeshift noose, he lay prone on the floor of the cell for nearly a minute but then suddenly stood up. Later Mr. Bautista, then 37 and a married father of five who made a living as a house painter and dishwasher, told investigators he did not know why he stood, except that he was confused.

At 5-foot-5, he is significantly smaller than the guards. Whether the four standing over him were startled, scared or angry is hard to know since the surveillance camera that caught much of what happened was unable to pick up sound. But this was the moment when they began wrestling with him and dragging him around the cell.

Later, investigators from four city agencies — the Board of Correction, the Department of Correction, the health department and the office of the medical examiner — watched the video, and all reached the same conclusion. “It can be clearly seen that officers are punching this inmate,” wrote Kennith Armstead of the Correction Board, which monitors conditions at Rikers and investigates serious incidents.

The pain was unbearable, said Mr. Bautista, who was later told he had depression.

“I felt all the strength going out of my legs and couldn’t stand up anymore,” he said in an interview. “My stomach felt really hot.”

Jail rules called for him to be transported to the clinic by gurney, but the officers half-walked, half-dragged him there.

Feces from the perforated bowel were leaching into his abdomen. “My stomach was swelling,” Mr. Bautista said.

In a few hours, he said, he was put into a van and thought he was going to the hospital, but instead was driven around and returned to the clinic.

There is a charade at Rikers, widely known by jail employees and jokingly referred to by some as “bus therapy” — where guards will load an inmate they do not want around into a van and drive him in circles.

This may have been what happened to Mr. Bautista. The jail log had him leaving the clinic at 5:45 p.m. on Jan. 11 and being admitted to Elmhurst Hospital Center at 2:47 a.m. on Jan. 12, according to investigators.

It is a 15-minute drive.

Mr. Bautista said it was past midnight when a second van ride took him to the hospital.

When he reached the emergency room, he asked to call his wife but was told by doctors there was no time: He was in danger of dying.

In the written account that the four officers filed within an hour of the incident, none reported being injured.

They described what happened as routine, that they had used standard body holds, “guided” him to the floor, applied flex-cuffs, “assisted Bautista to his feet,” and escorted him to the clinic.

That likely would have ended it, except that two weeks later, the board investigator was paging through a stack of injury reports when he noticed No. 828, Mr. Bautista’s case. Written across the bottom were the words “small bowel perforation” and “sent out via E.M.S. for a life-threatening emergency.”

Investigators from the Correction Department interviewed nine witnesses, repeatedly reviewed the video and concluded that Officer Kevin Barnaby had punched Mr. Bautista several times in the side.

Officer Barnaby denied this. He told investigators that it was Mr. Bautista who had started the fight by “rolling around squirming and attempting to bite” them. He said what looked like punches was him “trying to get Bautista’s hands out to be cuffed.”

In February, investigators recommended filing administrative charges against Mr. Barnaby, writing that besides using excessive force, he had filed a false report and given false testimony.

They were overruled. Two deputy commissioners in the Correction Department, Florence Finkle and Thomas Bergdall, determined that notwithstanding the serious injury, the force used was not excessive and did not violate the department’s policies, a spokesman said. They concluded, according to a department report, that Officer Barnaby “might have actually believed he was trying to grab Bautista’s arms out from under him.” The city’s Department of Investigation and the United States attorney’s office both reviewed the case and decided not to bring criminal charges.

In the end, the only person punished for the altercation was Mr. Bautista, who received an infraction for “physically resisting staff.”

He spent about a week in the hospital and then was released from Rikers. His misdemeanor charge was dropped soon after, and he has filed a lawsuit against the Correction Department. From the surgery, he has a foot-long scar down his stomach, which, he says, still causes him pain if the weather is bad or if he turns too quickly.

A Promise of Change

Rikers is far from alone as a correctional institution struggling with an influx of inmates with mental illnesses. According to some studies, correctional facilities now hold 95 percent of all institutionalized people with mental illnesses.

Some jails have learned to cope. In San Francisco, for instance, officers are taught to use “verbal judo"— tactics to talk an inmate down in order to de-escalate a crisis — and to ignore an inmate’s taunts if that is what it takes to keep peace.

In New York, by contrast, guards’ responses sometimes look more like street justice.

At a recent City Council hearing about problems at Rikers, Joseph Ponte, who took over as the city’s correction commissioner in April, acknowledged the department he inherited was “deeply troubled.”

He came to New York with a reputation as a reformer after spending three years as the correction commissioner in Maine, where he reduced the use of solitary confinement and overhauled mental health care in the state prison system.

Taming the violence at Rikers will not be so easy.

In an interview about The Times’s findings, Mr. Ponte acknowledged that Rikers was in need of change to “really bring it into the 21st century.”

He said policies governing when correction officers can use force were outdated and would be rewritten by the fall. Rookie officers, who have almost no on-the-job training after the academy, often did not know when to use force and how to de-escalate confrontations rather than use violence, he said. The new budget included funding for 12 new training captains to help mentor rookie officers going forward. The department also plans to increase the number of security cameras, which have been shown to reduce violence. They currently cover 42 percent of the jail space where officers interact, according to the Department of Correction.

Mr. Ponte said it was a minority of correction officers who engaged in brutal behavior.

“We really don’t have a culture of violence,” he said. “We have problems and we’re working to address those.”

Mr. Ponte has devoted particular attention to mental health in his first few months in New York, promising to work closely with the health department in changing Rikers.

He appears to have strong backing from the mayor, who appropriated $32 million in the new budget for mental health programs and more correction officers. At a Board of Correction meeting last Tuesday, Mr. Ponte said he planned to use some of that funding for staffing 370 new units to house the jail’s most violent inmates, including 120 who have mental illnesses.

In June, Mr. de Blasio also created a task force to study ways to improve care for people with mental illnesses cycling in and out of the criminal justice system.

Jail staff members complain they do not have the tools to properly care for inmates with mental health problems. Health privacy laws prevent uniformed officers from getting information they could use to better do their jobs, including knowing whether an inmate is taking his medication.

Mental health clinicians are unable to involuntarily medicate inmates who go off medication and often do not have access to the full range of drugs available outside the jail. Many clinicians complain that they are working in a setting that is controlled by correction officials who do not understand mental illness.

In January, the Department of Correction announced it was ending the use of solitary confinement for the inmates classified as “seriously mentally ill,” because it can exacerbate their conditions, and instead would provide them with more therapy. But the definition of “seriously mentally ill” includes only a small percentage of inmates who have received particular diagnoses, like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, and meet certain criteria relating to their condition. A vast majority of inmates with mental health issues, even significant ones, can still be sent to solitary and make up more than half of the inmates in those cellblocks.Even so, it is clear from interviews that many guards harbor a deep skepticism for the purported mental health conditions of inmates.

“About half are faking it,” said one officer, who has worked on a mental observation unit most of his 10 years at Rikers and asked that his name not be used because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.

There is little chance for significant change at Rikers without the correction officers’ union on board, and Norman Seabrook, its president, has made it very clear that he is not. He has accused the health department of undermining security at the jail with its efforts to curtail the use of solitary confinement and divert more inmates to therapy.

For 19 years, Mr. Seabrook has headed the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association, becoming one of the most powerful labor leaders in the state and exerting a control over the 9,000 rank-and-file members in a way that is rare today.

In an interview, he said he tried to instruct his members to use force judiciously.

“Do I have a correction officer here or there that goes over and beyond? I’m not going to say that I don’t,” he said. “That’s just like having a police officer that fires 41 shots.”

But he said that for every violent guard, there are those who are victims of attacks by inmates. Correction officers go to the hospital with injuries every day, he said.

“What about the officer that has a broken eye socket?” Mr. Seabrook said. “What about the officer that has a concussion? What about the officer that has their finger bitten off from these same individuals that people want to talk about as so so innocent?”

Tensions over how to handle inmates with mental illnesses surfaced recently while Mr. Ponte, Mr. Seabrook and Dr. Mary Travis Bassett, the health commissioner, were touring the Central Punitive Segregation Unit at Rikers. Inmates there are locked in solitary for 23 hours a day. As health officials were explaining the screening process that is supposed to be used before an inmate with a mental illness is placed in segregation, Mr. Seabrook erupted, according to two people who were there.

He asked Dr. Bassett how she would feel if his officers suddenly disappeared from the cellblock, leaving her alone with 100 vicious inmates — and then he answered his own question.

You’d be soiling your pants, he told her. (His words were more graphic.)

“This jail belongs to us,” Mr. Seabrook yelled. “It does not belong to the department of mental health.”

Anger on Both Sides of Bars

Whether correction officials should be able to send troublesome inmates with mental illnesses to solitary confinement and how long they should be confined there is one of the thorniest issues facing correction officials, not just in New York but across the country.

Studies have made clear that prolonged isolation can have a devastating effect on those with psychiatric issues, but even mental health workers at Rikers have fretted over the recent scaling back of the use of solitary at the jail, worrying dangerous inmates will be able to operate with impunity.

What is clear from the health department study is that assaults on inmates in the solitary confinement units are especially common, accounting for nearly a third of the serious injuries. Inmates there are so desperate to be let out of the cell that some will pound on their doors, scream, even cut themselves in hopes of getting a meeting with a social worker and an hour out of their cells.

A lot of the guards are not happy about being there, either. Several interviewed said they worked at Rikers because it pays a good union wage with pension benefits. When asked about the job itself, repeatedly the answer was, “I hate it.”

That can make for a lot of angry people in very tight quarters.

In March 2013, Luis Rosario got into a verbal back-and-forth with two officers and a captain in a solitary confinement unit for inmates with mental illnesses. After dragging him from his cell, one officer held him by his handcuffs and the other beat him, while their captain looked on, according to a complaint he filed with Correction Department investigators. The bones in Mr. Rosario’s face were so badly broken he needed his jaw wired shut.

Correction officers are supposed to show restraint, but in a place that has been growing more violent by the year, a code of behavior based on an eye for an eye appears to have taken hold.

This was the case on the night of Dec. 17, 2012, when an inmate flooded Cellblock 13B, a solitary confinement unit in the George R. Vierno Center at Rikers. Dinner was delayed, and inmates were told there might not be any dinner; vicious threats were exchanged between inmates and guards.

Correction officers removed two inmates, Tamel Dixon, 20, and Mr. Lane, 24, from their cells. Mr. Dixon, who had been arrested on charges of stealing cellphones, was dragged out first.

Officer Lameen Barnes prepared the official incident report that night on what happened to Mr. Dixon, writing that he had tried to throw an “unknown liquid substance” at the officers, and in response, they had searched his cell for contraband. When they entered, the report said, Mr. Dixon refused to come out, insulted them and would not follow their orders. He was restrained and handcuffed to a gurney.

“Once on his feet, inmate Dixon was eventually escorted to the main clinic for medical examination without any further incident of force used,” Mr. Barnes wrote.

That is nothing like what actually happened, according to accounts from three people who were there. Two requested anonymity because they said they feared retaliation from officers as well as their employer, Corizon, which has a contract with the city to provide health care at the jail. For the third witness, The Times was provided a copy of the clinician’s email to superiors about the incident, on the condition that the sender’s name be withheld.

According to their accounts, a group of correction officers wheeled Mr. Dixon into an examination area without a security camera. “Don’t leave me,” he kept yelling to the medics and social workers. “They’re going to kill me.”

About a half-dozen guards were crowded around the gurney, and one kept punching Mr. Dixon in the head.

Next, the correction officers brought in Mr. Lane, who had also splashed guards with a liquid. Mr. Lane was known as a disruptive inmate. He had been in and out of Rikers, and much of his most recent stint had been spent in solitary confinement. Born to a mother who was a crack addict, he spent most of his time growing up in foster homes and had a lengthy history of mental health problems, with diagnoses for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and attention deficit disorder.

“They punched me in the face and they kept punching me and punching me and punching me,” Mr. Lane recalled in an interview at Elmira Correctional Facility, where he recently completed a two-year sentence for a credit card theft conviction.

Two captains, Budnarine Behari and Rod Marcel, oversaw the guards in the beatings, the clinic workers who were there said.

“This one much worse and longer,” the email from the clinician said. “Staff members were visibly upset and some said they were sick to their stomachs.”

When staff members pleaded with them to stop, Captain Behari asked how they would feel if they had been splashed with urine, witnesses said.

Captain Behari was involved in another beating eight months earlier in which an inmate’s jaw and nose were broken. Administrative charges were brought against him but the verdict is still pending, more than two years later. A spokesman for the Bronx district attorney’s office said it was investigating the captains in the clinic case. But three witnesses told The Times they have not talked to anyone from the prosecutor’s office in a year.

Patrick Ferraiuolo, president of the captains’ union at Rikers, said both captains were placed on modified duty seven months after the clinic incident, collecting full pay, but assigned to jobs that did not involve contact with inmates. Neither of the captains had been interviewed by prosecutors, he said, because they had acted appropriately.

In the clinic that night, Mr. Lane said, Captain Marcel kept yelling, “Stop resisting.”

“How can I be resisting when I’m cuffed to the gurney?” Mr. Lane said.

“One officer took a knuckle brace and put it on his hands, just started hitting me, boom, boom,” he said. “My head started leaking blood, and that’s when I started getting dizzy and dizzy and dizzy,” he said, adding that he eventually passed out.

When he came to, he said, “I’m bloodied up, my teeth is all bloody, my mouth is all bloody. I got blood all down my throat.”

The next morning, when the day shift arrived, there was still blood splattered around examination room No. 6.

Susan C. Beachy contributed research.



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6) Can a Jury Believe What It Sees?
Videotaped Confessions Can Be Misleading
By JENNIFER L. MNOOKIN

LOS ANGELES — LAST week the F.B.I., the Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal law enforcement agencies instituted a policy of recording interrogations of criminal suspects held in custody. Only a minority of states and local governments have a similar requirement, but the new rule, which applies to nearly every federal interrogation, will most likely spur more jurisdictions to follow suit. It’s not far-fetched to think that such recordings may soon become standard police practice nationwide.

Supporters of the practice present recordings as a solution for a host of problems, from police misconduct to false confessions. But while there are lots of good reasons to require them, they are hardly a panacea; in fact, the very same qualities that make them useful — their seeming vividness and objectivity — also risk making them misleading, and possibly even an inadvertent tool for injustice.

Support for electronic recording has been accelerating in recent years, and its backers now come from all sides of the criminal-justice process. Though some in law enforcement remain critical of the idea, firsthand experience with recording tends to turn law enforcers into supporters — it eliminates uncertainty about police conduct and lets investigators focus on the interrogation rather than taking detailed notes.

Likewise, criminal prosecutors find that when a defendant confesses or provides incriminating information, the video offers vivid and powerful evidence. At the same time, it aids defendants because the very presence of the camera is likely to reduce the use of coercive or unfair tactics in interrogation, and documents illegitimate behavior if and when it does occur. And a recording provides judges and juries with information about what took place in a more objective form.

Given this chorus of support, what’s not to like?

The short answer is that, according to recent research, interrogation recording may in fact be too vivid and persuasive. Even seemingly neutral recordings still require interpretation. As advertisers and Hollywood directors know well, camera angles, close-ups, lenses and dozens of other techniques shape our perception of what we see without our being aware of it.

In a series of experiments led by the psychologist G. Daniel Lassiter of Ohio University, mock juries were shown exactly the same interrogation, but some saw only the defendant, while others had a wider-angle view that included the interrogator. When the interrogator isn’t shown on camera, jurors are significantly less likely to find an interrogation coercive, and more likely to believe in the truth and accuracy of the confession that they hear — even when the interrogator explicitly threatens the defendant.

Professor Lassiter and other psychologists have consistently shown this “camera perspective bias” across a substantial series of experiments, finding in one study that even professionals like judges and police interrogators are not immune.

Experiments like these feed a larger concern: whether the police, prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges or jurors can actually tell the difference between true and false confessions, even with the more complete record of interactions that recorded interrogations provide.

We know that false confessions really do occur, even in very serious crimes, and probably more frequently than most people expect. But why? We know something about certain interrogation techniques, as well as defendant vulnerabilities like youth or mental disability, that may create heightened risks for false confessions. But we don’t yet know enough about the psychology of false confessions to be able to accurately “diagnose” the reliability of a given confession just by watching it. The problem is that many of the red flags that frequently occur in false confessions — like unusually long interrogations, the inclusion of inaccurate details, or the police “feeding” some crime-related information to the suspect — can also occur in the confessions of the guilty. This means there’s no surefire way to tell false confessions and true confessions apart by viewing a recording, except in extreme cases.

