Wednesday, April 26, 2017

BAUAW NEWSLETTER, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 2017



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Shut Down Creech! Apr 23-29, 2017

Empire War Status

Support War Resister Pvt. Ryan Johnson

Imprisoned a decade after refusing crimes of his country

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MILITARISM IS 

AN ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE

USLAW supports the April 29th DC People's Climate March ... but ...


The organizers of the multi-issue People's Climate March tell us they're discussing whether and how to include peace in the agenda. 
Please encourage them by adding your name to the petition below, by re-tweeting it, by sharing it on facebook, and by forwarding this email.Thanks!!

Will you stand for peace?

A petition to the organizers of the
April 29 People's Climate March

PeoplesClimate.org website calls for a march on Washington on April 29, 2017, to "unite all our movements" for "communities," "climate," "safety," "health," "the rights of people of color, workers, indigenous people, immigrants, women, LGBTQIA, young people," and a much longer list . . . but not peace. 
Approximately half of federal discretionary spending is going into wars and war preparation. This institution constitutes our single biggest destroyer of the environment. [One reason peace is an environmental issue - see others below.] 
Will you please add "peace" to the list of things you are marching for?

NINE REASONS WHY THE ENVIRONMENTAL
MOVEMENT MUST ALSO FIGHT FOR PEACE:

    1. War is an environmental nightmare that continues to poison people and the planet long after the fighting ends.

    2. The Pentagon is the largest consumer of fossil fuels in the world.

    3. The Pentagon is the largest emitter of CO2 gases in the world.

    4. Wars are fought for oil and other energy resources. The U.S. drive for global hegemony is intimately bound up with its aim to control energy resources.

    5. The military consumes 54% of all discretionary spending. War and preparation for war divert financial and human resources needed to meet social needs (including investment in renewable energy and a sustainable energy system).

    6. The manufacture of arms and other military gear adds considerably to the carbon burden of the world.

    7. The military-industrial complex is fully integrated with and dependent upon the fossil fuel energy complex, serving as its enforcer as well as its client.

    8. To successfully address the climate crisis requires creating a sustainable new economy, but that is impossible so long as our economy remains dominated by the military-industrial-security-energy complex.

    9. To achieve a just transition to a new sustainable economy will require the environmental movement see its connection to movements for social justice, economic justice and peace.  The quest for peace is also a social justice struggle.

    The environmental movement must stop avoiding the connection between our militarized foreign policy and the challenge of climate change. 
Your contribution will be greatly appreciated. 

This is a low-volume email list operated by US Labor Against the War

1718 M St, NW #153 | Washington DC 20036 | 202-521-5265 | Contact USLAW

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Protest groups to unite as "The Majority" for massive actions across the country on May 1

By Aaron Morrison
March 23, 2017
https://mic.com/articles/171880/protest-groups-to-unite-as-the-majority-for-massive-actions-across-the-country-on-may-1#.UE6C9YgCB

Activist groups are uniting as a broader coalition they've dubbed "The Majority," an idea inspired by the Movement for Black Lives — a collective of organizations in the Black Lives Matter movement — organizers first shared with Mic on Thursday.
More than 50 partners representing black, Latino, the indigenous, LGBTQ, refugees, immigrants, laborers and the poor will collaborate from April 4 through May 1, International Worker's Day, when they'll launch massive protests across the country.
The action will "go beyond moments of outrage, beyond narrow concepts of sanctuary, and beyond barriers between communities that have much at stake and so much in common," The Majority states on its BeyondtheMoment.orgwebsite, which officially launches Monday.
"We will strike, rally and resist," the coalition, which includes the Black Lives Matter Global Network, Black Youth Project 100, Color of Change and Mi Gente, among others, wrote on its website.
Leading up to Donald Trump's inauguration, many U.S. activist groups worked in silos on strategies to resist the conservative political agenda that they agree is an existential threat to women, people of color, the LGBTQ community, immigrants and the environment. Trump's first 100 days in office had been chocked full of executive orders, budgets and legislative proposals that go directly against what these activists have long been fighting for. 
"Even though the election results showed one thing, the reality is that the majority of us are under attack and this is a moment for us to step into something together," Navina Khanna, director of the Health, Environment, Agriculture, and Labor Food Alliance in Oakland, California, said in a phone interview. HEAL is a part of The Majority. "This is about really learning to see our issues as one, and our struggles as one."
The "Beyond the Moment" initiative kicks off April 4 with "serious political education with our bases," according to the website. In the weeks leading up to the mass mobilizations on May 1, they will hold public teach-ins and workshops nationwide. The desired outcome is a "broad intersectional, cross-sectoral" and influential unity on the left, activists said.
The idea for Beyond the Moment was derived from the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam" speech, in which he spoke out against racism, materialism and militarism — all broader and more-inclusive themes than his earlier anti-Jim Crow campaigns. The coalition said it chose April 4 as the kickoff for political education because that is date that King delivered the speech in 1967 and the date on which he was assassinated a year later.
Although anti-Trumpism has been a unifying cause — protests in major U.S. cities have occurred almost weekly around the Trump administration's Muslim travel ban, Standing Rock policies and transgender rights rollback — The Majority said it wants supporters to think beyond this president.
"In the context of a new president using grandiose promises of job creation to mask the fundamentally anti-worker and pro-corporation nature of his policies, it is as important as ever that we put forth a true vision of economic justice, and worker justice, for all people," the coalition website states.