And yet by making confessions so vivid to juries, recording could paper over such complications, and sometimes even make the problem worse. The emotional impact of a suspect declaring his guilt out loud, on video, is powerful and hard to dislodge, even if the defense attorney points out reasons to doubt its accuracy.

This doesn’t mean that mandating recording of interrogations is a bad idea. Routine recording will serve to make them fairer and less coercive — and this might well help reduce the number of false confessions.

But we need to recognize that by itself, video recording cannot stop all the problems with interrogations, prevent false confessions or guarantee that we will spot them when they do occur.

We are still a long way from fully understanding why the innocent confess during interrogations, and why we believe them when they do — regardless of what we see on camera.

Jennifer L. Mnookin is a professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles.

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7) Poor Sanitation in India May Afflict Well-Fed Children With Malnutrition
By

SHEOHAR DISTRICT, India — He wore thick black eyeliner to ward off the evil eye, but Vivek, a tiny 1-year-old living in a village of mud huts and diminutive people, had nonetheless fallen victim to India’s great scourge of malnutrition.

His parents seemed to be doing all the right things. His mother still breast-fed him. His family had six goats, access to fresh buffalo milk and a hut filled with hundreds of pounds of wheat and potatoes. The economy of the state where he lives has for years grown faster than almost any other. His mother said she fed him as much as he would eat and took him four times to doctors, who diagnosed malnutrition. Just before Vivek was born in this green landscape of small plots and grazing water buffalo near the Nepali border, the family even got electricity.

So why was Vivek malnourished?It is a question being asked about children across India, where a long economic boom has done little to reduce the vast number of children who are malnourished and stunted, leaving them with mental and physical deficits that will haunt them their entire lives. Now, an emerging body of scientific studies suggest that Vivek and many of the 162 million children under the age of 5 in the world who are malnourished are suffering less a lack of food than poor sanitation.

Like almost everyone else in their village, Vivek’s family have no toilet, and the district where they live has the highest concentration of people who defecate outdoors. As a result, children are exposed to a bacterial brew that often sickens them, leaving them unable to attain a healthy body weight no matter how much food they eat.

“These children’s bodies divert energy and nutrients away from growth and brain development to prioritize infection-fighting survival,” said Jean Humphrey, a professor of human nutrition at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “When this happens during the first two years of life, children become stunted. What’s particularly disturbing is that the lost height and intelligence are permanent.”

Two years ago, Unicef, the World Health Organization and the World Bank released a major report on child malnutrition that focused entirely on a lack of food. Sanitation was not mentioned. Now, Unicef officials and those from other major charitable organizations said in interviews that they believe that poor sanitation may cause more than half of the world’s stunting problem.

“Our realization about the connection between stunting and sanitation is just emerging,” said Sue Coates, chief of water, sanitation and hygiene at Unicef India. “At this point, it is still just an hypothesis, but it is an incredibly exciting and important one because of its potential impact.”

This research has quietly swept through many of the world’s nutrition and donor organizations in part because it resolves a great mystery: Why are Indian children so much more malnourished than their poorer counterparts in sub-Saharan Africa?

A child raised in India is far more likely to be malnourished than one from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe or Somalia, the planet’s poorest countries. Stunting afflicts 65 million Indian children under the age of 5, including a third of children from the country’s richest families.

This disconnect between wealth and malnutrition is so striking that economists have concluded that economic growth does almost nothing to lessen malnutrition.

Half of India’s population, or at least 620 million people, expels waste outside. And while this share has declined slightly in the past decade, an analysis of census data shows that rapid population growth has meant that most Indians are being exposed to more human waste than ever before.

In Sheohar, for instance, a toilet-building program between 2001 and 2011 decreased the share of households without toilets to 80 percent from 87 percent, but population growth meant that exposure to human waste rose by half.

“The difference in average height between Indian and African children can be explained entirely by differing concentrations of open defecation,” said Dean Spears, an economist at the Delhi School of Economics. “There are far more people defecating outside in India more closely to one another’s children and homes than there are in Africa or anywhere else in the world.”

Not only does stunting contribute to the deaths of a million children under the age of 5 each year, but those who survive suffer cognitive deficits and are poorer and sicker than children not affected by stunting. They also may face increased risks for adult illnesses like diabetes, heart attacks and strokes.

“India’s stunting problem represents the largest loss of human potential in any country in history, and it affects 20 times more people in India alone than H.I.V./AIDS does around the world,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan, vice president for research and policy at the Public Health Foundation of India.

India is an increasingly risky place to raise children. The country’s sanitation and air quality are among the worst in the world. Parasitic diseases and infections like tuberculosis, often linked with poor sanitation, are most common in India. More than one in four newborn deaths occur in India.

Human waste surrounds parks and lines roads and train tracks. Women in rural areas wait until dark to relieve themselves outside, leaving them vulnerable to rape. In the darkness, some say they sometimes set down young children in others’ waste or step in it themselves.

Open defecation has long been an issue in India. Some ancient Hindu texts advised people to relieve themselves far from home, a practice that Mahatma Gandhi sought to curb.

“The cause of many of our diseases is the condition of our lavatories and our bad habit of disposing of excreta anywhere and everywhere,” Gandhi wrote in 1925.

Other developing countries have made huge strides in improving sanitation. Just 1 percent of Chinese and 3 percent of Bangladeshis relieve themselves outside compared with half of Indians. Attitudes may be just as important as access to toilets. Constructing and maintaining tens of millions of toilets in India would cost untold billions, a price many voters see no need to pay — a recent survey found that many people prefer going to the bathroom outside.

In half of Indian households with a working latrine, someone in the family defecates outdoors anyway — mostly men. And men make most spending decisions, so few rural households build the sort of inexpensive latrines that have all but eliminated outdoor waste in neighboring Bangladesh.

One analysis found that government spending on toilets pays for itself in increased tax receipts from greater productivity, but the math works only if every member of a family who gets a toilet uses it. Many government-built toilets are converted into sheds, frustrating top officials.

“We need a cultural revolution in this country to completely change people’s attitudes toward sanitation and hygiene,” said Jairam Ramesh, an economist and former sanitation minister.

India’s government has for decades tried to resolve the country’s stubborn malnutrition problems by distributing vast stores of subsidized food. But more and better food has largely failed to reverse early stunting, studies have repeatedly shown.

India now spends about $26 billion annually on food and jobs programs, and less than $400 million on improving sanitation — a ratio of more than 60 to 1.

“We need to reverse that ratio entirely,” Dr. Laxminarayan said.

Lack of food is still an important contributor to malnutrition for some children, and some researchers say the field’s sudden embrace of sanitation has been overdone. “In South Asia, a more important factor driving stunting is diet quality,” said Zulfiqar A. Bhutta, a director of the Center for Global Child Health at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.

Studies are underway in Bangladesh, Kenya and Zimbabwe to assess the share of stunting attributable to poor sanitation. “Is it 50 percent? Ninety percent? That’s a question worth answering,” said Dr. Stephen Luby, a professor of medicine at Stanford University who is overseeing a trial in Bangladesh that is expected to report its results in 2016. “In the meantime, I think we can all agree that it’s not a good idea to raise children surrounded by poop.”

Better sanitation in the West during the 19th and early 20th centuries led to huge improvements in health long before the advent of vaccines and antibiotics, and researchers have long known that childhood environments play a crucial role in child death and adult height.

The present research on gut diseases in children has focused on a condition resulting from repeated bacterial infections that flatten intestinal linings, reducing by a third the ability to absorb nutrients. A recent study of starving children found that they lacked the crucial gut bacteria needed to digest food.

In a little-discussed but surprising finding, Muslim children in India are 17 percent more likely to survive infancy than Hindus, even though Muslims are generally poorer and less educated. This enormous difference in infant mortality is explained by the fact that Muslims are far more likely to use latrines and live next to others also using latrines, a recent analysis found.

So widespread housing discrimination that confines many Muslims to separate slums may protect their children from increased exposure to the relatively higher levels of waste in Hindu communities and, as a result, save thousands of Indian Muslim babies from death each year.

Just building more toilets, however, may not be enough to save India’s children.

Phool Mati lives in a neighborhood in Varanasi with 12 public toilets, but her 1-year-old grandson, Sandeep, is nonetheless severely malnourished. His mother tries to feed him lentils, milk and other foods as often as she can, but Sandeep is rarely hungry because he is so often sick, Ms. Mati said.

“We all use the bathroom,” she said.

The effluent pipe that served the bathroom building is often clogged. Raw sewage seeps into an adjoining Hindu temple, and, during the monsoon season, it flooded the neighborhood’s homes. The matron of the toilet facility charges two rupees for each use, so most children relieve themselves directly into open drains that run along a central walkway.

No Indian city has a comprehensive waste treatment system, and most Indian rivers are open sewers as a result. But Varanasi, India’s oldest and holiest city, is so awash in human waste that its decrepit condition became a national issue in recent elections. The city’s sewage plants can handle only about 20 percent of the sewage generated in the city, said Ramesh Chopra of Ganga Seva Abhiyanam, a trust for cleaning the river. The rest sloshes into the Ganges or fetid ponds and pits.

Millions of pilgrims bathe in the Ganges along Varanasi’s ancient riverfront, but a stream of human waste — nearly 75 million liters per day — flows directly into the river just above the bathing ghats, steps leading down to the river. Many people wash or brush their teeth beside smaller sewage outlets. As few ghats have toilets, many monks and pilgrims relieve themselves while bathing.

Much of the city’s drinking water comes from the river, and half of Indian households drink from contaminated supplies. Many of Varanasi’s vegetable farms use river water for irrigation, potentially making the food hazardous if eaten uncooked as toxic E. coli can be impossible to wash away and can hide inside plant leaves.

“India’s problems are bigger than just open defecation and a lack of toilets,” said Dr. Laxminarayan.

Suhasini Raj contributed reporting.


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8) Companies That Offer Help With Student Loans Are Often Predatory, Officials Say
By and


Student loan debt hovers at more than $1 trillion, a threefold surge from a decade ago, and a record number of college students who graduated as the financial system nearly imploded have an average debt load of more than $20,000.

More than half of recent graduates are unemployed. And if they do have a job, it is probably a low-paying one that does not require that expensive college degree. Some Americans, including baby boomers whose savings were devastated by the financial crisis, are still struggling to pay off their student loans well into their 50s.

For the debt settlement industry, all this means a tantalizing gold mine of new customers.

“Your entire student loan can be forgiven,” Broadsword Student Advantage of Carrollton, Tex., boasts in radio ads.

Debt settlement companies, which offer to help borrowers lower their monthly loan payments for a hefty upfront fee, have long been fraught with problems. But federal and state regulators are spotting new instances of abuse as the companies shift away from their traditional targets — credit card and mortgage debt — to zero in on student loans. The companies are coming under fire for potentially questionable tactics.

On Monday, Illinois is expected to become the first state to bring legal action against debt settlement companies in connection with their student loan practices, contending in two separate lawsuits that Broadsword Student Advantage and First American Tax Defense duped vulnerable borrowers into paying for help that never arrived.

In her suit against the companies and their operators, Lisa Madigan, the Illinois attorney general, contends that the businesses lured borrowers into paying hundreds of dollars upfront, and in the case of Broadsword, $49.99 a month after that, according to copies of the lawsuits reviewed by The New York Times. The companies often misled customers about those fees, according to the suits, and in some instances feigned affiliation with federal relief programs.

In a particularly cruel twist, Ms. Madigan said, the companies sometimes charged customers for debt assistance that they could have received free from the Education Department.

“It’s just, unfortunately, the latest scam on the largest group of people who are struggling with the most debt,” Ms. Madigan said in an interview last week, noting that her office had been inundated with complaints about the debt settlement companies in the last year alone.

Representatives of both companies could not be reached for comment.

Even before the Illinois action on Monday, borrowers across the nation had lodged hundreds of thousands of complaints with the Federal Trade Commission about debt settlement and debt collection companies. As the industry has ballooned, so too have the complaints of misleading or outright abusive tactics. In 2013, for example, the number of complaints about the tactics reached 204,644, up about 10 percent from two years earlier. The agency has sued several of what it calls bogus credit-related services that charged distressed borrowers hundreds or thousands of dollars, sometimes without their permission.

The allure of the student debt relief companies reflects a growing crisis, regulators say, as students take on more debt that they simply cannot repay. The signs of strain are clear. Of the $1.2 trillion dollars in outstanding student loan debt in the United States, an estimated seven million Americans have already defaulted on a total of $100 billion, with tens of thousands more borrowers defaulting each month, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Debt settlement companies gained steam in the aftermath of the mortgage crisis, when millions of American homeowners were left owing far more than their homes were worth. The companies focused desperate homeowners and promised to help them avert foreclosure, according to interviews with state and federal regulators.

In a typical arrangement, borrowers are told to send their mortgage payments to debt settlement companies instead of to lenders. By withholding payments, the companies promise, the borrowers will coax the lenders into settling for less.

The problem, the officials say, is that those promises rarely come through. Not only do most consumers end up with huge debts, but they also severely damage their credit in the process.

Now the debt settlement companies are quickly repositioning themselves to appeal to people struggling with student loan debt, according to interviews with lawyers and regulators.

“I think these reports from borrowers about some of these companies remind us of some of the worst practices in the wake of the meltdown in the mortgage market,” said Rohit Chopra, the student loan ombudsman for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

In July, the bureau, which has taken enforcement actions against a number of debt settlement companies, issued a specific warning about companies that claim to help with student loan debt.

In Illinois, where the companies blanketed airwaves with the advertisements, the sheer volume of pitches alarmed the attorney general.

“Once you see posters, something is wrong,” Ms. Madigan said.

The companies, Ms. Madigan said, aggressively courted teachers, police officers, firefighters and nurses — groups that in lean economic times are particularly vulnerable.

The advertising extended to the services First American offered, including something called the Obama Forgiveness Program that was supposedly recently approved by Congress. The Education Department does not offer such a program.

According to the complaint, First American, which is based in Chicago, even pretended to be affiliated with the department and pressed borrowers to make upfront payments by phone, a violation of state law that prohibits debt settlement companies from doing so.

The so-called Obama Forgiveness Program enticed Rick Cibelli, a 48-year-old caregiver from Peoria, Ill., to call First American last year. He had borrowed $10,000 to earn his paralegal certificate and had trouble affording the $60 monthly payments, which covered only the interest on what he owed.

He paid $175 by phone to the company, which said it had ties to the Education Department.

“I was suspicious,” Mr. Cibelli said. He called the department and learned that no such affiliation existed. “I immediately called my bank and had them give the charge back.”

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9) Outspoken Immigrant Advocate, Also Undocumented, Is Held in Texas
By

McALLEN, Tex. — Jose Antonio Vargas, an undocumented Filipino immigrant who is arguably the most high-profile leader of the immigrants’ rights movement, was detained Tuesday morning at a Border Patrol checkpoint in the airport here before he could board a flight to Houston.

He was handcuffed and taken for processing to the McAllen Border Patrol station, which has been teeming in recent weeks with undocumented immigrants from Central America, part of a wave of migrants who have been streaming over the border.Mr. Vargas, a Pulitzer-winning journalist, came last week to McAllen, a city just a few miles north of the border with Mexico, for a news conference and vigil organized by United We Dream, an undocumented youth organization, outside a shelter downtown for recently released Central American migrants. On his Twitter feed, Mr. Vargas said he did not realize until he was here that he would have to cross through a Customs and Border Protection checkpoint to leave the Rio Grande Valley.

His apprehension poses a dilemma for the Obama administration, which will now have to decide how to handle his case at a time when the border situation has made all decisions about immigration high profile and politically fraught.

Mr. Vargas travels on a valid Filipino passport, but it has no current United States visa in it.

A blurry photograph sent by a spokesman showed Mr. Vargas in McAllen airport as a Border Patrol agent handcuffed him.

In an interview Sunday, Mr. Vargas said he had flown to many events around the country in recent months where he showed a documentary film he produced, “Documented,” about his life as an undocumented immigrant. He had not been stopped at airport checkpoints because Transportation Security Administration officials checked his passport but not his immigration status.

“I didn’t even think twice about it,” when he accepted the invitation to join the news conference, Mr. Vargas said. When he realized that he was effectively trapped, he said, “No, this can’t be for real.” He wrote about his limbo in McAllen for Politico Magazine last week.

Because of McAllen’s proximity to the border, all airports and roadways in this region have Border Patrol checkpoints.

Mr. Vargas has lived in the United States without papers since he was 12. He was formerly a reporter for The Washington Post, where he was part of a team that won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage in 2008. He announced his undocumented status in an article in The New York Times Magazine in 2011.
 

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10) Our Bees, Ourselves
Bees and Colony Collapse
By MARK WINSTON

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — AROUND the world, honeybee colonies are dying in huge numbers: About one-third of hives collapse each year, a pattern going back a decade. For bees and the plants they pollinate — as well as for beekeepers, farmers, honey lovers and everyone else who appreciates this marvelous social insect — this is a catastrophe.

But in the midst of crisis can come learning. Honeybee collapse has much to teach us about how humans can avoid a similar fate, brought on by the increasingly severe environmental perturbations that challenge modern society.

Honeybee collapse has been particularly vexing because there is no one cause, but rather a thousand little cuts. The main elements include the compounding impact of pesticides applied to fields, as well as pesticides applied directly into hives to control mites; fungal, bacterial and viral pests and diseases; nutritional deficiencies caused by vast acreages of single-crop fields that lack diverse flowering plants; and, in the United States, commercial beekeeping itself, which disrupts colonies by moving most bees around the country multiple times each year to pollinate crops.

The real issue, though, is not the volume of problems, but the interactions among them. Here we find a core lesson from the bees that we ignore at our peril: the concept of synergy, where one plus one equals three, or four, or more. A typical honeybee colony contains residue from more than 120 pesticides. Alone, each represents a benign dose. But together they form a toxic soup of chemicals whose interplay can substantially reduce the effectiveness of bees’ immune systems, making them more susceptible to diseases.

These findings provide the most sophisticated data set available for any species about synergies among pesticides, and between pesticides and disease. The only human equivalent is research into pharmaceutical interactions, with many prescription drugs showing harmful or fatal side effects when used together, particularly in patients who already are disease-compromised. Pesticides have medical impacts as potent as pharmaceuticals do, yet we know virtually nothing about their synergistic impacts on our health, or their interplay with human diseases.

Observing the tumultuous demise of honeybees should alert us that our own well-being might be similarly threatened. The honeybee is a remarkably resilient species that has thrived for 40 million years, and the widespread collapse of so many colonies presents a clear message: We must demand that our regulatory authorities require studies on how exposure to low dosages of combined chemicals may affect human health before approving compounds.

Bees also provide some clues to how we may build a more collaborative relationship with the services that ecosystems can provide. Beyond honeybees, there are thousands of wild bee species that could offer some of the pollination service needed for agriculture. Yet feral bees — that is, bees not kept by beekeepers — also are threatened by factors similar to those afflicting honeybees: heavy pesticide use, destruction of nesting sites by overly intensive agriculture and a lack of diverse nectar and pollen sources thanks to highly effective weed killers, which decimate the unmanaged plants that bees depend on for nutrition.

Recently, my laboratory at Simon Fraser University conducted a study on farms that produce canola oil that illustrated the profound value of wild bees. We discovered that crop yields, and thus profits, are maximized if considerable acreages of cropland are left uncultivated to support wild pollinators. A variety of wild plants means a healthier, more diverse bee population, which will then move to the planted fields next door in larger and more active numbers. Indeed, farmers who planted their entire field would earn about $27,000 in profit per farm, whereas those who left a third unplanted for bees to nest and forage in would earn $65,000 on a farm of similar size.

Such logic goes against conventional wisdom that fields and bees alike can be uniformly micromanaged. The current challenges faced by managed honeybees and wild bees remind us that we can manage too much. Excessive cultivation, chemical use and habitat destruction eventually destroy the very organisms that could be our partners.

And this insight goes beyond mere agricultural economics. There is a lesson in the decline of bees about how to respond to the most fundamental challenges facing contemporary human societies. We can best meet our own needs if we maintain a balance with nature — a balance that is as important to our health and prosperity as it is to the bees.


Mark Winston, a biologist and the director of the Center for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University, is the author of the forthcoming book “Bee Time: Lessons From the Hive.”

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11) Israel Tells 100,000 Gazans to Flee; Both Sides Press Attacks
"A Human Rights Watch report released on Wednesday cited United Nations data showing that, as of Monday, more than three-quarters of the Palestinians killed were civilians, including 36 children, and that approximately 7,500 people had been displaced by the destruction of 1,255 homes. The Human Rights Watch report investigated four Israeli strikes – on the Fun Time Beach cafe in the southern city of Khan Younis; on a car carrying municipal workers in the Bureij refugee camp; and two on homes where victims included a pregnant woman and small children."
By and

JERUSALEM — Israel’s missile defense system intercepted four rockets over the Tel Aviv area on Wednesday morning, after the military bombed the homes of several political leaders of the militant Islamic movement Hamas overnight and warned 100,000 residents of the Gaza Strip to evacuate their homes by 8 a.m. ahead of more airstrikes.

The warnings, distributed by leaflets, automated telephone calls and text messages, were the broadest yet and advised people in northern towns as well as some neighborhoods of Gaza City to head south. “The I.D.F. does not want to harm you, and your families,” the leaflets said, using the abbreviation for the Israel Defense Forces. “Whoever disregards these instructions and fails to evacuate immediately endangers their own lives, as well as those of their families,” the warning added.Israel said it had struck 39 targets in Gaza overnight. Witnesses in Gaza said that a new, five-story headquarters of the Interior Ministry was reduced to rubble and that the strikes had also hit the homes of Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior Hamas leader; Fathi Hamad, the movement’s former interior minister; Ismail al-Ashqar, a member of the defunct Parliament; and Bassem Naim, an adviser to the former prime minister of Gaza, Ismail Haniya.

“They are key players in the decision-making of Hamas’s terrorist machine,” Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a military spokesman, said in an interview.

The renewed assault followed a six-hour pause on Tuesday after Israel briefly accepted an Egyptian proposal to halt the hostilities that began July 7. Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza ignored or rejected the cease-fire initiative and launched more than 125 rockets throughout Israel all day and night.

The Palestinian death toll reached 201 on Wednesday, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, after a strike on a car in the southern town of Khan Younis killed three. At least eight people were killed overnight, among them a 5-year-old girl who fell from a high spot. A funeral was set for Wednesday afternoon for Dror Khenin, 37, the first Israeli to die in the nine-day conflict. A mortar shell killed him Tuesday night while he was distributing food to soldiers near a border crossing into Gaza.

“I call for securing the safety of the citizens of Israel,” said the Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, Israeli radio reported. “To the best of my understanding, it is not possible to ensure summer vacation, a normal summer for our kids without a ground operation in Gaza”

“We don’t need to rule Gaza, or build settlements in Gaza,” he added. “We need to ensure that all Hamas terrorists run away, are imprisoned or will die.”

Shortly after Mr. Lieberman made his statement, he was forced to seek shelter while meeting with his Norwegian counterpart, Borge Brende, in the city of Ashkelon, according to Ynet, an online Israeli news outlet. After sirens sounded, Ynet reported, a rocket exploded nearby.

The current escalation followed rising tension related to the June 12 abduction and killing of three Israeli teenagers who were hitchhiking home from their schools in the occupied West Bank — Israel blamed Hamas for their deaths — and the July 2 kidnapping and killing of a 16-year-old Palestinian in East Jerusalem, which the Israeli authorities say was a revenge attack by extremist Jews.

President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, whose April reconciliation with Hamas helped lead to the collapse of American-brokered peace talks with Israel, was scheduled to meet on Wednesday with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt regarding the proposed cease-fire. Mr. Abbas planned to travel to Turkey for similar talks on Friday.

It was unclear how many Gazans were heeding the Israeli military’s call for evacuations; Hamas has urged people to stay put, calling the warnings “psychological warfare.” In the densely populated and poor neighborhoods of Zeitoun and Shejaya in Gaza City, many people appeared confused, with some seeking shelter in friends’ homes deeper inside the neighborhoods rather than leaving.

“We don’t know where we’re going, we’re going aimlessly,” said Mohammed Dalul, who was driving a donkey cart with his six children and an elderly neighbor. They carried only a canister of cooking gas and a single bag of clothes for the children. “Nobody is looking after us,” said the neighbor, Naziha Rukhneh.

The streets were emptier than normal, but a few children flew kites and some men sat in the shade. Around noon, eight rockets were launched simultaneously from nearby; a few minutes later, the sound of a warplane was followed by that of a bomb dropping.

Ahmed Salim said that he had ignored the general evacuation warning, though he had heeded a personalized one three days ago when it was sent to his brother’s cellphone; a strike hit the house 10 minutes later, said Mr. Salim, who is now staying with a neighbor.

“All of it, the four stories, are flattened,” he said. “All I have is the clothes I am wearing.”

A Human Rights Watch report released on Wednesday cited United Nations data showing that, as of Monday, more than three-quarters of the Palestinians killed were civilians, including 36 children, and that approximately 7,500 people had been displaced by the destruction of 1,255 homes. The Human Rights Watch report investigated four Israeli strikes – on the Fun Time Beach cafe in the southern city of Khan Younis; on a car carrying municipal workers in the Bureij refugee camp; and two on homes where victims included a pregnant woman and small children.

“Israel’s rhetoric is all about precision attacks, but attacks with no military target and many civilian deaths can hardly be considered precise,” Sarah Leah Whitson, the Middle East director of Human Rights Watch, said in the report. “Recent documented cases in Gaza sadly fit Israel’s long record of unlawful airstrikes with high civilian casualties.”

The report also criticized Israel’s tactic of warning residents to evacuate, saying it “does not make an otherwise unlawful attack lawful.”

Asked about the report, Colonel Lerner said Human Rights Watch was “ignoring the fact that Hamas is deeply embedded in an underground Gaza Strip,” referring to tunnels that he said were used to launch rockets. He said more than half the targets of the current operation had been concealed rocket launchers.

Jodi Rudoren reported from Jerusalem, and Anne Barnard from Gaza. Isabel Kershner contributed reporting from Jerusalem, and Fares Akram from Gaza.


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12) Documents Show General Motors Kept Silent on Fatal Crashes
By REBECCA R. RUIZ and DANIELLE IVORY

The car crash that killed Gene Erickson caught the attention of federal regulators. Why did the Saturn Ion he was traveling in, along a rural Texas road, suddenly swerve into a tree? Why did the air bags fail? General Motors told federal authorities that it could not provide answers.

But only a month earlier, a G.M. engineer had concluded in an internal evaluation that the Ion had most likely lost power, disabling its air bags, according to a subsequent internal investigation commissioned by G.M.

Now, G.M.'s response, as well as its replies to queries in other crashes obtained by The New York Times from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, casts doubt on how forthright the automaker was with regulators over a defective ignition switch that G.M. has linked to at least 13 deaths over the last decade.They provide details for the first time on the issue at the heart of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department: whether G.M., in its interaction with safety regulators, obscured a deadly defect that would also injure perhaps hundreds of people.

The company repeatedly found a way not to answer the simple question from regulators of what led to a crash. In at least three cases of fatal crashes, including the accident that killed Mr. Erickson, G.M. said that it had not assessed the cause. In another fatal crash, G.M. said that attorney-client privilege may have prevented it from answering. And in other cases, the automaker was more blunt, writing, “G.M. opts not to respond.” The responses came even though G.M. had for years been aware of sudden power loss in the models involved in the accidents.

The responses are found in documents known as “death inquiries,” which The Times obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. In those inquiries, regulators ask automakers to explain the circumstances surrounding a crash to help identify potential defects in cars.

On Thursday, the head of G.M.'s legal department, Michael P. Millikin, is expected to face intense scrutiny before lawmakers at a Senate hearing. He is scheduled to testify along with, among others, Mary T. Barra, the chief executive, who faced a harsh grilling before the same panel in April.

The Times asked the safety agency for death inquiries related to fatal crashes in older Chevrolet Cobalts and Saturn Ions, which are among the 2.6 million cars with defective ignition switches that G.M. has recalled since February. Of the 13 deaths linked to the defect, all of which involved Cobalts and Ions, The Times received inquiries for four of them.

Mr. Erickson was riding in the front seat of a Saturn Ion driven by Candice Anderson in 2004. They were an hour from Dallas when the car suddenly drove into a tree, killing Mr. Erickson but sparing Ms. Anderson. Only recently did Ms. Anderson, who pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide after the accident because she had a trace of Xanax in her system, learn that she was not to blame.

Despite the earlier determination by the engineer, Manuel Peace, that the engine’s shutting off had most likely been the reason for the crash, G.M., in its response to regulators, said there may not have been “sufficient reliable information to accurately assess the cause” of the incident.

G.M., which also faced a lawsuit from Mr. Erickson’s family at the time, further stated that attorney-client privilege may have been a reason it could not make disclosures.

Ultimately, G.M. said it had not assessed the cause of the accident.

“It seems inconsistent,” said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, who specializes in product liability. “It seems like the company knew that the accident was attributable to power loss. It does sound like they didn’t give N.H.T.S.A. everything they should have. That could make them vulnerable to the Justice Department’s investigation.”

When asked about G.M.'s responses to the government’s death inquiries, James Cain, a spokesman, said on Tuesday: “We are confronting our problems openly and directly. We are taking responsibility for what has happened and making significant changes across our company to make sure that it never happens again.”

In a later death inquiry, G.M. chose not to say whether it had looked into the circumstances of the December 2009 crash in Tennessee that killed Seyde Chansuthus, who is also counted among the 13 victims. G.M. added in its response that any privileged material related to the case would not be shared. The company had not been sued by Ms. Chansuthus’s family at the time.

But there had already been a thorough review of Ms. Chansuthus’s accident within G.M.

Six days before that letter to regulators, lawyers representing G.M. had presented an evaluation of the crash to the automaker, according to the internal investigation conducted by G.M. this year. The lawyers warned that G.M. could be liable for punitive damages because air bags in Cobalts were known not to deploy in some cases.

In a third fatal crash, involving the deaths of Amy Rademaker and Natasha Weigel, teenage friends killed in Wisconsin in 2006, G.M. again responded that it could not provide an answer to what caused the accident, using the same language as in its reply to questions about Mr. Erickson’s crash.

In this case, G.M. had received outside evidence that there was a problem with the switch, including a state trooper’s collision report from February 2007 that made the critical link between the faulty ignition switch and the air bags failing to deploy. G.M.'s internal investigation said that only one person inside G.M. had even opened the report, though it was included in the reply to regulators, who also failed to follow through. One of the requirements on the death inquiry is to provide a copy of the police report.

When asked for comment, David Friedman, the safety agency’s acting administrator, said, “G.M.'s decision-making, structure, process and corporate culture stood in the way of safety.”

G.M.'s reluctance to respond to the government with evaluations of suspicious crashes extended beyond just the accidents that the automaker has publicly linked to its ignition defect.

Several fatal crashes — including those of Benjamin Hair, 20, in Virginia, and Amy Kosilla, 23, in New York — also had death inquiries. In both those cases, when asked to explain why the vehicles had driven straight off the road — with front impacts and no air bag deployment — the automaker took advantage of the optional nature of the question and did not reply. Death inquiries date back to the late 1990s, when the safety agency was criticized for failing to spot highway rollovers in Ford Explorers with Firestone tires, a problem eventually tied to 271 deaths.

In response, Congress passed a law in 2000 requiring automakers to report to regulators any claims they received blaming defects for injuries or deaths, so the government would not have to rely only on consumer reports. The agency also has the ability to dig deeper into any of those claims by then doing a death inquiry — asking the automaker for documentation of each car accident and an assessment of the circumstances leading to each crash.

In the end, both G.M. and those charged with overseeing the company fell short in protecting the public, Mr. Tobias, the law professor, said. “It’s discouraging to see that both the company was not being as straightforward as it might have been,” he said, “and that N.H.T.S.A. was not being as rigorous about these inquiries that it should have been.”




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13) A Push to Give Steadier Shifts to Part-Timers
By

As more workers find their lives upended and their paychecks reduced by ever-changing, on-call schedules, government officials are trying to put limits on the harshest of those scheduling practices.

The actions reflect a growing national movement — fueled by women’s and labor groups — to curb practices that affect millions of families, like assigning just one or two days of work a week or requiring employees to work unpredictable hours that wreak havoc with everyday routines like college and child care.

The recent, rapid spread of on-call employment to retail and other sectors has prompted proposals that would require companies to pay employees extra for on-call work and to give two weeks’ notice of a work schedule.

Vermont and San Francisco have adopted laws giving workers the right to request flexible or predictable schedules to make it easier to take care of children or aging parents. Scott M. Stringer, the New York City comptroller, is pressing the City Council to take up such legislation. And last month, President Obama ordered federal agencies to give the “right to request” to two million federal workers.