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Please forward widely…  Honoring Our Heroes & Martyrs: Lynne Stewart & Mumia Abu-Jamal May 6-7




Honoring our Heroes and Martyrs...
Celebrating the Life of People's Attorney  Lynne Stewart
Renewing the Fight to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal*
with...
so Ralph Poynter, lifelong companion of Lynne Stewart; co-founder New Abolitionist Movement; Black community activist 
so Mumia Abu-Jamal via Skype
so Judy Ritter, Professor of law; Co-counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal with NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund 
o Boots Riley of The Coup
so Cat Brooks, SF Bay Area National Lawyers Guild Interim Director; founder, Anti-police Terror Project and Bay Area Black Lives Matter
Special remarks from...
so Steve Bingham, Former President, SF Bay Area National Lawyers Guild,  recipient of the NLG's Champion of Justice Award 
 s Cindy Sheehan, Activist/Author/Host of Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox
so Jeff Mackler, Director, Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal; founder, West Coast Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
so Ralph Schoenman, Former Secretary to Bertrand Russel; Executive Director, Vietnam War Crimes Tribunal; Lynne Stewart defense organizer
s Dennis Bernstein, Host, KPFA's Flashpoints
Greetings from local social justice and prison rights activists  o Kim Serrano/Speak Out Now!;  o Judy Greenspan/Workers World Party and so Carol Seligman/Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
In San Francisco: Saturday, May 6, 7 pm, Eric Quesada Political and Cultural Center, 518 Valencia Street,  (near 16th Street BART)

In Oakland: Sunday, May 7, 7 pm, Humanist Hall, 390 27th St. (between Broadway &  Telegraph)
Sponsors: Lynne Stewart Organization & Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal 
Initial Co-sponsors/endorsers: Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox • Lynne Stewart Defense Committee • Socialist Action • Speak Out Now! • Workers World Party • Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal • United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC)  
Donation $20 - $10 sliding scale No one turned away for lack of funds. Benefit for Lynne Stewart Organization
For information about tables at $25 each contact: jmackler@lmi.net  510-268-9429
If you can't make these meetings, to help cover Lynne's family expenses, please send your contribution payable to Lynne Stewart Organization to POB 10328, Oakland, CA 94610
*Based of the 2016 Williams v. Pennsylvania U.S. Supreme Court decision Mumia's legal team is filing in Philadelphia on April 24 a petition for a new trial. The Williams decision held that in death penalty cases a state prosecutor, who is later appointed to a state court cannot rule on a decision that she/he was previously a party to. In Mumia's case, state prosecutor Ron Castille, who later became a PA Supreme Court judge, refused to recuse himself on Mumia's appeal.
s = SF meeting only
o = Oakland meeting only

so = both meetings

SAVE THE DATE, FROM SUZANNE ROSS: 

Be in Philadelphia on Monday, April 24th, Mumia's birthday, when a major legal issue will be addressed in the Court of Common Pleas (Pennsylvania State Court) challenging the entire process of conviction that took place during the State Appeals process from 1995 to 1998.  We are simultaneously addressing Mumia's Hep C Condition, the water crisis in Pennsylvania prisons, including Mahanoy where Mumia is housed, and the current major challenge to Mumia's conviction.  These issues affect thousands of other inmates in Pennsylvania.  Collective travel information is being planned and will be disseminated within the next few days.

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Mumia's Hep C Treatment Has Begun!


Joe Piette: 610-931-2615


Join us in Philadelphia on Monday, April 24, 2017 at 8:30AM, at the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas to assert Mumia's innocence and call for his immediate release.

Center for Criminal Justice
Courtroom 1101
1303 Filbert Street
Philadephia, PA

Signers in solidarity,

International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal
MOVE
Campaign to Bring Mumia Home
Abolitionist Law Center
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC)
Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal
Committee to Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
Mundo Obrero/Workers World
Philly REAL Justice
Prison Radio
Sankofa Community Empowerment
Millions for Mumia/International Action Center
Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal/Northern California
Le Collectif Français "Libérons Mumia"
German Network Against the Death Penalty and to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
Amig@s de Mumia de México

Saint-Denis Free Mumia Committee

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Support:




CONTRIBUTE 
Thank you for being a part of this struggle.

Cuando luchamos ganamos! When we fight we win!

Noelle Hanrahan, Director
Facebook
Twitter
Website
To give by check: 
PO Box 411074
San Francisco, CA
94141

Stock or legacy gifts:
Noelle Hanrahan
(415) 706 - 5222

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Former Puerto Rican political prisoner Oscar Lopez Rivera who recently received a commutation of his sentence  from President Obama will be coming to the Bay Area on Wednesday, May 31st.  This will be a memorable event, not to be missed!



Welcome Oscar Lopez Rivera 

  Oscar is Free and Coming to the Bay Area May 31st
                                                                       
            
           Oscar Lopez Rivera is coming to the Bay Area after 36 years in prison for his struggle in support for independence and sovereignty for Puerto Rican Independence. Help us support Oscar as he continues his work by making a financial commitment as he begins his new life.

            He will be visiting the Bay Area for a unique one time only public appearance on May 31st. For many of us, this is a welcome opportunity to celebrate his release and our shared victory. Let us show our support for Oscar in his new endeavors.

Please make a generous donation now: https://www.gofundme.com/welcomeoscar

Let us show Oscar that the SF Bay Area community supports him as he continues to advocate for sovereignty and independence for Puerto Rico. We look forward to seeing you in May.

Save the date: Wed. May 31, 2017  
                                 Recepcion 5pm
                                 Program 7pm - Place still to be determined 
For more information: freeoscarnow@gmail.com www.facebook.com/WelcomeOscartotheBayArea

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Solidarity with the Jacksonville Five! Donate for bail and defense! 
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Committee to Stop FBI Repression (stopfbi.net)

Solidarity with the Jacksonville Five!
Donate for bail and defense!

Please donate to the Jacksonville Five bail and defense fund!

Call State Attorney Melissa Nelson at
904-255-2500 and say, "Drop the charges against the Jacksonville Five!"


April 13, 2017 - The Jacksonville Five are a group of anti-war protesters in Florida beaten and arrested by police at a "No War in Syria" rally held on Friday April 7, 2017. A right-wing provocateur appeared with a Trump flag, and then harassed and shoved anti-war activists, while police did nothing to him. Then the Jacksonville Sheriffs Office (JSO) physically attacked the anti-war protesters who did nothing wrong.

The police descended upon Connell Crooms, a deaf African American man, who had been leading chants. The police savagely beat, kicked and tased Crooms until he was unconscious and had to be taken to the hospital. Crooms is a well-known Teamster and a Black Lives Matter leader.

The police also punched Vietnam veteran Willie Wilder in the face and arrested the 74-year-old peace activist. Christina Kittle, the leader of the Jacksonville Coalition for Consent was thrown to the ground and arrested. Transgender activist Toma Beckwith was also tackled and arrested.

As protesters were leaving the park to do jail support, the police arrested union activist and anti-war speaker Dave Schneider, charging him with "felony inciting a riot" for organizing the anti-war protest. Police never arrested the right-wing provocateur. In fact, there are many photos on social media of him posing with JSO police, including Sheriff Mike Williams.