The new laws and proposals generally require an employer to discuss a new employee’s situation and to consider scheduling requests, but they do not require companies to accommodate individual schedules. Many businesses have opposed these measures, arguing that they represent improper government intrusion into private operations.

In a referendum last year, voters in SeaTac, Wash. — the community near Seattle that also passed the nation’s highest minimum wage, $15 an hour for some workers — approved a measure that bars employers from hiring additional part-time workers if any of their existing part-timers want more hours. The move was a response to complaints from workers that they were not scheduled for enough hours to support their families. Some San Francisco lawmakers are seeking to enact a similar regulation.

Representative George Miller of California, the senior Democrat on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, plans to introduce legislation this summer that would require companies to pay their employees for an extra hour if they were summoned to work with less than 24 hours’ notice. He is also proposing a guarantee of four hours’ pay on days when employees are sent home after just a few hours — something that happens in many restaurants and retailers when customer traffic is slow.

That happened to Mary Coleman. After an hourlong bus commute, she arrived at her job at a Popeyes in Milwaukee only to have her boss order her to go home without clocking in — even though she was scheduled to work. She was not paid for the day.

“It’s becoming more and more common to put employees in a very uncertain and tenuous position with respect to their schedules, and that ricochets if workers have families or other commitments,” Mr. Miller said. “The employer community always says it abhors uncertainty and unpredictability, but they are creating an employment situation that has huge uncertainty and unpredictability for millions of Americans.”

While Mr. Miller acknowledges that his bill is unlikely to be enacted anytime soon — partly because of opposition from business (and a Republican-controlled House), he said the bill would bring attention to what he called often callous scheduling practices. His bill, similar to one in the Senate sponsored by Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania, has a “right to request” provision that would bar employers from denying requests from workers with caregiving or school-related conflicts unless they had a “bona fide” business reason.

Corporate groups protest that such measures undercut efficiency and profits. “The hyper-regulation of the workplace by government isn’t conducive to a positive business climate,” said Scott DeFife, an executive vice president of the National Restaurant Association. “The more complications that government creates for operating a business, the less likely we’ll see a positive business environment that’s good for the economy and increasing jobs.”

Mr. DeFife pointed out that the daily ebb and flow of customers necessitated flexibility in scheduling.

David French, a senior vice president of the National Retail Federation, said many people chose careers in retail because of the flexible work hours.

“These proposals may sound reasonable, but if you unpack them, they could be very harmful,” Mr. French said. “Where employers and employees now work together to solve scheduling problems, you’ll have a very bureaucratic environment where rigid rules would be introduced.”

While many of these workers are not unionized, the labor movement has often battled against part-time work and ever-changing schedules. But as unions have grown weaker, employers have felt freer to employ part-timers and use more volatile scheduling. Unions still push for workers to get more hours — and those pressures are one reason Macy’s and Walmart have adopted programs letting employees claim additional, available shifts by going onto their employers’ websites.

In a climate where many retailers, restaurants and other businesses are still struggling after the recession, economists point to the increased uncertainty faced by employees. About 27.4 million Americans work part time. The number of those part-timers who would prefer to work full time has nearly doubled since 2007, to 7.5 million. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, 47 percent of part-time hourly workers ages 26 to 32 receive a week or less of advance notice for their schedule.

In a study of the data, two University of Chicago professors found that employers dictated the work schedules for about half of young adults, without their input. For part-time workers, schedules on average fluctuated from 17 to 28 hours a week.

“Frontline managers face pressure to keep costs down, but they really don’t have much control over wages or benefits,” said Susan J. Lambert, a University of Chicago professor who interpreted the data. “What they have control over is employee hours.”

Ms. Lambert said flexible, not rigid or unpredictable, hours would become as important an issue as paid family leave. “The issue of scheduling is going to be the next big effort on improving labor standards,” she said. “To reduce unpredictability is important to keep women engaged in the labor force.”David Chiu, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, has created a business-labor group that is trying to find the middle ground.

“We’ve learned that predictability in hours is important not just to help workers juggle their lives, but for economic security — to help workers take a second job to live in expensive cities like San Francisco or New York,” Mr. Chiu said. “We’re confident that we can move forward with policies that work for workers as well as business’s bottom line.”

Sharlene Santos says her part-time schedule at a Zara clothing store in Manhattan — ranging from 16 to 24 hours a week — is not enough. “Making $220 a week, that’s not enough to live on — it’s not realistic,” she said.

After Ms. Santos and four other Zara workers recently wrote to the company, protesting that they were given too few hours and received just two days’ notice for their schedule, the company promised to start giving them two weeks’ advance notice.

Fatimah Muhammad said that at the Joe Fresh clothing store where she works in Manhattan, some weeks she was scheduled to work just one day but was on call for four days — meaning she had to call the store each morning to see whether it needed her to work that day.

“I felt kind of stuck. I couldn’t make plans,” said Ms. Muhammad, who said she was now assigned 25 hours a week.

A national campaign — the Fair Workweek Initiative — is pushing for legislation to restrict these practices in places including Milwaukee, New York and Santa Clara, Calif. The effort includes the National Women’s Law Center, the United Food and Commercial Workers union and the Retail Action Project, a New York workers’ group.

“Too many workers are working either too many or too few hours in an economy that expects us to be available 24/7,” said Carrie Gleason, director of the Fair Workweek Initiative and an organizer at the Center for Popular Democracy, a national advocacy group. “It’s gotten to the point where workers, especially women workers, are saying, ‘We need a voice in how much and when we work.' ”




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14) Gazans, Desiring Deep Change, Are Ambivalent on Egypt Cease-Fire Plan
By

GAZA CITY — Maher al-Jarba, 2, one of the first casualties in the Gaza Strip when Israel resumed airstrikes after a six-hour pause on Tuesday, writhed in terror in an emergency-room bed as a nurse poked a needle into his hand. A blast had knocked the curly haired boy down 11 stone steps, fracturing his skull.

So his grandmother Wedad al-Jarba might have been angry that Hamas, the militant group that dominates the Gaza Strip, did not embrace the cease-fire proposed by Egypt, and kept firing rockets as Israel briefly held its fire. Instead, she shrugged. Like many Gazans interviewed, she said she longed for a deal — one that would change life in Gaza. But she doubted Egypt’s proposal would do that.

“Every time, they have a cease-fire, but then everything comes back: the siege, the closures,” she said. “Then they bomb again.”That ambivalence is widespread in the strip, a narrow, 25-mile-long Palestinian enclave sandwiched between Israel, Egypt and the sea. It may help explain why a beleaguered Hamas kept firing even after Israeli officials declared that such a decision would justify further escalation.

Israel occupied Gaza during the 1967 Six-Day War and controls its borders, airspace and seas even now, nearly nine years after pulling out its settlers and troops. Since then, tough restrictions have effectively amounted to a blockade, reducing imports and exports to a trickle and preventing all but a few Gazans from leaving. Short but devastating wars deepen the misery.

Many Gazans say they are torn between desperately wanting an end to the current round of bombings, which have killed nearly 200 Palestinians here, including almost 40 children, and a growing conviction that they cannot return to the way things once were. Even Hamas’s many opponents here generally support its demands that Israel release prisoners, and along with Egypt, lift border restrictions that have gutted a weak economy.

“Everyone wants it to stop,” said Dr. Ayman al-Sahbani, the emergency room chief at Al-Shifa Hospital here. “Who would want to be bombed?”

Seeking to explain the Gazan problem, he listed the hospital supplies lacking because of import restrictions, even at Shifa, which at least could provide the CT scan that Maher needed that he could not get at another hospital closer to home. But then the doctor interrupted himself. The issue was not material goods, he said — it was freedoms most people take for granted.

Sometimes, he said, he thinks that Israel and the world simply do not understand what it is like for Gazans, by and large, to be unable to leave what many call an open-air prison.

“Do they not know, or is it that their people are people and ours are not?” he said, adding that he cannot go to medical conferences and his wife, a Ukrainian, has not gone home for years for fear she would not be allowed to return.

Under a date palm at the Batoon cafe Tuesday night, three old friends described how they spent their precious six hours without airstrikes — shopping and visiting adult children they had not seen during a week spent indoors huddling.

The friends concluded that Hamas could not commit to a cease-fire accord put forth without its participation and one that did not reflect Palestinian aspirations. “We have the right to defend ourselves against occupation,” said one, Radwan Abu Haseera, 36, a management professor.

Another, giving only a nickname, Abu Anas, 45, said he was surprised Hamas did not pause its attacks. Many Gazans oppose Hamas but are powerless against its arms, he said, and while differences are forgotten under Israeli fire, people want change and peace, even if it means compromise.

“The people here look steadfast,” he said, “but psychologically they are very tired.” His 2-year-old daughter, he said, “looks at the sky and thinks the clouds are smoke from rockets.”

“She looks at the stars,” he said, “and she thinks they are airplanes.”

Yet Hamas supporters viewed the cease-fire proposal with deep suspicion. Earlier, when officials from the Palestinian Authority, which embraced the deal, visited the hospital, Hamas security officers and supporters threw shoes them. Then they cheered as a rocket ripped skyward.

“Ya Qassam, ya habib,” they chanted, referring with a term of endearment to the Hamas militant brigades that fire the rockets. “Strike, strike Tel Aviv.”


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15) Witnesses Testify Against Ex-Blackwater Colleagues in Case of 2007 Iraq Killings
By MATT APUZZO

WASHINGTON — As a line of Blackwater armored trucks pushed through heavy traffic away from the smoking wreckage of Nisour Square in Baghdad one day in 2007, a turret gunner waved his arms, telling nearby Iraqis to get down. He was warning them about the threat of his own American convoy.

“At this point, my teammate’s been firing wildly, and I don’t want these kids to get shot,” the gunner, Matthew Murphy, recalled recently. “And I don’t want anybody else to get shot.”

For years, Iraqis have described running for cover, praying and watching family members die in the Nisour Square shooting. Now, in court testimony that continues this week, former Blackwater employees have offered the first public accounts of what it was like inside the security company’s trucks that day.In a courtroom at a federal courthouse here, the men confronted their onetime colleagues standing trial for a shooting that left 17 Iraqis dead. Their testimony recalled images from the Iraq war’s nadir, when Blackwater’s highly paid contractors guarded American diplomats as they tried to forge a lasting peace.

Almost immediately, the Nisour Square shootings shattered the camaraderie of the team, men who had shared lousy food and tight quarters, who had trusted one another with their lives each day and played video games and poker together at night. Each defendant stood, expressionless, as a former colleague, Adam Frost, identified them in court on Monday.

“We’ve been in firefights before,” said Mr. Frost, a former Army Special Forces member and Blackwater contractor. “This one just felt different.”

It unfolded on Sept. 16, 2007, after a car bomb exploded. As one Blackwater team raced back to the safety of the Green Zone, a second convoy known as Raven 23 moved into Nisour Square to stop traffic and provide the first team a path. The shooting began soon after the Raven 23 trucks arrived. Prosecutors say Blackwater fired unprovoked.

“I saw people huddled down in their cars, trying to shield their children with their bodies,” Mr. Frost said Monday.

On Tuesday, a third Blackwater guard, Mark Mealy, identified several of his former colleagues who he said had fired. He said one teammate — he could not say who — shot an unarmed Iraqi who was holding up his hands. “And he just fell straight backward,” Mr. Mealy said.

The contractors standing trial said they were caught in a firefight and feared for their safety. They said the team leader called out, “Contact, contact,” over the radio, indicating combat with an enemy. Another colleague radioed that an Iraqi police officer was shooting at the convoy, Mr. Frost testified.

When Mr. Murphy testified this month, prosecutors asked time and again whether he had seen a danger that warranted a Blackwater attack with machine guns and grenades.

“Did he appear to be a threat to you?”

“Did you see any threats to the Raven 23 convoy?”

“Did you see any men with AK-47s around that area?”

“Do you see any armed men at all?”

Each time, Mr. Murphy said no.

Over all, however, the Blackwater testimony provided mixed results for prosecutors. Mr. Murphy said he heard AK-47 gunfire, though he never saw anyone firing on the convoy. Mr. Frost said he was certain the convoy was under fire. And he said his teammates responded appropriately to the day’s first target, a white sedan, which he said could have contained a bomb.

Defense lawyers say the Blackwater guards were on edge during one of the war’s most dangerous periods. Through cross-examination of Mr. Murphy and Mr. Frost, the lawyers conveyed the war’s terror. Both men spoke of seeing possible danger everywhere. Mr. Frost recalled Iraqis — civilians and police officers alike — plotting against Americans. He told jurors that, when he arrived in Iraq with the Army in 2003, Iraqis greeted and cheered.

“We were like celebrities; everybody loved us,” he said. “I went back in 2007, and everybody hated us.”

The Blackwater guards standing trial are Dustin L. Heard, Evan S. Liberty, Nicholas A. Slatten and Paul A. Slough. All face manslaughter charges except Mr. Slatten, who was charged with murder after prosecutors missed a deadline and let the statute of limitations for manslaughter expire.

A fifth guard, Jeremy P. Ridgeway, has pleaded guilty to manslaughter and is expected to testify later. Much of the most damning testimony so far has been directed toward Mr. Ridgeway, and in a case with witnesses disagreeing over who shot whom, defense lawyers are eager to portray him as Blackwater’s villain.

Mr. Murphy said he was furious when the convoy returned to the Green Zone. “I’ve seen people completely unarmed, people doing nothing wrong, get shot,” he said. He called it “the most horrible, botched thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Mr. Frost said he knew immediately that the shooting would erupt into an international episode. He and a few others met the next day and shared concerns about what had happened. Soon, Mr. Frost said, he began to get dirty looks and nasty comments from colleagues.

The team leader, Mr. Frost said, did not share the concerns. “He basically said, if we had problems with what happened out there, maybe we were the ones with the problem,” Mr. Frost recalled. “And maybe we needed to find new lines of work.”

The divisiveness did not last long. “They fired me,” he said.


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16) Medicaid Home Care Cuts Are Unjust, Lawsuit Says
By

A federal class action lawsuit filed late Tuesday accuses New York State health officials of denying or slashing Medicaid home care services to chronically ill and disabled people without proper notice, the chance to appeal or even an explanation, protections required by law.

The lawsuit, filed in United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, names three plaintiffs: an impaired 84-year-old woman living alone in Manhattan, a frail 18-year-old Brooklyn man with severe congenital disabilities, and a 65-year-old Manhattan man with diabetes and a schizoaffective disorder. But it was brought by the New York Legal Assistance Group on behalf of tens of thousands of disabled Medicaid beneficiaries who need home health care or help with daily tasks like bathing and eating.It represents a challenge to an ambitious Medicaid overhaul by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo that shifted $6 billion in public spending on long-term services, including home care, to private managed care companies that are paid a fixed sum for each enrollee. The goal of the overhaul, which was set in motion in 2011, was saving money and improving the coordination of care. But advocates for aged and disabled people have complained that in the scramble for the most lucrative enrollees, companies are shunning frail people with the greatest needs and signing up those who could be given minimal services.

The lawsuit, filed against the state commissioners of the Department of Health and the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, takes these complaints to a new level, charging that the state is now allowing companies to quietly reduce or terminate home care to people whose need for services has not changed, without giving them a meaningful chance to object.

Bill Schwarz, a spokesman for the Health Department, and Anthony Farmer, a spokesman for the disability assistance office, said the state does not comment on pending litigation.

Janie Taylor, the lead plaintiff on the case, was required last year, as part of the Medicaid overhaul, to enroll in one of two dozen plans provided by private managed care companies under contract to the state. Before the changes, Ms. Taylor, an octogenarian with diabetes, high blood pressure and a dangerously unsteady gait, had the help of an aide for 10 hours a day, seven days a week. That care was continued at first by her managed care plan, VNSNY Choice. But on July 1, the lawsuit says, without notice or explanation, VNSNY cut her services to five hours a day, though her condition had not changed.

“I’ve been trying to figure it out and talk about it with God, why they’re doing this to me,” Ms. Taylor said in a telephone interview Tuesday from public housing in Harlem.

Born in Edgefield, S.C., and orphaned at a young age, she said, she came to New York at 14 to care for other people’s children and clean houses, and finally worked for 15 years as a live-in home care worker, until she collapsed while lifting a patient and found she was sick herself.

A social worker in Ms. Taylor’s physician’s office contacted VNSNY Choice and requested an internal appeal to challenge the cut in hours, the lawsuit said. But VNSNY called Ms. Taylor the next day, telling her the internal appeal had been denied, and that her aide would leave at 2 p.m. instead of 7 p.m. that very day. When a written notice of denial finally appeared, it was mischaracterized as the denial of a request for a service increase rather than the appeal of a reduction.

Ms. Taylor contacted lawyers, who immediately called the disability assistance office, requesting a fair hearing. Despite a state directive to continue the full amount of care while the matter is pending, VNSNY Choice has not restored Ms. Taylor’s hours, the lawsuit said. Her aide used to fix her dinner and help her prepare for bed. Now, “I sleep in my clothes,” she said.

Michael McKeon, a consultant speaking for VNSNY, said in an email: “While we can’t comment on a specific case. VNSNY cares for nearly 165,000 people every year and we work hard to get every case right.”

Ben Taylor, one of the lawyers who brought the suit — and no relation to the plaintiff — countered: “Sadly, with the shift to managed care, Ms. Taylor is only one of many individuals who are suffering because they are denied their basic rights.”

The teenage plaintiff, Eddy LeMieux, has Noonan syndrome, a congenital disorder that affects his heart, lungs, spine and mental functioning. He lives with a severely disabled uncle and an aunt who works two jobs, one at night, to support the family, the lawsuit says, and requires 24-hour care to live safely in the community. Mr. LeMieux was required to enroll in Healthfirst, a managed care company, in 2012.

On Jan. 14, Healthfirst sent a document saying his care would be tapered from 12 hours, seven days a week beginning Jan. 25 to no care on April 22. It treated his 24-hour care as a new request, and denied it, saying that “the medical director has determined that the amount of/level of personal care services requested is not medically necessary.”

Despite his aunt’s fair hearing request, the state did not order his care to continue until officials were contacted by the New York Legal Assistance Group in April. Healthfirst then reauthorized Mr. LeMieux’s home care, but only for “sleep-in” help, not the two-shift continuous care the directive required. Then the plan discontinued all care on May 6, until lawyers intervened.

The third plaintiff, Anibal Santiago, is also a Healthfirst client. Harris Brandt, a spokesman for Healthfirst, said by law it could not talk about its clients.

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B. EVENTS AND ACTIONS

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C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND
ONGOING CAMPAIGNS


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Transport Workers Protest Oakland Schools Censorship of Mumia

Fresh from defeating Obama’s nominee to head the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department because he served for a period as Mumia’s attorney, the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) is attacking an Oakland teacher’s lesson plan that asks students to compare the censorship of Martin Luther King’s later, thoroughly radical positions with the censorship of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s prison writings.  As a result of this intimidation from the FOP, the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) took down an entire web site—Urban Dreams—which contained this as well as educational material on a diverse range of issues!

The following is an open letter by the Transport Workers Solidarity Committee protesting this outrageous act of police-state censorship . . .

Stop the Censorship!
Restore the Urban Dreams web site!

Open letter to Oakland School Board members:
May 28, 2014

Members of the Transport Workers Solidarity Committee, including (among others) the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), BART workers and AC Transit bus drivers, were appalled to hear that the Oakland Unified School District succumbed to pressure from the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) and the right-wing Fox News by shutting down the educational Urban Dreams website, which includes material on Mumia Abu-Jamal and Martin Luther King Jr.

In effect, academic freedom was pushed to a back seat of the bus. This censorship is wrong. The Urban Dreams website must be restored immediately for all to freely visit and learn.

If not, OUSD administration has joined in with the FOP’s vendetta against Mumia Abu-Jamal. The target of the FOP-Fox News smears was a lesson plan by Oakland teacher Craig Gordon asking students to compare the media’s wall of silence on Martin Luther King’s militant anti-corporate, anti-war campaigning with its wall of silence on Mumia’s writings.

To take that lesson plan down, OUSD took down the entire Urban Dreams website, a website containing many rich and evocative teacher-developed lessons, of which Gordon’s is one. Several of these lesson plans were still in active use by teachers in Oakland and elsewhere. [Urban Dreams was initially set up under a grant from the federal Dept. of Education in 1999-2004].

Academic freedom was pushed to the back of the bus.
This censorship is wrong!

Mumia Abu-Jamal, a Black journalist called the “voice of the voiceless,” was framed for the murder of a Philadelphia policeman over 30 years ago and sentenced to death. Only recently was this innocent man removed from death row.

Fifteen years ago, in the best tradition of the abolitionists, Oakland teachers initiated a teach-in on the plight of Mumia Abu-Jamal and the vestige of slavery, the death penalty. Indeed, Craig Gordon was one of the organizers of that teach-in.

Following that stellar example in 1999, striking school teachers in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, demanded his release from prison. As well, longshore workers shutdown all West Coast ports and led a march of 25,000 strong in San Francisco calling for the freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Workers in the Bay Area, especially here in Oakland, have a long and proud tradition of defending Black victims of the racist state oppression – from Martin Luther King Jr. to Angela Davis to Huey Newton to Oscar Grant.

Oakland teachers have an obligation to teach that history
and students have a right to learn from that history!

The Urban Dreams website must be restored immediately
for all to freely visit and learn!

Contact Jack Heyman, chair of the Transport Workers Solidarity Committee, at TransportSolidarity@yahoo.com.

The statement above was published at:

http://sfbayview.com/2014/stop-the-censorship-restore-the-urban-dreams-website/

This message from: the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal

www.laboractionmumia.org

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 AN URGENT FUNDRAISER FOR LYNNE STEWART'S 

MEDICAL NEEDS CONTINUES
http://lynnestewart.org/

LYNNE STEWART HAS JUST BEEN DENIED 

MEDICAL BENEFITS. SHE CAN'T RE-APPLY UNTIL JULY! 

SHE IS IN URGENT NEED OF OUR HELP NOW!

Because of a determined people’s movement, Lynne is finally home with her family. But she has urgent medical needs and costs. Lynne’s Stage 4 breast cancer spread a year ago to both lungs, back, bones and lymph nodes. Now 74, she has lost weight and has trouble breathing; doctors estimate her lifespan at 12 months. Lynne will soon begin treatment requiring her to pay deductibles and co-payments. To boost the odds, she’ll use a special diet, vitamins, and other healing methods – some costly and none covered by insurance.
Lynne’s spirit is indomitable – help her fight to survive!

“I fought lions, I fought tigers, and I’m not going to let cancer get me,” Stewart said.

Lynne has always come to the aid of those who needed her. Now it’s our turn to stand by Lynne.

SEND LYNNE A DONATION TO:

On line at:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/lynne-stewart-s-medical-fund

Or by USPS to:

Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
  1070 Dean Street?
  Brooklyn, New York 11216



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Tell Maj. Gen. Buchanan why Chelsea deserves to be free!

 


PVT Chelsea Manning has served nearly four years in prison, yet she’s showing a remarkable spirit of persistence. She is unjustly imprisoned, but not defeated. With plans to enroll in a prelaw/political science university program, and a legal name change underway, she continues planning for her future and working to fulfill her dreams. She is determined to make the best of her situation. However, we know she could contribute more to the world if she was free.
Please write a letter to Convening Authority Major General Buchanan today urging him to reduce Chelsea’s sentence!
We began collecting letters to include in PVT Manning’s clemency packet last fall. We expected that the military would finalize her record of trial last December, and that she could then submit her application to Maj. Gen. Buchanan by the end of 2013. Just like so many times before, however, the military’s process has slowed Chelsea’s ability to defend her rights. Defense attorney David Coombs now estimates that it will be at least another month before the clemency application can be submitted.
Want to make sure decision-makers know why you believe Chelsea deserves to go free? If you haven’t done so yet, please write a short letter to Maj. Gen. Buchanan. Hundreds of people have already submitted letters for us to use, including Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and award-winning author Alice Walker.
As Alice Walker wrote:
Private Manning was the one soldier willing to speak out against what he thought was wrong. When others silently followed orders, Manning could not. Pvt. Manning is a humanist, meaning he sees humanity before nationality, and values human life above all else. When he released documents to WikiLeaks in 2010, he wanted the American people, and the world, to judge for themselves if the U.S. military was properly valuing human life in Iraq and Afghanistan. As taxpayers who fund that military, we deserve that opportunity.
Learn now how you can write a letter to be included in Chelsea Manning’s official application for clemency!
Please share this information to friends and community leaders, urging them to add their voice to this important effort before it's too late.
http://www.privatemanning.org/pardonpetition



Help us continue to cover 100%
of Pvt. Manning's legal fees! Donate today.
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38591


COURAGE TO RESIST
http://couragetoresist.org
484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610
510-488-3559

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Only an Innocent Man Would Voluntarily Return
to Prison to Fight Against his Life Sentence
and For Exoneration —
That Courageous Man is Lorenzo Johnson.

The PA Attorney General’s Office Agrees to Investigate New Facts and Witnesses —
  Send Your Message Now to PA AG
Kathleen Kane: Dismiss the Charges!
Free Lorenzo Johnson!

On January 29, 2014 Lorenzo Johnson’s attorney, Michael Wiseman, met with representatives of PA Attorney General Kathleen Kane to discuss the new evidence of Lorenzo Johnson’s innocence contained in legal filings now pending in the Pennsylvania courts. This includes affidavits confirming Johnson’s presence in New York City at the time of the Harrisburg murder and the identity of the actual killers, as well as police and prosecutorial misconduct.

Attorney Wiseman said Kane’s office promised to investigate these new facts in order to assess whether they merit the relief that Lorenzo Johnson seeks in his PCRA petition.

Speaking to AP reporter Mary Claire Dale on February 11, 2014 Wiseman said, “We believe the witnesses we presented to them are credible, and give a coherent version of the events. I take them at their word, that they’re going to do a straightforward, honest review.”  Kane spokesman Joe Peters confirmed the meeting to AP “but said the office won’t comment on the new evidence until the court filing,” (referring to the March 31, 2014 date for the AG’s response to Johnson’s October 2013 court filing).

It is the Office of the PA Attorney General that is responsible for the false prosecution of Lorenzo Johnson from trial through appeals. And just a few months ago, the Attorney General’s office opposed a federal petition based on this new evidence saying there was no prima facie claim for relief. This resulted in the denial of Lorenzo Johnson’s Motion to File a Second Writ of Habeas Corpus in the federal court.

On December 18, 2013 a press conference called by the Campaign to Free Lorenzo Johnson protested these actions of the PA Attorney General and delivered petitions demanding dismissal of the charges and immediate freedom for Lorenzo. Tazza, Lorenzo’s wife, declared, “1,000 signatures means we are not in this alone…I won't stop until he’s home. There is nothing and no one that can stop me from fighting for what’s right.”

This is Lorenzo Johnson’s second fight for his innocence and freedom. In January 2012, after 16 years of court battles to prove his innocence, a federal appeals court held his sentence was based on insufficient evidence – a judicial acquittal. Lorenzo was freed from prison. But after a petition filed by the PA Attorney General the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated Lorenzo Johnson’s conviction and he was re-incarcerated to continue serving a life sentence without parole for a murder he did not commit.

This innocent man drove himself back to prison in June 2012—after less than five months of freedom—leaving his new wife and family, construction job and advocacy on behalf of others wrongfully convicted. The reason Lorenzo Johnson voluntarily returned to prison? Because he is innocent and fighting for full vindication.

In the words of Lorenzo Johnson, “A second is too long to be in prison when you are Innocent, so eighteen years … is Intolerable.”

Add your voices and demand again: Dismiss the charges against Lorenzo Johnson. Free Lorenzo NOW!

 SIGN LORENZO JOHNSON'S FREEDOM PETITION

CONTRIBUTE TO HELP TAZZA AND THE OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS VISIT LORENZO AND STAY IN CONTACT!


Write: Lorenzo Johnson
            DF 1036
            SCI Mahanoy
            301 Morea Rd.
            Frackville, PA 17932

 Email: Lorenzo Johnson through JPAY.com code:
              Lorenzo Johnson DF 1036 PA DOC


 www.FreeLorenzoJohnson.org

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End Drone Killing, Drone Surveillance and Global 
Militarization 
United National Antiwar Coalition Call for Spring Days of
 Action 2014

Today we issue an international call for Spring Days of Action—2014, a coordinated campaign in April and May to end drone killings, drone surveillance and global militarization.

The campaign will focus on drone bases, drone research facilities and test sites and drone manufacturers.

The campaign will provide information on:

1. The suffering of tens-of-thousands of people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Gaza who are under drone attack, documenting the killing, the wounding and the devastating impact of constant drone surveillance on community life.

2. How attack and surveillance drones have become a key element in a massive wave of surveillance, clandestine military attacks and militarization generated by the United States to protect a global system of manufacture and oil and mineral exploitation that is creating unemployment and poverty, accelerating the waste of nonrenewable resources and contributing to environmental destruction and global warming.

In addition to cases in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia, we will examine President Obama’s “pivot” into the Asia-Pacific, where the United States has already sold and deployed drones in the vanguard of a shift of 60 percent of its military forces to try to control China and to enforce the planned Trans-Pacific Partnership. We will show, among other things, how this surge of “pivot” forces, greatly enabled by drones, and supported by the U.S. military-industrial complex, will hit every American community with even deeper cuts in the already fragile social programs on which people rely for survival. In short, we will connect drones and militarization with “austerity” in America.

3. How drone attacks have effectively destroyed international and domestic legal protection of the rights to life, privacy, freedom of assembly and free speech and have opened the way for new levels of surveillance and repression around the world, and how, in the United States, increasing drone surveillance, added to surveillance by the National Security Agency and police, provides a new weapon to repress black, Hispanic, immigrant and low-income communities and to intimidate Americans who are increasingly unsettled by lack of jobs, economic inequality, corporate control of politics and the prospect of endless war.

We will discuss how the United States government and corporations conspire secretly to monitor U.S. citizens and particularly how the Administration is accelerating drone surveillance operations and surveillance inside the United States with the same disregard for transparency and law that it applies to other countries, all with the cooperation of the Congress.

The campaign will encourage activists around the world to win passage of local laws that prohibit weaponized drones and drone surveillance from being used in their communities as well as seeking national laws to bar the use of weaponized drones and drone surveillance.

The campaign will draw attention to the call for a ban on weaponized drones by RootsAction.org that has generated a petition with over 80,000 signers:

http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=6180

And to efforts by the Granny Peace Brigade (New York City), KnowDrones.org and others to achieve an international ban on both weaponized drones and drone surveillance.

The campaign will also urge participation in the World Beyond War movement.
The following individuals and organizations endorse this Call: 
Lyn Adamson, Co-chair, Canadian Voice of Women for Peace; Dennis Apel, Guadalupe Catholic Worker, California; Judy Bello, Upstate NY Coalition to Ground the Drones & End the Wars; Medea Benjamin, Code Pink; Leah Bolger, Former National President, Veterans for Peace; Canadian Voice of Women for Peace; Sung-Hee Choi, Gangjeong Village International Team, Jeju, Korea; Chelsea C. Faria, Graduate student, Yale Divinity School; Promoting Enduring Peace; Sandy Fessler, Rochester (NY) Against War; Joy First; Bruce K. Gagnon, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space; Holly Gwinn Graham, Singer/songwriter, Olympia, WA; Regina Hagen, Darmstaedter Friedensforum, Germany; Kathy Kelly, Voices for Creative Nonviolence; Malachy Kilbride; Marilyn Levin and Joe Lombardo, Co-Coordinators, United National Antiwar Coalition; Tamara Lorincz, Halifax Peace Coalition, Canada; Nick Mottern, KnowDrones.org; Agneta Norberg, Swedish Peace Council; Pepperwolf, Director, Women Against Military Madness; Lindis Percy, Coordinator, Campaign for the Accountability of American; Bases CAAB UK; Mathias Quackenbush, San Francisco, CA; Lisa Savage, Code Pink, State of Maine; Janice Sevre-Duszynska; Wolfgang Schlupp-Hauck, Friedenswerkstatt Mutlangen, Germany; Cindy Sheehan; Lucia Wilkes Smith, Convener, Women Against Military Madness (WAMM),  Ground; Military Drones Committee; David Soumis, Veterans for Peace; No Drones Wisconsin; Debra Sweet, World Can’t Wait; David Swanson, WarisACrime.org; Brian Terrell, Voices for Creative Nonviolence; United National Antiwar Coalition; Veterans for Peace; Dave Webb, Chair, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (UK); Curt Wechsler, Fire John Paki Wieland, Northampton (MA) Committee to Stop War(s); Loring Wirbel, Citizens for Peace in Space (Colorado Springs, CO); Women Against Military Madness; Ann Wright, Retired U.S. Army colonel and former diplomat; Leila Zand, Fellowship of Reconciliation.
United National Antiwar Coalition
UNACpeace@gmail.com
UNAC
P.O. Box 123
Delmar, NY 12054
518-227-6947
www.unacpeace.org

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Sireen Khudairy Appeal Update.