Jacksonville quickly rallied to the defense of the Jacksonville Five. The next day, April 8, over 200 people rallied to demand all charges be dropped. Leaders of the labor, African American, and progressive movements chanted, "Drop the charges!" The mother of Connell Crooms gave a tearful testament to her son's good character and denounced the police attack on her son, "JSO should not be allowed to get away with this type of behavior."

The rally demanded a full independent investigation into the police misconduct of April 7. Protesters are also demanding an independent investigation into a police spying program. Just weeks earlier the Florida Times Union newspaper reported the Sheriff's Office was spying on activists, including the Jacksonville Five, with photos of Dave Schneider, Connell Crooms and Christina Kittle appearing.

Jacksonville Sheriffs are lying and denying, claiming the protesters "incited a riot." Fortunately, dozens of people took video of the police brutality. The social media pages of the provocateur contain ties to white supremacist groups and to Sheriff Mike Williams who denies he knows him, despite their photo together at a Trump rally.

To add insult to injury, the total bail amount issued by the court for all five arrestees came out to over $157,000. They are outrageously charging the people who were beaten and arrested by the police with serious felony charges. We need to mobilize national support and raise enough money to cover this and pay for the defense.

There is a continuing campaign to drop the trumped-up charges and investigate the abuses by the JSO.

Please call the State Attorney for the Florida 4th Circuit, Melissa Nelson at 904-255-2500, and demand she drop the charges against the Jax5.

Please share this link to donate to the Jacksonville Five legal defense fund:

http://tinyurl.com/DefendJax5

Copyright © 2017 Committee to Stop FBI Repression, All rights reserved.
Thanks for your ongoing interest in the fight against FBI repression of anti-war and international solidarity activists!
Our mailing address is:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
PO Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN  55414

Add us to your address book

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Please call to support Siddique Abdullah Hasan on hunger strike!

Call Director Gary Mohr at 614-387-0588 or email him at drc.publicinfo@odrc.state.oh.us as well as Northeast Regional Director Todd Ishee, 330-797-6398. 

Demand that the punishments being imposed on Jason Robb and Siddique Abdullah Hasan be reversed and that OSP authorities be severely reprimanded for violating their rights to due process and displaying bias toward them. 

Details and backstory (share this with media contacts, please):

Contact for interviews:

Staughton and Alice Lynd: salynd@aol.com, 330-652-9635


Prison Strike Leader Moved to Infirmary after Twenty Four Days Refusing Food.

Siddique Abdullah Hasan, a national prisoner leader has been on hunger strike since Monday, February 27th. On Friday, March 24th he was moved to the infirmary, presumably due to failing health. His appeal to the Rules Infraction Board (RIB) was also denied by Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) Director Gary Mohr.

The administration at Ohio State Penitentiary (OSP) has been targeting and restricting Hasan's communication access on any pretense they can find or invent since his outspoken support for the nation-wide prisoner strike on September 9th of 2016.

Hasan and another prisoner, Jason Robb began refusing food when the OSP administration put them on a 90 day communication restriction for being interviewed by the Netflix documentary series Captives. Hasan appealed the RIB's decision, arguing that they violated policies regarding timelines, access to witnesses, and prisoners' due process rights. Director Mohr's response to the appeal was a form letter that did not address any of the issues Hasan raised.

Hasan and Robb are on death row and have been held in solitary confinement since the 1993 prison uprising in Lucasville. They believe that the ODRC and the Ohio State prosecutors targeted them after the uprising because of their role in negotiating a peaceful surrender. State officials, in both the Captives documentary and a 2013 documentary called The Shadow of Lucasville, have admitted that some prisoners were given deals to testify against Hasan, Robb and others, and that no one really knows who committed the most serious crimes during the uprising. In court, they argued the opposite to secure death penalty convictions.

The Lucasville Uprising prisoners have been fighting to tell their story for decades, and are currently suing the ODRC over an unconstitutional media blockade, which the Captives documentary crew circumvented by unofficially recording video visits with Hasan and Robb. The current hunger strike is part of an ongoing struggle for equal protection, basic human rights and survival after decades of living under the most restrictive and torturous conditions of confinement at OSP, Ohio's supermax prison.

Supporters are asking people to please call Director Gary Mohr at 614-387-0588 or email him at drc.publicinfo@odrc.state.oh.us as well as Northeast Regional Director Todd Ishee, 330-797-6398. Demand that the punishments being imposed on Jason Robb and Siddique Abdullah Hasan be reversed and that OSP authorities be severely reprimanded for violating their rights to due process and displaying bias toward them.

For more information on the Lucasville Uprising, the struggles of these prisoners, and the media blockade against them, please visit LucasvilleAmnesty.org.

Hasan's Conduct Report and appeal: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxez-nYn2VrpVTVESENUZENnaVU/view?usp=sharing

Gary Mohr's form letter response: https://drive.google.com/a/lucasvilleamnesty.org/file/d/0B9q-BEqATW6TeHVUUHM1ZVF5bnc/view?usp=sharing

Feb 28th announcement of hunger strike: http://www.lucasvilleamnesty.org/2017/02/uprising-prisoners-censored-respond.html

Info about the lawsuit against media blockade: http://www.lucasvilleamnesty.org/2014/04/aclu-articles-on-lucasville.html

Articles about Hasan's involvement with the September 9th prison strike: http://www.lucasvilleamnesty.org/search/label/strike%20september%209th

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100,000 protest in San Francisco, CA

Pictures From Women's
Marches on Every Continent

Crowds in hundreds of cities around the world gathered Saturday
in conjunction with the Women's March on Washington.  JAN. 21, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/21/world/womens-march-pictures.html


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Dear Friend,

The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) is now in Contempt of Court

On January 3, 2017, Federal District Court Judge Robert Mariani ordered the DOC to treat Mumia with the hepatitis C cure within 21 days.

But on January 7, prison officials formally denied Mumia's grievances asking for the cure. This is after being informed twice by the court that denying treatment is unconstitutional.

John Wetzel, Secretary of the PA DOC, is refusing to implement the January 3rd Federal Court Order requiring the DOC to treat Mumia within 21 days. Their time has run out to provide Mumia with hepatitis C cure!

Mumia is just one of over 6,000 incarcerated people in the PA DOC at risk with active and chronic Hepatitis C. Left untreated, 7-9% of people infected with chronic hep C get liver cancer every year.  