Sireen Khudairy was arrested again at 4am on Tuesday 7th January 2014. According to reports she has been taken to Huwwara military point. When the Israeli army took her from her home they didn't show any papers to her or the person she was with.

This follows eight months of harassment of this 24-year-old Palestinian woman who is a teacher, activist and supporter of the non-violent action against the Israeli occupation. She was previously imprisoned from May to July 2013, and has been subjected to frequent harassment ever since. See further details at:

http://freesireen.wordpress.com

Please help by contacting your Embassies urgently to demand her release and spread her appeal widely. Follow updates on:

https://www.facebook.com/FreeSireenKhudiri?ref=hl

Please contact us to let us know any action you take. We will pass this information on to her family. Thanks for your solidarity and support.  

Steven Katsineris, January 2014
 
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U.S. Court of Appeals Rules Against Lorenzo Johnson’s
New Legal Challenge to His Frame-up Conviction!
Demand the PA Attorney General Dismiss the Charges!
Free Lorenzo Johnson, Now!

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit denied Lorenzo Johnson’s motion to file a Second Habeas Corpus Petition. The order contained the outrageous declaration that Johnson hadn’t made a “prima facie case” that he had new evidence of his innocence. This not only puts a legal obstacle in Johnson’s path as his fight for freedom makes its way (again) through the state and federal courts—but it undermines the newly filed Pennsylvania state appeal that is pending in the Court of Common Pleas.

Stripped of  “legalese,” the court’s October 15, 2013 order says Johnson’s new evidence was not brought into court soon enough—although it was the prosecution and police who withheld evidence and coerced witnesses into lying or not coming forward with the truth! This, despite over fifteen years and rounds of legal battles to uncover the evidence of government misconduct. This is a set-back for Lorenzo Johnson’s renewed fight for his freedom, but Johnson is even more determined as his PA state court appeal continues.

Increased public support and protest is needed. The fight for Lorenzo Johnson’s freedom is not only a fight for this courageous man and family. The fight for Lorenzo Johnson is also a fight for all the innocent others who have been framed and are sitting in the slow death of prison. The PA Attorney General is directly pursuing the charges against Lorenzo, despite the evidence of his innocence and the corruption of the police. Free Lorenzo Johnson, Now!

—Rachel Wolkenstein, Esq.
   October 25, 2013

For more on the federal court and PA state court legal filings.
Hear Mumia’s latest commentary, “Cat Cries”
Go to: www.FreeLorenzoJohnson.org for more information, to sign the petition, and how to help.
 
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PUSH CHELSEA'S JAILERS TO RESPECT HER IDENTITY
Call and write Ft Leavenworth today and tell them to honor Manning's wishes around her name and gender:
Call: (913) 758-3600


Write to:
Col. Sioban Ledwith, Commander
U.S. Detention Barracks
1301 N Warehouse Rd
Ft. Leavenworth KS 66027

Private Manning has been an icon both for the government transparency movement and LGBTQ activists because of her fearlessness and acts of conscience. Now, as she begins serving her sentence, Chelsea has asked for help with legal appeals, family visits, education, and support for undergoing gender transition. The latter is a decision she’s made following years of experiencing gender dysphoria and examining her options. At a difficult time in her life, she joined the military out of hope–the hope that she could use her service to save lives, and also the hope that it would help to suppress her feelings of gender dysphoria. But after serving time in Iraq, Private Manning realized what mattered to her most was the truth, personal as well as political, even when it proved challenging.

Now she wants the Fort Leavenworth military prison to allow her access to hormone replacement therapy which she has offered to pay for herself, as she pursues the process to have her name legally changed to ‘Chelsea Elizabeth Manning.’

To encourage the prison to honor her transgender identity, we’re calling on progressive supporters and allies to contact Fort Leavenworth officials demanding they acknowledge her requested name change immediately. Currently, prison officials are not required to respect Chelsea’s identity, and can even refuse to deliver mail addressed to the name ‘Chelsea Manning.’ However, it’s within prison administrators’ power to begin using the name ‘Chelsea Manning’ now, in advance of the legal name change which will most likely be approved sometime next year. It’s also up to these officials to approve Private Manning’s request for hormone therapy.
Call: (913) 758-3600


Write to:
Col. Sioban Ledwith, Commander
U.S. Detention Barracks
1301 N Warehouse Rd
Ft. Leavenworth KS 66027

Tell them: “Transgender rights are human rights! Respect Private Manning’s identity by acknowledging the name ‘Chelsea Manning’ whenever possible, including in mail addressed to her, and by allowing her access to appropriate medical treatment for gender dysphoria, including hormone replacement therapy (HRT).”

While openly transgender individuals are allowed to serve in many other militaries around the world, the US military continues to deny their existence. Now, by speaking up for Chelsea’s right to treatment, you can support one brave whistleblower in her personal struggle, and help set an important benchmark for the rights of transgender individuals everywhere. (Remember that letters written with focus and a respectful tone are more likely to be effective.) Feel free to copy this sample letter.

Earlier this year, the Private Manning Support Network won the title of most “absolutely fabulous overall contingent” at the San Francisco Pride Parade, the largest celebration of its kind for LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning) people nationwide. Over one thousand people marched for Private Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning in that parade, to show LGBTQ community pride for the Iraq War’s most well-known whistleblower.

Help us continue to cover 100%
of Pvt. Manning's legal fees! Donate today.
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38591

COURAGE TO RESIST
http://couragetoresist.org
484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610
510-488-3559
 

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 SAVE CCSF!


Two campaigns that need funds – Please donate!
Posted on August 25, 2013

Cartoon by Anthonty Mata for CCSF Guardsman

DOE CAMPAIGN
We are working to ensure that the ACCJC’s authority is not renewed by the Department of Education this December when they are up for their 5-year renewal. Our campaign made it possible for over 50 Third Party Comments to be sent to the DOE re: the ACCJC. Our next step in this campaign is to send a delegation from CCSF to Washington, D.C. to give oral comments at the hearing on December 12th. We expect to have an array of forces aligned on the other side who have much more money and resources than we do.
So please support this effort to get ACCJC authority revoked!

LEGAL CAMPAIGN
Save CCSF members have been meeting with Attorney Dan Siegel since last May to explore legal avenues to fight the ACCJC. After much consideration, and consultation with AFT 2121’s attorney as well as the SF City Attorney’s office, Dan has come up with a legal strategy that is complimentary to what is already being pursued. In fact, AFT 2121’s attorney is encouraging us to go forward.
The total costs of pursuing this (depositions, etc.) will be substantially more than $15,000. However, Dan is willing to do it for a fixed fee of $15,000. He will not expect a retainer, i.e. payment in advance, but we should start payments ASAP. If we win the ACCJC will have to pay our costs.

PLEASE HELP BOTH OF THESE IMPORTANT EFFORTS!
Checks can be made out to Save CCSF Coalition with “legal” in the memo line and sent to:
Save CCSF Coalition
2132 Prince St.
Berkeley, CA 94705
Or you may donate online:  http://www.gofundme.com/4841ns

http://www.saveccsf.org/
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16 Years in Solitary Confinement Is Like a "Living Tomb"

American Civil Liberties Union petition to end long-term solitary confinement:
California Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard: We stand with the prisoners on hunger strike. We urge you to comply with the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons 2006 recommendations regarding an end to long-term solitary confinement.

In California, hundreds of prisoners have been held in solitary for more than a decade – some for infractions as trivial as reading Machiavelli's "The Prince."

Gabriel Reyes describes the pain of being isolated for at least 22 hours a day for the last 16 years:

“Unless you have lived it, you cannot imagine what it feels like to be by yourself, between four cold walls, with little concept of time…. It is a living tomb …’ I have not been allowed physical contact with any of my loved ones since 1995…I feel helpless and hopeless. In short, I am being psychologically tortured.”

That’s why over 30,000 prisoners in California began a hunger strike – the biggest the state has ever seen. They’re refusing food to protest prisoners being held for decades in solitary and to push for other changes to improve their basic conditions.

California Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard has tried to dismiss the strikers and refuses to negotiate, but the media pressure is building through the strike. If tens of thousands of us take action, we can help keep this issue in the spotlight so that Secretary Beard can’t ignore the inhumane treatment of prisoners.

Sign the petition urging Corrections Secretary Beard to end the use of long-term solitary confinement.

Solitary is such an extreme form of punishment that a United Nations torture rapporteur called for an international ban on the practice except in rare occasions. Here’s why:

The majority of the 80,000 people held in solitary in this country are severely mentally ill or because of a minor infraction (it’s a myth that it’s only for violent prisoners)
Even for people with stable mental health, solitary causes severe psychological reactions, often leading people to attempt suicide
It jeopardizes public safety because prisoners held in solitary have a harder time reintegrating into society.

And to add insult to injury, the hunger strikers are now facing retaliation – their lawyers are being restricted from visiting and the strikers are being punished. But the media continues to write about the hunger strike and we can help keep the pressure on Secretary Beard by signing this petition.

Sign the petition urging Corrections Secretary Beard to end the use of long-term solitary confinement.

Our criminal justice system should keep communities safe and treat people fairly. The use of solitary confinement undermines both of these goals – but little by little, we can help put a stop to such cruelty.

Thank you,
Anthony for the ACLU Action team
P.S. The hunger strikers have developed five core demands to address their basic conditions, the main one being an end to long-term solitary confinement. They are:

-End group punishment – prisoners say that officials often punish groups to address individual rule violations

-Abolish the debriefing policy, which is often demanded in return for better food or release from solitary

-End long-term solitary confinement

-Provide adequate and nutritious food

-Expand or provide constructive programming and privileges for indefinite SHU inmates

Sources
“Solitary - and anger - in California's prisons.” Los Angeles Times July 13, 2013
“Pelican Bay Prison Hunger-Strikers' Stories: Gabriel Reyes.” TruthOut July 9, 2013
“Solitary confinement should be banned in most cases, UN expert says.” UN News October 18, 2011
"Stop Solitary - Two Pager" ACLU.org
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What you Didn't know about NYPD's Stop and Frisk program !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rfJHx0Gj6ys#at=990

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Egypt: The Next President -- a little Egyptian boy speaks his remarkable mind!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeDm2PrNV1I

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Wealth Inequality in America

[This is a must see to believe video...bw]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QPKKQnijnsM

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Read the transcription of hero Bradley Manning's 35-page statement explaining why he leaked "state secrets" to WikiLeaks.

March 1, 2013

Alternet

The statement was read by Pfc. Bradley Manning at a providence inquiry for his formal plea of guilty to one specification as charged and nine specifications for lesser included offenses. He pled not guilty to 12 other specifications. This rush transcript was taken by journalist Alexa O'Brien at Thursday's pretrial hearing and first appeared on Salon.com.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/bradley-mannings-surprising-statement-court-details-why-he-made-his-historic?akid=10129.229473.UZvQfK&rd=1&src=newsletter802922&t=7

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You Have the Right to Remain Silent: NLG Guide to Law Enforcement Encounters

Posted 1 day ago on July 27, 2012, 10:28 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt

Occupy Wall Street is a nonviolent movement for social and economic justice, but in recent days disturbing reports have emerged of Occupy-affiliated activists being targeted by US law enforcement, including agents from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. To help ensure Occupiers and allied activists know their rights when encountering law enforcement, we are publishing in full the National Lawyers Guild's booklet: You Have the Right to Remain Silent. The NLG provides invaluable support to the Occupy movement and other activists – please click here to support the NLG.

We strongly encourage all Occupiers to read and share the information provided below. We also recommend you enter the NLG's national hotline number (888-654-3265) into your cellphone (if you have one) and keep a copy handy. This information is not a substitute for legal advice. You should contact the NLG or a criminal defense attorney immediately if you have been visited by the FBI or other law enforcement officials. You should also alert your relatives, friends, co-workers and others so that they will be prepared if they are contacted as well.

You Have the Right to Remain Silent: A Know Your Rights Guide for Law Enforcement Encounters

What Rights Do I Have?

Whether or not you're a citizen, you have rights under the United States Constitution. The Fifth Amendment gives every person the right to remain silent: not to answer questions asked by a police officer or government agent. The Fourth Amendment restricts the government's power to enter and search your home or workplace, although there are many exceptions and new laws have expanded the government's power to conduct surveillance. The First Amendment protects your right to speak freely and to advocate for social change. However, if you are a non-citizen, the Department of Homeland Security may target you based on your political activities.

Standing Up For Free Speech

The government's crusade against politically-active individuals is intended to disrupt and suppress the exercise of time-honored free speech activities, such as boycotts, protests, grassroots organizing and solidarity work. Remember that you have the right to stand up to the intimidation tactics of FBI agents and other law enforcement officials who, with political motives, are targeting organizing and free speech activities. Informed resistance to these tactics and steadfast defense of your and others' rights can bring positive results. Each person who takes a courageous stand makes future resistance to government oppression easier for all. The National Lawyers Guild has a long tradition of standing up to government repression. The organization itself was labeled a "subversive" group during the McCarthy Era and was subject to FBI surveillance and infiltration for many years. Guild attorneys have defended FBI-targeted members of the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement, and the Puerto Rican independence movement. The NLG exposed FBI surveillance, infiltration and disruption tactics that were detailed during the 1975-76 COINTELPRO hearings. In 1989 the NLG prevailed in a lawsuit on behalf of several activist organizations, including the Guild, that forced the FBI to expose the extent to which it had been spying on activist movements. Under the settlement, the FBI turned over roughly 400,000 pages of its files on the Guild, which are now available at the Tamiment Library at New York University.

What if FBI Agents or Police Contact Me?

What if an agent or police officer comes to the door?

Do not invite the agents or police into your home. Do not answer any questions. Tell the agent that you do not wish to talk with him or her. You can state that your lawyer will contact them on your behalf. You can do this by stepping outside and pulling the door behind you so that the interior of your home or office is not visible, getting their contact information or business cards and then returning inside. They should cease questioning after this. If the agent or officer gives a reason for contacting you, take notes and give the information to your attorney. Anything you say, no matter how seemingly harmless or insignificant, may be used against you or others in the future. Lying to or misleading a federal agent is a crime. The more you speak, the more opportunity for federal law enforcement to find something you said (even if not intentionally) false and assert that you lied to a federal officer.

Do I have to answer questions?

You have the constitutional right to remain silent. It is not a crime to refuse to answer questions. You do not have to talk to anyone, even if you have been arrested or are in jail. You should affirmatively and unambiguously state that you wish to remain silent and that you wish to consult an attorney. Once you make the request to speak to a lawyer, do not say anything else. The Supreme Court recently ruled that answering law enforcement questions may be taken as a waiver of your right to remain silent, so it is important that you assert your rights and maintain them. Only a judge can order you to answer questions. There is one exception: some states have "stop and identify" statutes which require you to provide identity information or your name if you have been detained on reasonable suspicion that you may have committed a crime. A lawyer in your state can advise you of the status of these requirements where you reside.

Do I have to give my name?

As above, in some states you can be detained or arrested for merely refusing to give your name. And in any state, police do not always follow the law, and refusing to give your name may make them suspicious or more hostile and lead to your arrest, even without just cause, so use your judgment. Giving a false name could in some circumstances be a crime.

Do I need a lawyer?

You have the right to talk to a lawyer before you decide whether to answer questions from law enforcement. It is a good idea to talk to a lawyer if you are considering answering any questions. You have the right to have a lawyer present during any interview. The lawyer's job is to protect your rights. Once you tell the agent that you want to talk to a lawyer, he or she should stop trying to question you and should make any further contact through your lawyer. If you do not have a lawyer, you can still tell the officer you want to speak to one before answering questions. Remember to get the name, agency and telephone number of any investigator who visits you, and give that information to your lawyer. The government does not have to provide you with a free lawyer unless you are charged with a crime, but the NLG or another organization may be able to help you find a lawyer for free or at a reduced rate.

If I refuse to answer questions or say I want a lawyer, won't it seem like I have something to hide?