We need your help to force the DOC to stop its cruel and unusual punishment of over 6,000 people in prison with chronic hepatitis C. Click here for a listing of numbers to call today!


Water Crisis in the Prison


Drinking water remains severely contaminated at the prison in which Mumia and 2,500 others are held, SCI Mahanoy in Frackville, PA. Mumia filed a grievance regarding the undrinkable water: read it here.

We are asking you to call the prison now to demand clean drinking water and hepatitis C treatment now! 

Protest Drinking Water Contamination Rally
When: From 4-6pm on Thursday, Feb 9
Where: Governor's Office- 200 South Broad St, Philadelphia
We're sending our mailing to you, including this brilliant poster by incarcerated artist Kevin Rashid Johnson. Keep an eye out it next week!
Cuando luchamos ganamos! When we fight, we win!

Noelle Hanrahan, Director

About the recently appealed Court victory:

On January 3rd, a federal court granted Mumia Abu-Jamal's petition for immediate and effective treatment for his Hepatitis-C infection, which has hitherto been denied him. The judge struck down Pennsylvania's protocols as "deliberate indifference to serious medical need."

This is a rare and important win for innocent political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal in a court system that has routinely subjected him to the "Mumia exception," i.e., a refusal of justice despite court precedents in his favor. Thousands of Hep-C-infected prisoners throughout Pennsylvania and the US stand to benefit from this decision, provided it is upheld. 

But, it is up to us to make sure that this decision is not over-turned on appeal--something the State of Pennsylvania will most likely seek.

Hundreds demonstrated in both Philadelphia and Oakland on December 9th to demand both this Hep-C treatment for prisoners, and "Free Mumia Now!" In Oakland, the December 9th Free Mumia Coalition rallied in downtown and then marched on the OPD headquarters. The Coalition brought over two dozen groups together to reignite the movement to free Mumia; and now we need your support to expand and build for more actions in this new, and likely very dangerous year for political prisoners. 


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Protect Kevin "Rashid" Johnson from Prison Repression!

PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY

WHEN: Anytime
WHAT: Protect imprisoned activist-journalist Kevin "Rashid" Johnson
FACEBOOK EVENT: https://www.facebook.com/events/1794902884117144/


On December 21, 2016, Kevin "Rashid" Johnson was the victim of an
assault by guards at the Clements Unit where he is currently being held,
just outside Amarillo, Texas. Rashid was sprayed with OC pepper gas
while handcuffed in his cell, and then left in the contaminated cell for
hours with no possibility to shower and no access to fresh air. It was
in fact days before he was supplied with new sheets or clothes (his bed
was covered with the toxic OC residue), and to this day his cell has not
been properly decontaminated.

This assault came on the heels of another serious move against Rashid,
as guards followed up on threats to confiscate all of his property – not
only files required for legal matters, but also art supplies, cups to
drink water out of, and food he had recently purchased from the
commissary. The guards in question were working under the direction of
Captain Patricia Flowers, who had previously told Rashid that she
intended to seize all of his personal belongings as retaliation for his
writings about mistreatment of prisoners, up to and including assaults
and purposeful medical negligence that have led to numerous deaths in
custody. Specifically, Rashid's writings have called attention to the
deaths of Christopher Woolverton, Joseph Comeaux, and Alton Rodgers, and
he has been contacted by lawyers litigating on behalf of the families of
at least two of these men.

As a journalist and activist literally embedded within the bowels of the
world's largest prison system, Rashid relies on his files and notes for
correspondence, legal matters, and his various news reports.
Furthermore, Rashid is a self-taught artist of considerable talent (his
work has appeared in numerous magazines, newspapers, and books);
needless to say, the guards were also instructed to seize his art
materials and the drawings he was working on.

(For a more complete description of Rashid's ordeal on and following
December 21, see his recent article "Bound and Gassed: My Reward for
Exposing Abuses and Killings of Texas Prisoners" at
http://rashidmod.com/?p=2321)

Particularly worrisome, is the fact that the abuse currently directed
against Rashid is almost a carbon-copy of what was directed against
Joseph Comeaux in 2013, who was eventually even denied urgently needed
medical care. Comeaux died shortly thereafter.

This is the time to step up and take action to protect Rashid; and the
only protection we can provide, from the outside, is to make sure prison
authorities know that we are watching. Whether you have read his
articles about prison conditions, his political or philosophical
polemics (and whether you agreed with him or not!), or just appreciate
his artwork – even if this is the first you are hearing about Rashid –
we need you to step up and make a few phone calls and send some emails.
When doing so, let officials know you are contacting them about Kevin
Johnson, ID #1859887, and the incident in which he was gassed and his
property confiscated on December 21, 2016. The officials to contact are:

Warden Kevin Foley
Clements Unit
telephone: (806) 381-7080 (you will reach the general switchboard; ask
to speak to the warden's office)

Tell Warden Foley that you have heard of the gas attack on Rashid.
Specific demands you can make:

* That Kevin Johnson's property be returned to him

* That Kevin Johnson's cell be thoroughly decontaminated

* That Captain Patricia Flowers, Lieutenant Crystal Turner, Lieutenant
Arleen Waak, and Corrections Officer Andrew Leonard be sanctioned for
targeting Kevin Johnson for retaliation for his writings

* That measures be taken to ensure that whistleblowers amongst staff and
the prisoner population not be targeted for any reprisals from guards or
other authorities. (This is important because at least one guard and
several prisoners have signed statements asserting that Rashid was left
in his gassed cell for hours, and that his property should not have been
seized.)

Try to be polite, while expressing how concerned you are for Kevin
Johnson's safety. You will almost certainly be told that because other
people have already called and there is an ongoing investigation – or
else, because you are not a member of his family -- that you cannot be
given any information. Say that you understand, but that you still wish
to have your concerns noted, and that you want the prison to know that
you will be keeping track of what happens to Mr Johnson.