Anything you say to law enforcement can be used against you and others. You can never tell how a seemingly harmless bit of information might be used or manipulated to hurt you or someone else. That is why the right not to talk is a fundamental right under the Constitution. Keep in mind that although law enforcement agents are allowed to lie to you, lying to a government agent is a crime. Remaining silent is not. The safest things to say are "I am going to remain silent," "I want to speak to my lawyer," and "I do not consent to a search." It is a common practice for law enforcement agents to try to get you to waive your rights by telling you that if you have nothing to hide you would talk or that talking would "just clear things up." The fact is, if they are questioning you, they are looking to incriminate you or someone you may know, or they are engaged in political intelligence gathering. You should feel comfortable standing firm in protection and defense of your rights and refusing to answer questions.

Can agents search my home or office?

You do not have to let police or agents into your home or office unless they have and produce a valid search warrant. A search warrant is a written court order that allows the police to conduct a specified search. Interfering with a warrantless search probably will not stop it and you might get arrested. But you should say "I do not consent to a search," and call a criminal defense lawyer or the NLG. You should be aware that a roommate or guest can legally consent to a search of your house if the police believe that person has the authority to give consent, and your employer can consent to a search of your workspace without your permission.

What if agents have a search warrant?

If you are present when agents come for the search, you can ask to see the warrant. The warrant must specify in detail the places to be searched and the people or things to be taken away. Tell the agents you do not consent to the search so that they cannot go beyond what the warrant authorizes. Ask if you are allowed to watch the search; if you are allowed to, you should. Take notes, including names, badge numbers, what agency each officer is from, where they searched and what they took. If others are present, have them act as witnesses to watch carefully what is happening. If the agents ask you to give them documents, your computer, or anything else, look to see if the item is listed in the warrant. If it is not, do not consent to them taking it without talking to a lawyer. You do not have to answer questions. Talk to a lawyer first. (Note: If agents present an arrest warrant, they may only perform a cursory visual search of the premises to see if the person named in the arrest warrant is present.)

Do I have to answer questions if I have been arrested?

No. If you are arrested, you do not have to answer any questions. You should affirmatively and unambiguously state that you wish to assert your right to remain silent. Ask for a lawyer right away. Do not say anything else. Repeat to every officer who tries to talk to or question you that you wish to remain silent and that you wish to speak to a lawyer. You should always talk to a lawyer before you decide to answer any questions.

What if I speak to government agents anyway?

Even if you have already answered some questions, you can refuse to answer other questions until you have a lawyer. If you find yourself talking, stop. Assert that you wish to remain silent and that you wish to speak to a lawyer.

What if the police stop me on the street?

Ask if you are free to go. If the answer is yes, consider just walking away. If the police say you are not under arrest, but are not free to go, then you are being detained. The police can pat down the outside of your clothing if they have reason to suspect you might be armed and dangerous. If they search any more than this, say clearly, "I do not consent to a search." They may keep searching anyway. If this happens, do not resist because you can be charged with assault or resisting arrest. You do not have to answer any questions. You do not have to open bags or any closed container. Tell the officers you do not consent to a search of your bags or other property.

What if police or agents stop me in my car?

Keep your hands where the police can see them. If you are driving a vehicle, you must show your license, registration and, in some states, proof of insurance. You do not have to consent to a search. But the police may have legal grounds to search your car anyway. Clearly state that you do not consent. Officers may separate passengers and drivers from each other to question them, but no one has to answer any questions.

What if I am treated badly by the police or the FBI?

Write down the officer's badge number, name or other identifying information. You have a right to ask the officer for this information. Try to find witnesses and their names and phone numbers. If you are injured, seek medical attention and take pictures of the injuries as soon as you can. Call a lawyer as soon as possible.

What if the police or FBI threaten me with a grand jury subpoena if I don't answer their questions?

A grand jury subpoena is a written order for you to go to court and testify about information you may have. It is common for the FBI to threaten you with a subpoena to get you to talk to them. If they are going to subpoena you, they will do so anyway. You should not volunteer to speak just because you are threatened with a subpoena. You should consult a lawyer.

What if I receive a grand jury subpoena?

Grand jury proceedings are not the same as testifying at an open court trial. You are not allowed to have a lawyer present (although one may wait in the hallway and you may ask to consult with him or her after each question) and you may be asked to answer questions about your activities and associations. Because of the witness's limited rights in this situation, the government has frequently used grand jury subpoenas to gather information about activists and political organizations. It is common for the FBI to threaten activists with a subpoena in order to elicit information about their political views and activities and those of their associates. There are legal grounds for stopping ("quashing") subpoenas, and receiving one does not necessarily mean that you are suspected of a crime. If you do receive a subpoena, call the NLG National Hotline at 888-NLG-ECOL (888-654-3265) or call a criminal defense attorney immediately.

The government regularly uses grand jury subpoena power to investigate and seek evidence related to politically-active individuals and social movements. This practice is aimed at prosecuting activists and, through intimidation and disruption, discouraging continued activism.

Federal grand jury subpoenas are served in person. If you receive one, it is critically important that you retain the services of an attorney, preferably one who understands your goals and, if applicable, understands the nature of your political work, and has experience with these issues. Most lawyers are trained to provide the best legal defense for their client, often at the expense of others. Beware lawyers who summarily advise you to cooperate with grand juries, testify against friends, or cut off contact with your friends and political activists. Cooperation usually leads to others being subpoenaed and investigated. You also run the risk of being charged with perjury, a felony, should you omit any pertinent information or should there be inconsistencies in your testimony.

Frequently prosecutors will offer "use immunity," meaning that the prosecutor is prohibited from using your testimony or any leads from it to bring charges against you. If a subsequent prosecution is brought, the prosecutor bears the burden of proving that all of its evidence was obtained independent of the immunized testimony. You should be aware, however, that they will use anything you say to manipulate associates into sharing more information about you by suggesting that you have betrayed confidences.

In front of a grand jury you can "take the Fifth" (exercise your right to remain silent). However, the prosecutor may impose immunity on you, which strips you of Fifth Amendment protection and subjects you to the possibility of being cited for contempt and jailed if you refuse to answer further. In front of a grand jury you have no Sixth Amendment right to counsel, although you can consult with a lawyer outside the grand jury room after each question.

What if I don't cooperate with the grand jury?

If you receive a grand jury subpoena and elect to not cooperate, you may be held in civil contempt. There is a chance that you may be jailed or imprisoned for the length of the grand jury in an effort to coerce you to cooperate. Regular grand juries sit for a basic term of 18 months, which can be extended up to a total of 24 months. It is lawful to hold you in order to coerce your cooperation, but unlawful to hold you as a means of punishment. In rare instances you may face criminal contempt charges.

What If I Am Not a Citizen and the DHS Contacts Me?

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) is now part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and has been renamed and reorganized into: 1. The Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS); 2. The Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP); and 3. The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). All three bureaus will be referred to as DHS for the purposes of this pamphlet.

? Assert your rights. If you do not demand your rights or if you sign papers waiving your rights, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may deport you before you see a lawyer or an immigration judge. Never sign anything without reading, understanding and knowing the consequences of signing it.

? Talk to a lawyer. If possible, carry with you the name and telephone number of an immigration lawyer who will take your calls. The immigration laws are hard to understand and there have been many recent changes. DHS will not explain your options to you. As soon as you encounter a DHS agent, call your attorney. If you can't do it right away, keep trying. Always talk to an immigration lawyer before leaving the U.S. Even some legal permanent residents can be barred from returning.

Based on today's laws, regulations and DHS guidelines, non-citizens usually have the following rights, no matter what their immigration status. This information may change, so it is important to contact a lawyer. The following rights apply to non-citizens who are inside the U.S. Non-citizens at the border who are trying to enter the U.S. do not have all the same rights.

Do I have the right to talk to a lawyer before answering any DHS questions or signing any DHS papers?

Yes. You have the right to call a lawyer or your family if you are detained, and you have the right to be visited by a lawyer in detention. You have the right to have your attorney with you at any hearing before an immigration judge. You do not have the right to a government-appointed attorney for immigration proceedings, but if you have been arrested, immigration officials must show you a list of free or low cost legal service providers.

Should I carry my green card or other immigration papers with me?

If you have documents authorizing you to stay in the U.S., you must carry them with you. Presenting false or expired papers to DHS may lead to deportation or criminal prosecution. An unexpired green card, I-94, Employment Authorization Card, Border Crossing Card or other papers that prove you are in legal status will satisfy this requirement. If you do not carry these papers with you, you could be charged with a crime. Always keep a copy of your immigration papers with a trusted family member or friend who can fax them to you, if need be. Check with your immigration lawyer about your specific case.

Am I required to talk to government officers about my immigration history?

If you are undocumented, out of status, a legal permanent resident (green card holder), or a citizen, you do not have to answer any questions about your immigration history. (You may want to consider giving your name; see above for more information about this.) If you are not in any of these categories, and you are being questioned by a DHS or FBI agent, then you may create problems with your immigration status if you refuse to provide information requested by the agent. If you have a lawyer, you can tell the agent that your lawyer will answer questions on your behalf. If answering questions could lead the agent to information that connects you with criminal activity, you should consider refusing to talk to the agent at all.

If I am arrested for immigration violations, do I have the right to a hearing before an immigration judge to defend myself against deportation charges?

Yes. In most cases only an immigration judge can order you deported. But if you waive your rights or take "voluntary departure," agreeing to leave the country, you could be deported without a hearing. If you have criminal convictions, were arrested at the border, came to the U.S. through the visa waiver program or have been ordered deported in the past, you could be deported without a hearing. Contact a lawyer immediately to see if there is any relief for you.

Can I call my consulate if I am arrested?

Yes. Non-citizens arrested in the U.S. have the right to call their consulate or to have the police tell the consulate of your arrest. The police must let your consulate visit or speak with you if consular officials decide to do so. Your consulate might help you find a lawyer or offer other help. You also have the right to refuse help from your consulate.

What happens if I give up my right to a hearing or leave the U.S. before the hearing is over?

You could lose your eligibility for certain immigration benefits, and you could be barred from returning to the U.S. for a number of years. You should always talk to an immigration lawyer before you decide to give up your right to a hearing.

What should I do if I want to contact DHS?

Always talk to a lawyer before contacting DHS, even on the phone. Many DHS officers view "enforcement" as their primary job and will not explain all of your options to you.

What Are My Rights at Airports?

IMPORTANT NOTE: It is illegal for law enforcement to perform any stops, searches, detentions or removals based solely on your race, national origin, religion, sex or ethnicity.

If I am entering the U.S. with valid travel papers can a U.S. customs agent stop and search me?

Yes. Customs agents have the right to stop, detain and search every person and item.

Can my bags or I be searched after going through metal detectors with no problem or after security sees that my bags do not contain a weapon?

Yes. Even if the initial screen of your bags reveals nothing suspicious, the screeners have the authority to conduct a further search of you or your bags.

If I am on an airplane, can an airline employee interrogate me or ask me to get off the plane?

The pilot of an airplane has the right to refuse to fly a passenger if he or she believes the passenger is a threat to the safety of the flight. The pilot's decision must be reasonable and based on observations of you, not stereotypes.

What If I Am Under 18?

Do I have to answer questions?

No. Minors too have the right to remain silent. You cannot be arrested for refusing to talk to the police, probation officers, or school officials, except in some states you may have to give your name if you have been detained.

What if I am detained?

If you are detained at a community detention facility or Juvenile Hall, you normally must be released to a parent or guardian. If charges are filed against you, in most states you are entitled to counsel (just like an adult) at no cost.

Do I have the right to express political views at school?

Public school students generally have a First Amendment right to politically organize at school by passing out leaflets, holding meetings, etc., as long as those activities are not disruptive and do not violate legitimate school rules. You may not be singled out based on your politics, ethnicity or religion.

Can my backpack or locker be searched?

School officials can search students' backpacks and lockers without a warrant if they reasonably suspect that you are involved in criminal activity or carrying drugs or weapons. Do not consent to the police or school officials searching your property, but do not physically resist or you may face criminal charges.

Disclaimer

This booklet is not a substitute for legal advice. You should contact an attorney if you have been visited by the FBI or other law enforcement officials. You should also alert your relatives, friends, co-workers and others so that they will be prepared if they are contacted as well.

NLG National Hotline for Activists Contacted by the FBI

888-NLG-ECOL

(888-654-3265)

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Free Mumia NOW!

Prisonradio.org

Write to Mumia:

Mumia Abu-Jamal AM 8335

SCI Mahanoy

301 Morea Road

Frackville, PA 17932

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Rachel Wolkenstein

August 21, 2011 (917) 689-4009

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL ILLEGALLY SENTENCED TO

LIFE IMPRISONMENT WITHOUT PAROLE!

FREE MUMIA NOW!

www.FreeMumia.com

http://blacktalkradionetwork.com/profiles/blogs/mumia-is-formally-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-w-out-hearing-he-s



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"A Child's View from Gaza: Palestinian Children's Art and the Fight Against

Censorship" book

https://www.mecaforpeace.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=25

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Justice for Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace: Decades of isolation in Louisiana

state prisons must end

Take Action -- Sign Petition Here:

http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/justice-for-albert-woodfox-and-herm\

an-wallace

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WITNESS GAZA

http://www.witnessgaza.com/

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Write to Bradley

http://bradleymanning.org/donate

View the new 90 second "I am Bradley Manning" video:

I am Bradley Manning

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-P3OXML00s

Courage to Resist

484 Lake Park Ave. #41

Oakland, CA 94610

510-488-3559

couragetoresist.org

"A Fort Leavenworth mailing address has been released for Bradley Manning:

Bradley Manning 89289

830 Sabalu Road

Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027

The receptionist at the military barracks confirmed that if someone sends

Bradley Manning a letter to that address, it will be delivered to him."

http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/update-42811

This is also a Facebook event

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=207100509321891#!/event.php?eid=2071005093\

21891

Courage to Resist needs your support

Please donate today:

https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38590

"Soldiers sworn oath is to defend and support the Constitution. Bradley Manning

has been defending and supporting our Constitution." --Dan Ellsberg, Pentagon

Papers whistle-blower

Jeff Paterson

Project Director, Courage to Resist

First US military service member to refuse to fight in Iraq

Please donate today.

https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38590

P.S. I'm asking that you consider a contribution of $50 or more, or possibly

becoming a sustainer at $15 a month. Of course, now is also a perfect time to

make a end of year tax-deductible donation. Thanks again for your support!

Please click here to forward this to a friend who might also be interested in

supporting GI resisters.

http://ymlp.com/forward.php?id=lS3tR&e=bonnieweinstein@yahoo.com

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The Battle Is Still On To

FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL!

The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal

PO Box 16222 • Oakland CA 94610

www.laboractionmumia.org

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KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT! FREE KEVIN COOPER!

Reasonable doubts about executing Kevin Cooper

Chronicle Editorial

Monday, December 13, 2010

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/13/EDG81GP0I7.DTL

Death penalty -- Kevin Cooper is Innocent! Help save his life from San Quentin's

death row!

http://www.savekevincooper.org/

http://www.savekevincooper.org/pages/essays_content.html?ID=255

URGENT ACTION APPEAL

- From Amnesty International USA

17 December 2010

Click here to take action online:

http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&\

b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=15084

To learn about recent Urgent Action successes and updates, go to

http://www.amnestyusa.org/iar/success

For a print-friendly version of this Urgent Action (PDF):

http://www.amnestyusa.org/actioncenter/actions/uaa25910.pdf

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Short Video About Al-Awda's Work

The following link is to a short video which provides an overview of Al-Awda's

work since the founding of our organization in 2000. This video was first shown

on Saturday May 23, 2009 at the fundraising banquet of the 7th Annual Int'l

Al-Awda Convention in Anaheim California. It was produced from footage collected

over the past nine years.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTiAkbB5uC0&eurl

Support Al-Awda, a Great Organization and Cause!

Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, depends on your financial

support to carry out its work.

To submit your tax-deductible donation to support our work, go to

http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html

and follow the simple instructions.

Thank you for your generosity!

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D. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.:

[Some of these videos are embeded on the BAUAW website:

http://bauaw.blogspot.com/ or bauaw.org ...bw]

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Checkpoint - Jasiri X 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq6Y6LSjulU



Published on Jan 28, 2014
"Checkpoint" is based on the oppression and discrimination Jasiri X witnessed firsthand during his recent trip to Palestine and Israel "Checkpoint" is produced by Agent of Change, and directed by Haute Muslim. Download "Checkpoint" at https://jasirix.bandcamp.com/track/ch....