The following other authorities should also be contacted. These bodies
may claim they are unable to directly intervene, however we know that by
creating a situation where they are receiving complaints, they will
eventually contact other authorities who can intervene to see what the
fuss is all about. So it's important to get on their cases too:

TDCJ Ombudsman: ombudsman@tdcj.texas.gov

The Inspector General:  512-671-2480

Let these "watchdogs" know you are concerned that Kevin Johnson #1859887
was the victim of a gas attack in Clements Unit on December 21, 2016.
Numerous witnesses have signed statements confirming that he was
handcuffed, in his cell, and not threatening anyone at the time he was
gassed. Furthermore, he was not allowed to shower for hours, and his
cell was never properly decontaminated, so that he was still suffering
the effects of the gas days later. It is also essential to mention that
his property was improperly confiscated, and that he had previously been
threatened with having this happen as retaliation for his writing about
prison conditions. Kevin Johnson's property must be returned!

Finally, complaints should also be directed to the director of the VA
DOC Harold Clarke and the VA DOC's Interstate Compact Supervisor, Terry
Glenn. This is because Rashid is in fact a Virginia prisoner, who has
been exiled from Virginia under something called the Interstate Compact,
which is used by some states as a way to be rid of activist prisoners,
while at the same time separating them from their families and
supporters. Please contact:

VADOC Director, Harold Clarke
804-887-8081
Director.Clarke@vadoc.virginia.gov

Interstate Compact director, Terry Glenn
804-887-7866

Let them know that you are phoning about Kevin Johnson, a Virginia
prisoner who has been sent to Texas under the Interstate Compact. His
Texas ID # is 1859887 however his Virginia ID # is 1007485. Inform them
that Mr Johnson has been gassed by guards and has had his property
seized as retaliation for his writing about prison conditions. These are
serious legal and human rights violations, and even though they occurred
in Texas, the Virginia Department of Corrections is responsible as Mr
Johnson is a Virginia prisoner. Despite the fact that they may ask you
who you are, and how you know about this, and for your contact
information, they will likely simply conclude by saying that they will
not be getting back to you. Nonetheless, it is worth urging them to
contact Texas officials about this matter.

It is good to call whenever you are able. However, in order to maximize
our impact, for those who can, we are suggesting that people make their
phone calls on Thursday, January 5.

And at the same time, please take a moment to sign the online petition
to support Rashid, up at the Roots Action website:
https://diy.rootsaction.org/petitions/prison-activist-gassed-in-clements-unit-prison-texas-law-enforcement-is-violently-out-of-control

Rashid has taken considerable risks in reporting on the abuse he
witnesses at the Clements Unit, just as he has at other prisons. Indeed,
he has continued to report on the violence and medical neglect to which
prisoners are subjected, despite threats from prison staff. If we, as a
movement, are serious about working to resist and eventually abolish the
U.S. prison system, we must do all we can to assist and protect those
like Rashid who take it upon themselves to stand up and speak out. As
Ojore Lutalo once put it, "Any movement that does not support their
political internees ... is a sham movement."

**********************

To learn more about Kevin "Rashid" Johnson, the abuses in the Texas
prison system, as well as his work in founding and leading the New
Afrikan Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter, see his website
athttp://www.rashidmod.com


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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter

Table of Contents:

A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS

B. ARTICLES IN FULL


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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS

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Defying the Tomb: Selected Prison Writings and Art of Kevin "Rashid" Johnson featuring exchanges with an Outlaw Kindle Edition

by Kevin Rashid Johnson (Author), Tom Big Warrior (Introduction), Russell Maroon Shoatz(Introduction)

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http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013RU5M4S



Join the Fight to Free Rev. Pinkney!

Click HERE to view in browser

http://www.iacenter.org/prisoners/freepinkney-1-28-15/

UPDATE:

Today is the 406th day that Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor, Michigan
languishes in prison doing felony time for a misdemeanor crime he did not
commit. Today is also the day that Robert McKay, a spokesperson for the
Free Rev. Pinkney campaign, gave testimony before United Nations
representatives about the plight of Rev. Pinkney at a hearing held in
Chicago. The hearing was called in order to shed light upon the
mistreatment of African-Americans in the United States and put it on an
international stage. And yet as the UN representatives and audience heard
of the injustices in the Pinkney case many gasped in disbelief and asked
with frowns on their faces, "how is this possible?" But disbelief quickly
disappeared when everyone realized these were the same feelings they had
when they first heard of Flint and we all know what happened in Flint. FREE
REV. PINKNEY NOW.

Please send letters to:
Marquette Branch Prison
Rev. Edward Pinkney N-E-93 #294671
1960 US Hwy 41 South
Marquette, MI 49855

Please donate at http://bhbanco.org (Donate button) or send checks to BANCO:
c/o Dorothy Pinkney
1940 Union St.
Benton Harbor, MI 49022

Contributions for Rev. Pinkney's defense can be sent to BANCO at Mrs Dorothy Pinkney, 1940 Union St., Benton Harbor, MI 49022

Or you can donate on-line at bhbanco.org.

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State Seeks to Remove Innocent PA Lifer's Attorney! Free Corey Walker!


The PA Office of the Attorney General (OAG) filed legal action to remove Corey Walker's attorney, Rachel Wolkenstein, in November 2014. On Tuesday, February 9, 2016 the evidentiary hearing to terminate Wolkenstein as Corey Walker's pro hac vice lawyer continues before Judge Lawrence Clark of the Dauphin County Court of Common Pleas in Harrisburg, PA.

Walker, assisted by Wolkenstein, filed three sets of legal papers over five months in 2014 with new evidence of Walker's innocence and that the prosecution and police deliberately used false evidence to convict him of murder. Two weeks after Wolkenstein was granted pro hac vice status, the OAG moved against her and Walker.

The OAG claims that Wolkenstein's political views and prior legal representation of Mumia Abu-Jamal and courtroom arrest by the notorious Judge Albert Sabo makes it "intolerable" for her to represent Corey Walker in the courts of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Over the past fifteen months the OAG has effectively stopped any judicial action on the legal challenges of Corey Walker and his former co-defendant, Lorenzo Johnson against their convictions and sentences to life imprisonment without parole while it proceeds in its attempts to remove Wolkenstein.

This is retaliation against Corey Walker who is innocent and framed. Walker and his attorney won't stop until they thoroughly expose the police corruption and deliberate presentation of false evidence to convict Corey Walker and win his freedom.

This outrageous attack on Corey Walker's fundamental right to his lawyer of choice and challenge his conviction must cease. The evidence of his innocence and deliberate prosecutorial frame up was suppressed for almost twenty years. Corey Walker must be freed!