Follow Jasiri X at https://twitter.com/jasiri_x

LYRICS
Journal of the hard times tales from the dark side
Evidence of the settlements on my hard drive
Man I swear my heart died at the end of that car ride
When I saw that checkpoint welcome to apartheid
Soldiers wear military green at the checkpoint
Automatic guns that's machine at the checkpoint
Tavors not m16s at the checkpoint
Fingers on the trigger you'll get leaned at the checkpoint
Little children grown adults or teens at the checkpoint
All ya papers better be clean at the checkpoint
You gotta but your finger on the screen at the checkpoint
And pray that red light turns green at the check point

If Martin Luther King had a dream of the checkpoint
He wake with loud screams from the scenes at the checkpoint
It's Malcolm X by any means at the check point
Imagine if you daily routine was the checkpoint

Separation walls that's surrounding the checkpoint
On top is barbwire like a crown on the checkpoint
Better have ya permits if your found at the checkpoint
Gunmen on the tower aiming down at the checkpoint
The idea is to keep you in fear of the checkpoint
You enter through the cage in the rear of the checkpoint
It feels like prison on a tier at the check point
I'd rather be anywhere but here at this checkpoint
Nelson Mandela wasn't blind to the check point
He stood for free Palestine not a check point
Support BDS don't give a dime to the checkpoint
This is international crime at the checkpoint
Arabs get treated like dogs at the checkpoint
Cause discrimination is the law at the checkpoint
Criminalized without a cause at the checkpoint
I'm just telling you what I saw at the checkpoint
Soldiers got bad attitudes at the checkpoint
Condescending and real rude at the checkpoint
Don't look em in they eyes when they move at the checkpoint
They might strip a man or woman nude at the checkpoint
Soldiers might blow you out of ya shoes at the checkpoint
Gas you up and then light the fuse at the checkpoint
Everyday you stand to be accused at the checkpoint
Each time your life you could lose at the checkpoint

If Martin Luther King had a dream of the checkpoint
He wake with loud screams from the scenes at the checkpoint
It's Malcolm X by any means at the check point
Imagine if you daily routine was the checkpoint

At the airport in Tel Aviv is a checkpoint
They pulled over our taxi at the checkpoint
Passport visa ID at the checkpoint
Soldiers going all through my things at the checkpoint
Said I was high risk security at the checkpoint
Because of the oppression I see at the checkpoint
Occupation in the 3rd degree at the checkpoint
All a nigga wanna do is leave fuck a checkpoint

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Exceptional art from the streets of Oakland:

Oakland Street Dancing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQRRnAhmB58

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqH9s5mwTEY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atyTZ8prhCg

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NYC RESTAURANT WORKERS DANCE & SING FOR A WAGE HIKE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_s8e1R6rG8&feature=player_embedded

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On Gun Control, Martin Luther King, the Deacons of Defense and the history of Black Liberation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzYKisvBN1o&feature=player_embedded

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Fukushima Never Again

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU-Z4VLDGxU

"Fukushima, Never Again" tells the story of the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdowns in north east Japan in March of 2011 and exposes the cover-up by Tepco and the Japanese government.

This is the first film that interviews the Mothers Of Fukushima, nuclear power experts and trade unionists who are fighting for justice and the protection of the children and the people of Japan and the world. The residents and citizens were forced to buy their own geiger counters and radiation dosimeters in order to test their communities to find out if they were in danger.

The government said contaminated soil in children's school grounds was safe and then

when the people found out it was contaminated and removed the top soil, the government and TEPCO refused to remove it from the school grounds.

It also relays how the nuclear energy program for "peaceful atoms" was brought to Japan under the auspices of the US military occupation and also the criminal cover-up of the safety dangers of the plant by TEPCO and GE management which built the plant in Fukushima. It also interviews Kei Sugaoka, the GE nulcear plant inspector from the bay area who exposed cover-ups in the safety at the Fukushima plant and was retaliated against by GE. This documentary allows the voices of the people and workers to speak out about the reality of the disaster and what this means not only for the people of Japan but the people of the world as the US government and nuclear industry continue to push for more new plants and government subsidies. This film breaks

the information blockade story line of the corporate media in Japan, the US and around the world that Fukushima is over.

Production Of Labor Video Project

P.O. Box 720027

San Francisco, CA 94172

www.laborvideo.org

lvpsf@laborvideo.org

For information on obtaining the video go to:

www.fukushimaneveragain.com

(415)282-1908


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1000 year of war through the world

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiG8neU4_bs&feature=share

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Anatomy of a Massacre - Afganistan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6BnRc11aug&feature=player_embedded

Afghans accuse multiple soldiers of pre-meditated murder

To see more go to http://www.youtube.com/user/journeymanpictures

Follow us on Facebook (http://goo.gl/YRw42) or Twitter

(http://www.twitter.com/journeymanvod)

The recent massacre of 17 civilians by a rogue US soldier has been shrouded in

mystery. But through unprecedented access to those involved, this report

confronts the accusations that Bales didn't act alone.

"They came into my room and they killed my family". Stories like this are common

amongst the survivors in Aklozai and Najiban. As are the shocking accusations

that Sergeant Bales was not acting alone. Even President Karzai has announced

"one man can not do that". Chief investigator, General Karimi, is suspicious

that despite being fully armed, Bales freely left his base without raising

alarm. "How come he leaves at night and nobody is aware? Every time we have

weapon accountability and personal accountability." These are just a few of the

questions the American army and government are yet to answer. One thing however

is very clear, the massacre has unleashed a wave of grief and outrage which

means relations in Kandahar will be tense for years to come: "If I could lay my

hands on those infidels, I would rip them apart with my bare hands."

A Film By SBS

Distributed By Journeyman Pictures

April 2012

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Photo of George Zimmerman, in 2005 photo, left, and in a more recent photo.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/04/02/us/the-events-leading-to-the-sooti\

ng-of-trayvon-martin.html?hp

SPD Security Cams.wmv

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WWDNbQUgm4&feature=player_embedded

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Kids being put on buses and transported from school to "alternate locations" in

Terror Drills

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFia_w8adWQ

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Private prisons,

a recession resistant investment opportunity

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIGLDOxx9Vg

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Attack Dogs used on a High School Walkout in MD, Four Students Charged With

"Thought Crimes"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wafMaML17w

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Common forms of misconduct by Law Enforcement Officials and Prosecutors

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViSpM4K276w&feature=related

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Organizing and Instigating: OCCUPY - Ronnie Goodman

http://arthazelwood.com/instigator/occupy/occupy-birth-video.html

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Rep News 12: Yes We Kony

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68GbzIkYdc8

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The New Black by The Mavrix - Official Music Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4rLfja8488

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Japan One Year Later

http://www.onlineschools.org/japan-one-year-later/

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The CIA's Heart Attack Gun

http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/assassination-studies/the-cias-heart-attack-g\

un-.html

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The Invisible American Workforce

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/5/new_expos_tracks_alec_private_prison

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Labor Beat: NATO vs The 1st Amendment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbQxnb4so3U

For more detailed information, send us a request at mail@laborbeat.org.


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The Battle of Oakland

by brandon jourdan plus

http://vimeo.com/36256273

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Officers Pulled Off Street After Tape of Beating Surfaces

By ANDY NEWMAN

February 1, 2012, 10:56 am

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/officers-pulled-off-street-after-ta\

pe-of-beating-surfaces/?ref=nyregion

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This is excellent! Michelle Alexander pulls no punches!

Michelle Alexander, Author of The New Jim Crow, speaks about the political

strategy

behind the War on Drugs and its connection to the mass incarceration of Black

and Brown people in the United States.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P75cbEdNo2U&feature=player_embedded

If you think Bill Clinton was "the first black President" you need to watch this

video and see how much damage his administration caused for the black community

as a result of his get tough attitude on crime that appealed to white swing

voters.

This speech took place at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem on January 12,

2012.

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FREE BRADLEY MANNING

http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/national-call-in-for-bradley

I received the following reply from the White House November 18, 2011 regarding

the Bradley Manning petition I signed:

"Why We Can't Comment on Bradley Manning

"Thank you for signing the petition 'Free PFC Bradley Manning, the accused

WikiLeaks whistleblower.' We appreciate your participation in the We the People

platform on WhiteHouse.gov.

The We the People Terms of Participation explain that 'the White House may

decline to address certain procurement, law enforcement, adjudicatory, or

similar matters properly within the jurisdiction of federal departments or

agencies, federal courts, or state and local government.' The military justice

system is charged with enforcing the Uniform Code of

Military Justice. Accordingly, the White House declines to comment on the

specific case raised in this petition...

That's funny! I guess Obama didn't get this memo. Here's what Obama said about

Bradley:

BRADLEY MANNING "BROKE THE LAW" SAYS OBAMA!

"He broke the law!" says Obama about Bradley Manning who has yet to even be

charged, let alone, gone to trial and found guilty. How horrendous is it for the

President to declare someone guilty before going to trial or being charged with

a crime! Justice in the U.S.A.!

Obama on FREE BRADLEY MANNING protest... San Francisco, CA. April 21, 2011-

Presidential remarks on interrupt/interaction/performance art happening at

fundraiser. Logan Price queries Barack after org. FRESH JUICE PARTY political

action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfmtUpd4id0&feature=youtu.be

Release Bradley Manning

Almost Gone (The Ballad Of Bradley Manning)

Written by Graham Nash and James Raymond (son of David Crosby)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAYG7yJpBbQ&feature=player_embedded

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Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVGqE726OAo&feature=player_embedded

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School police increasingly arresting American students?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl-efNBvjUU&feature=player_embedded

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FYI:

Nuclear Detonation Timeline "1945-1998"

The 2053 nuclear tests and explosions that took place between 1945 and 1998 are

plotted visually and audibly on a world map.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9lquok4Pdk&feature=share&mid=5408

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We Are the 99 Percent

We are the 99 percent. We are getting kicked out of our homes. We are forced to

choose between groceries and rent. We are denied quality medical care. We are

suffering from environmental pollution. We are working long hours for little pay

and no rights, if we're working at all. We are getting nothing while the other 1

percent is getting everything. We are the 99 percent.

Brought to you by the people who occupy wall street. Why will YOU occupy?

OccupyWallSt.org

Occupytogether.org

wearethe99percentuk.tumblr.com

http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/

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We Are The People Who Will Save Our Schools

YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFAOJsBxAxY

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In honor of the 75th Anniversary of the 44-Day Flint Michigan sit-down strike at

GM that began December 30, 1936:

According to Michael Moore, (Although he has done some good things, this clip

isn't one of them) in this clip from his film, "Capitalism a Love Story," it was

Roosevelt who saved the day!):

"After a bloody battle one evening, the Governor of Michigan, with the support

of the President of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt, sent in the National

Guard. But the guns and the soldiers weren't used on the workers; they were

pointed at the police and the hired goons warning them to leave these workers

alone. For Mr. Roosevelt believed that the men inside had a right to a redress

of their grievances." -Michael Moore's 'Capitalism: A Love Story'

- Flint Sit-Down Strike http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8x1_q9wg58

But those cannons were not aimed at the goons and cops! They were aimed straight

at the factory filled with strikers! Watch what REALLY happened and how the

strike was really won!

'With babies & banners' -- 75 years since the 44-day Flint sit-down strike

http://links.org.au/node/2681

--Inspiring

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HALLELUJAH CORPORATIONS (revised edition).mov

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws0WSNRpy3g

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ONE OF THE GREATEST POSTS ON YOUTUBE SO FAR!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8C-qIgbP9o&feature=share&mid=552

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ILWU Local 10 Longshore Workers Speak-Out At Oakland Port Shutdown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JUpBpZYwms

Uploaded by laborvideo on Dec 13, 2011

ILWU Local 10 longshore workers speak out during a blockade of the Port of

Oakland called for by Occupy Oakland. Anthony Levieges and Clarence Thomas rank

and file members of the union. The action took place on December 12, 2011 and

the interview took place at Pier 30 on the Oakland docks.

For more information on the ILWU Local 21 Longview EGT struggle go to

http://www.facebook.com/groups/256313837734192/

For further info on the action and the press conferernce go to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz3fE-Vhrw8&feature=youtu.be

Production of Labor Video Project www.laborvideo.org

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UC Davis Police Violence Adds Fuel to Fire

By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News

19 November 11

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/275-42/8485-uc-davis-police-violence-add\

s-fuel-to-fire

UC Davis Protestors Pepper Sprayed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4&feature=player_embedded

Police PEPPER SPRAY UC Davis STUDENT PROTESTERS!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuWEx6Cfn-I&feature=player_embedded

Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmJmmnMkuEM&feature=player_embedded

*---------*

UC Davis Chancellor Katehi walks to her car

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CZ0t9ez_EGI#!

Occupy Seattle - 84 Year Old Woman Dorli Rainey Pepper Sprayed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTIyE_JlJzw&feature=related

*---------*

THE BEST VIDEO ON "OCCUPY THE WORLD"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S880UldxB1o

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Shot by police with rubber bullet at Occupy Oakland

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0pX9LeE-g8&feature=player_embedded

*---------*

Copwatch@Occupy Oakland: Beware of Police Infiltrators and Provocateurs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrvMzqopHH0

*---------*

Occupy Oakland 11-2 Strike: Police Tear Gas, Black Bloc, War in the Streets

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tu_D8SFYck&feature=player_embedded

*----*

Quebec police admitted that, in 2007, thugs carrying rocks to a peaceful protest

were actually undercover Quebec police officers:

POLICE STATE Criminal Cops EXPOSED As Agent Provocateurs @ SPP Protest

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoiisMMCFT0&feature=player_embedded

*----*

Quebec police admit going undercover at montebello protests

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAfzUOx53Rg&feature=player_embedded

G20: Epic Undercover Police Fail

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrJ7aU-n1L8&feature=player_embedded

*----*

WHAT HAPPENED IN OAKLAND TUESDAY NIGHT, OCTOBER 25:

Occupy Oakland Protest

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlPs-REyl-0&feature=player_embedded

Cops make mass arrests at occupy Oakland

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R27kD2_7PwU&feature=player_embedded

Raw Video: Protesters Clash With Oakland Police

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpO-lJr2BQY&feature=player_embedded

Occupy Oakland - Flashbangs USED on protesters OPD LIES

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqNOPZLw03Q&feature=player_embedded

KTVU TV Video of Police violence

http://www.ktvu.com/video/29587714/index.html

Marine Vet wounded, tear gas & flash-bang grenades thrown in downtown

Oakland

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMUgPTCgwcQ&feature=player_embedded

Tear Gas billowing through 14th & Broadway in Downtown Oakland

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU4Y0pwJtWE&feature=player_embedded

Arrests at Occupy Atlanta -- This is what a police state looks like

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YStWz6jbeZA&feature=player_embedded

*---------*

Labor Beat: Hey You Billionaire, Pay Your Fair Share

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY8isD33f-I

*---------*

Voices of Occupy Boston 2011 - Kwame Somburu (Paul Boutelle) Part I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA48gmfGB6U&feature=youtu.be

Voices of Occupy Boston 2011 - Kwame Somburu (Paul Boutelle) Part II

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjKZpOk7TyM&feature=related

*---------*

#Occupy Wall Street In Washington Square: Mohammed Ezzeldin, former occupier of

Egypt's Tahrir Square Speaks at Washington Square!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziodsFWEb5Y&feature=player_embedded

*---------*

#OccupyTheHood, Occupy Wall Street

By adele pham

http://vimeo.com/30146870

*---------*

Live arrest at brooklyn bridge #occupywallstreet by We are Change

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yULSI-31Pto&feature=player_embedded

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FREE THE CUBAN FIVE!

http://www.thecuban5.org/wordpress/index.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmS4kHC_OlY&feature=player_embedded

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One World One Revolution -- MUST SEE VIDEO -- Powerful and beautiful...bw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE3R1BQrYCw&feature=player_embedded

"When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty." Thomas Jefferson

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Japan: angry Fukushima citizens confront government (video)

Posted by Xeni Jardin on Monday, Jul 25th at 11:36am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVuGwc9dlhQ&feature=player_embedded


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Labor Beat: Labor Stands with Subpoenaed Activists Against FBI Raids and Grand

Jury Investigation of antiwar and social justice activists.

"If trouble is not at your door. It's on it's way, or it just left."

"Investigate the Billionaires...Full investigation into Wall Street..." Jesse

Sharkey, Vice

President, Chicago Teachers Union

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSNUSIGZCMQ

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Coal Ash: One Valley's Tale

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E7h-DNvwx4&feature=player_embedded

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