Read: Jim Crow Justice – The Frame-up Of Corey Walker by Charles Brover

Go to FreeCoreyWalker.org to provide help and get more information.

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Major Battles On
For over 31 years, Major Tillery has been a prisoner of the State.
Despite that extraordinary fact, he continues his battles, both in the prison for his health, and in the courts for his freedom.
Several weeks ago, Tillery filed a direct challenge to his criminal conviction, by arguing that a so-called "secret witness" was, in fact, a paid police informant who was given a get-out-of-jail-free card if he testified against Tillery.
Remember I mentioned, "paid?"
Well, yes--the witness was 'paid'--but not in dollars. He was paid in sex!
In the spring of 1984, Robert Mickens was facing decades in prison on rape and robbery charges. After he testified against Tillery, however, his 25-year sentence became 5 years: probation!
And before he testified he was given an hour and a ½ private visit with his girlfriend--at the Homicide Squad room at the Police Roundhouse. (Another such witness was given another sweetheart deal--lie on Major, and get off!)
To a prisoner, some things are more important than money. Like sex!
In a verified document written in April, 2016, Mickens declares that he lied at trial, after being coached by the DAs and detectives on the case.
He lied to get out of jail--and because he could get with his girl.
Other men have done more for less.
Major's 58-page Petition is a time machine back into a practice that was once common in Philadelphia.
In the 1980s and '90s, the Police Roundhouse had become a whorehouse.
Major, now facing serious health challenges from his hepatitis C infection, stubborn skin rashes, and dangerous intestinal disorders, is still battling.
And the fight ain't over.
[©'16 MAJ  6/29/16]
Major Tillery Needs Your Help and Support
Major Tillery is an innocent man. There was no evidence against Major Tillery for the 1976 poolroom shootings that left one man dead and another wounded. The surviving victim gave a statement to homicide detectives naming others—not Tillery or his co-defendant—as the shooters. Major wasn't charged until 1980, he was tried in 1985.
The only evidence at trial came from these jailhouse informants who were given sexual favors and plea deals for dozens of pending felonies for lying against Major Tillery. Both witnesses now declare their testimony was manufactured by the police and prosecution. Neither witness had personal knowledge of the shooting.
This is a case of prosecutorial misconduct and police corruption that goes to the deepest levels of rot in the Philadelphia criminal injustice system. Major Tillery deserves not just a new trial, but dismissal of the charges against him and his freedom from prison.
It cost a lot of money for Major Tillery to be able to file his new pro se PCRA petition and continue investigation to get more evidence of the state misconduct. He needs help to get lawyers to make sure this case is not ignored. Please contribute, now.

HOW YOU CAN HELP
    Financial Support: Tillery's investigation is ongoing, to get this case filed has been costly and he needs funds for a legal team to fight this to his freedom!
    Go to JPay.com;
    code: Major Tillery AM9786 PADOC
    Tell Philadelphia District Attorney
    Seth Williams:
    Free Major Tillery! He is an innocent man, framed by police and and prosecution.
    Call: 215-686-8711 or

    Write to:
    Major Tillery AM9786
    SCI Frackville
    1111 Altamont Blvd.
    Frackville, PA 17931

      For More Information, Go To: Justice4MajorTillery/blogspot
      Call/Write:
      Rachel Wolkenstein, Esq. (917) 689-4009, RachelWolkenstein@gmail.com





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      Commute Kevin Cooper's Death Sentence

      Sign the Petition:
      http://www.savekevincooper.org/pages/petition.php


      Urge Gov. Jerry Brown to commute Kevin Cooper's death sentence. Cooper has always maintained his innocence of the 1983 quadruple murder of which he was convicted. In 2009, five federal judges signed a dissenting opinion warning that the State of California "may be about to execute an innocent man." Having exhausted his appeals in the US courts, Kevin Cooper's lawyers have turned to the Inter American Commission on Human Rights to seek remedy for what they maintain is his wrongful conviction, and the inadequate trial representation, prosecutorial misconduct and racial discrimination which have marked the case. Amnesty International opposes all executions, unconditionally.

      "The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man." - Judge William A. Fletcher, 2009 dissenting opinion on Kevin Cooper's case

      Kevin Cooper has been on death row in California for more than thirty years.

      In 1985, Cooper was convicted of the murder of a family and their house guest in Chino Hills. Sentenced to death, Cooper's trial took place in an atmosphere of racial hatred — for example, an effigy of a monkey in a noose with a sign reading "Hang the N*****!" was hung outside the venue of his preliminary hearing.

      Take action to see that Kevin Cooper's death sentence is commuted immediately.

      Cooper has consistently maintained his innocence.

      Following his trial, five federal judges said: "There is no way to say this politely. The district court failed to provide Cooper a fair hearing."

      Since 2004, a dozen federal appellate judges have indicated their doubts about his guilt.

      Tell California authorities: The death penalty carries the risk of irrevocable error. Kevin Cooper's sentence must be commuted.

      In 2009, Cooper came just eight hours shy of being executed for a crime that he may not have committed. Stand with me today in reminding the state of California that the death penalty is irreversible — Kevin Cooper's sentence must be commuted immediately.

      In solidarity,

      James Clark
      Senior Death Penalty Campaigner
      Amnesty International USA
        Kevin Cooper: An Innocent Victim of Racist Frame-Up - from the Fact Sheet at: www.freekevincooper.org

        Kevin Cooper is an African-American man who was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in 1985 for the gruesome murders of a white family in Chino Hills, California: Doug and Peggy Ryen and their daughter Jessica and their house- guest Christopher Hughes. The Ryens' 8 year old son Josh, also attacked, was left for dead but survived.

        Convicted in an atmosphere of racial hatred in San Bernardino County CA, Kevin Cooper remains under a threat of imminent execution in San Quentin.  He has never received a fair hearing on his claim of innocence.  In a dissenting opinion in 2009, five federal judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals signed a 82 page dissenting opinion that begins: "The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man." 565 F.3d 581.

        There is significant evidence that exonerates Mr. Cooper and points toward other suspects:

          The coroner who investigated the Ryen murders concluded that the murders took four minutes at most and that the murder weapons were a hatchet, a long knife, an ice pick and perhaps a second knife. How could a single person, in four or fewer minutes, wield three or four weapons, and inflict over 140 wounds on five people, two of whom were adults (including a 200 pound ex-marine) who had loaded weapons near their bedsides?

          The sole surviving victim of the murders, Josh Ryen, told police and hospital staff within hours of the murders that the culprits were "three white men." Josh Ryen repeated this statement in the days following the crimes. When he twice saw Mr. Cooper's picture on TV as the suspected attacker, Josh Ryen said "that's not the man who did it."

          Josh Ryen's description of the killers was corroborated by two witnesses who were driving near the Ryens' home the night of the murders. They reported seeing three white men in a station wagon matching the description of the Ryens' car speeding away from the direction of the Ryens' home.

          These descriptions were corroborated by testimony of several employees and patrons of a bar close to the Ryens' home, who saw three white men enter the bar around midnight the night of the murders, two of whom were covered in blood, and one of whom was wearing coveralls.

          The identity of the real killers was further corroborated by a woman who, shortly after the murders were discovered, alerted the sheriff's department that her boyfriend, a convicted murderer, left blood-spattered coveralls at her home the night of the murders. She also reported that her boyfriend had been wearing a tan t-shirt matching a tan t-shirt with Doug Ryen's blood on it recovered near the bar. She also reported that her boyfriend owned a hatchet matching the one recovered near the scene of the crime, which she noted was missing in the days following the murders; it never reappeared; further, her sister saw that boyfriend and two other white men in a vehicle that could have been the Ryens' car on the night of the murders.

        Lacking a motive to ascribe to Mr. Cooper for the crimes, the prosecution claimed that Mr. Cooper, who had earlier walked away from custody at a minimum security prison, stole the Ryens' car to escape to Mexico. But the Ryens had left the keys in both their cars (which were parked in the driveway), so there was no need to kill them to steal their car. The prosecution also claimed that Mr. Cooper needed money, but money and credit cards were found untouched and in plain sight at the murder scene.

        The jury in 1985 deliberated for seven days before finding Mr. Cooper guilty. One juror later said that if there had been one less piece of evidence, the jury would not have voted to convict.

        The evidence the prosecution presented at trial tying Mr. Cooper to the crime scene has all been discredited…         (Continue reading this document at: http://www.savekevincooper.org/_new_freekevincooperdotorg/TEST/Scripts/DataLibraries/upload/KC_FactSheet_2014.pdf)

             This message from the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. July 2015

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        CANCEL ALL STUDENT DEBT!

        Sign the Petition:

        http://cancelallstudentdebt.com/?code=kos


        Dear President Obama, Senators, and Members of Congress:


        Americans now owe $1.3 trillion in student debt. Eighty-six percent of that money is owed to the United States government. This is a crushing burden for more than 40 million Americans and their families.

        I urge you to take immediate action to forgive all student debt, public and private.

        American Federation of Teachers
        Campaign for America's Future
        Courage Campaign
        Daily Kos
        Democracy for America
        LeftAction
        Project Springboard
        RH Reality Check
        RootsAction
        Student Debt Crisis
        The Nation
        Working Families


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        Campaign to Free Lorenzo Johnson


        Updates from Team Lorenzo Johnson

        Dear Supporters and Friends,


        Show your support for Lorenzo by wearing one of our beautiful new campaign t-shirts! If you donate $20 (or more!) to the Campaign to Free Lorenzo Johnson, we will send you a t-shirt, while supplies last. Make sure to note your size and shipping address in the comment section on PayPal, or to include this information with a check.




        Here is a message from Lorenzo's wife, Tazza Salvatto:


        My husband is innocent, FREE HIM NOW!
        Lorenzo Johnson is a son, husband, father and brother. His injustice has been a continued nightmare for our family. Words cant explain our constant pain, I wish it on no one. Not even the people responsible for his injustice. 
        This is about an innocent man who has spent 20 years and counting in prison. The sad thing is Lorenzo's prosecution knew he was innocent from day one. These are the same people society relies on to protect us.

        Not only have these prosecutors withheld evidence of my husbands innocence by NEVER turning over crucial evidence to his defense prior to trial. Now that Lorenzo's innocence has been revealed, the prosecution refuses to do the right thing. Instead they are "slow walking" his appeal and continuing their malicious prosecution.
        When my husband or our family speak out about his injustice, he's labeled by his prosecutor as defaming a career cop and prosecutor. If they are responsible for Lorenzo's wrongful conviction, why keep it a secret??? This type of corruption and bullying of families of innocent prisoners to remain silent will not be tolerated.
        Our family is not looking for any form of leniency. Lorenzo is innocent, we want what is owed to him. JUSTICE AND HIS IMMEDIATE FREEDOM!!! 

                                  Lorenzo's wife,
                                   Tazza Salvatto
        Lorenzo is continuing to fight for his freedom with the support of his lead counsel, Michael Wiseman, The Pennsylvania Innocence Project, the Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice, and the Campaign to Free Lorenzo Johnson.
        Thank you all for reading this message and please take the time to visit our website and contribute to Lorenzo's campaign for freedom!
        Write: Lorenzo Johnson
                    DF 1036
                    SCI Mahanoy
                    301 Morea Rd.
                    Frackville, PA 17932
         Email: Through JPay using the code:
                      Lorenzo Johnson DF 1036 PA DOC
                                              or
                      Directly at LorenzoJohnson17932@gmail.com
                                             or
                      Directly on ConnectNetwork -- instructions here

        Have a wonderful day!
        - The Team to Free Lorenzo Johnson

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

         Email: Through JPay using the code:
                      Lorenzo Johnson DF 1036 PA DOC
                                             or
                      Directly at LorenzoJohnson17932@gmail.com

        freelorenzojohnson.org

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        B. ARTICLES IN FULL


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        1)  Fearmongering at Homeland Security
        By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
        https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/21/opinion/fearmongering-at-homeland-security.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region
        2)  Arkansas Puts Ledell Lee to Death, in Its First Execution Since 2005
        By ALAN BLINDER and MANNY FERNANDEZ
        3)  I.R.S. Enlists Debt Collectors to Recover Overdue Taxes
        "The provision was buried in a $305 billion highway funding bill. The agency hired four companies — CBE Group, ConServe, Performant and Pioneer Credit Recovery — and started giving them cases this month. ...The companies will work on commission, earning up to 25 percent of the delinquent debt they collect."
        By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG and STACY COWLEY


        4)  Immigration Inquiry Draws Protest at Tom Cat Bakery
        By TEJAL RAO


        5)  Scientists, Feeling Under Siege, March Against Trump Policies
        By NICHOLAS ST. FLEUR
        6)  In Jail, Pads and Tampons as Bargaining Chips
        By ZOE GREENBERG


        7)  Fatal Malaria in the U.S. More Common Than Previously Known
        By  DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. 
        8)  Spend a Dollar on Drug Treatment, and Save More on Crime Reduction
        By Austin Frakt, April 24, 2017
        https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/24/upshot/spend-a-dollar-on-drug-treatment-and-save-more-on-crime-reduction.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus&action=click&contentCollection=us&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=sectionfront


        9)  Arkansas Executes 2 Inmates, a First for Any State on One Day Since 2000
        By JULIE TURKEWITZ and RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

        10)   On This Block, Worries Run Deeper Than Flint’s Tainted Water
          Yes, this Michigan city is being promised clean water. But residents have seen no relief from more entrenched, though less publicized, problems.
          By JULIE BOSMAN, APRIL 25, 2017
          https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/25/us/flint-water-blight-violence.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news



        11)  Wells Fargo Shareholders Tepidly Re-elect Bank’s Directors
        By STACY COWLEY
        12)  River Piracy
        Rivers vanishing into thin air: this is what the climate crisis looks like
        The Guardian, April 21, 2017
        https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/21/rivers-vanishing-thin-air-climate-crisis





        13)  Marking Earth Day
        Indigenous people worldwide to fight corporate forces
        Common Dreams, April 21, 2017
        https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/04/21/marking-earth-day-indigenous-people-worldwide-fight-corporate-forces





        14)  Vietnamese Villagers Release 19 Officials Held Hostage in Land Dispute
        By MIKE IVES
        15)  Vietnam Land Protesters Free Final Hostages After City Official Visits
        By REUTERS

        16)  Report Compares Texas’ Solitary Confinement Policies to Torture
        By JACEY FORTIN










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        1)  Fearmongering at Homeland Security
        By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
        https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/21/opinion/fearmongering-at-homeland-security.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

        The United States is as vulnerable to an attack today as it was the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Information in the press about national security is misleading or flat-out wrong, offering a false sense of security. The men and women of the Department of Homeland Security perform heroic work day and night for a largely ungrateful nation. If members of Congress are unhappy with the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, they should pass new laws or “shut up.”
        Those were the main takeaways from Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly’s first extensive remarks about how he intends to lead a vast bureaucracy on the front lines of immigration enforcement, passenger screening and cybersecurity.
        “Make no mistake,” he said Tuesday during a speech at George Washington University. “We are in fact a nation under attack.”
        Of course it is necessary to take seriously threats from extremist groups and criminals, and take measures against them. But they do not justify Mr. Kelly’s incendiary message to his work force. The tone he sets can only encourage abusive behavior among his officers further down the chain of command against immigrants, and also lead to the curtailment of Americans’ civil liberties and privacy.
        Mr. Kelly said that Americans have grown complacent because their government has done such a good job of keeping them safe. The reality, he warned, is quite different: “We are under attack from terrorism both within and outside of our borders. These men and women are without conscience, and they operate without rules. They despise the United States, because we are a nation of rights, of laws and of freedoms. They have a single mission, and that is our destruction.”
        That apocalyptic talk turns the Islamophobia and immigrant scapegoating that turbocharged the Trump campaign into marching orders for federal law enforcement agents and bureaucrats. It ignores that the United States has spent billions of dollars over the past 15 years greatly enhancing its intelligence collection capabilities and that it has put in place far more stringent mechanisms to screen visa applicants and visitors.
        Disregarding these gains, Mr. Kelly and other top administration officials stand to make the country less safe with talk of a war on unauthorized immigrants, which is driving segments of immigrant communities underground, making them fearful of any encounters with law enforcement. The bashing of Muslims, meanwhile, is music to the ears of extremist, violent organizations that have used the notion that America is at war with Islam as a recruiting tool.
        Mr. Kelly’s prepared remarks also telegraphed more drastic measures to come. He said a new restriction on carrying laptops and tablets onto some flights from Muslim-majority countries “will likely expand,” citing, vaguely, “the sophisticated threats aviation faces.” America’s cyberdefenses can no longer rely on “muskets,” but instead need “heavy artillery.”
        Mr. Kelly dismissed critics who have lamented his stated willingness to separate immigrant mothers and children caught entering the country, claiming that this unfathomably cruel threat would be, and indeed already has been, a useful disincentive for would-be migrants.
        Among the more jarring parts of Mr. Kelly’s speech was his message to lawmakers. Citing the low morale of employees he described as “political pawns” in the nation’s contentious immigration debate, Mr. Kelly said members of Congress should have “the courage and the skill to change those laws,” or “shut up and support the men and women on the front lines” of immigration enforcement.
        Mr. Kelly’s choice of words reflects the dismal state of public discourse in American politics. That brusqueness encourages lawmakers to respond in kind, which can only make policy making more fraught and partisan. But even more alarming is his unrestrained fearmongering. If Americans take his discourse at face value, they will be living in a paranoid society willing to trade fundamental freedoms and principles for a sense of security.



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        2)  Arkansas Puts Ledell Lee to Death, in Its First Execution Since 2005
        By ALAN BLINDER and MANNY FERNANDEZ



        VARNER, Ark. — The State of Arkansas, dismissing criticism that it intended to rush too many prisoners to their deaths too quickly, on Thursday night carried out its first execution in more than a decade. Using a lethal injection drug that has been the subject of sharp constitutional debate, the state plans to execute three more men by the end of the month, before its supply of the chemical expires.
        Ledell Lee, who was condemned to death for the murder of Debra Reese more than 20 years ago in a Little Rock suburb, died at 11:56 p.m. Central time at the Cummins Unit, a prison in southeast Arkansas, after the reprieves he had won in federal and state courts were overturned. He received injections of three drugs: midazolam, to render him unconscious; vecuronium bromide, to halt his breathing; and potassium chloride, to stop his heart.
        State officials administered the lethal injection at 11:44 p.m., after Mr. Lee, who requested holy communion as his last meal, wordlessly declined to make a final statement. Sean Murphy, a reporter for The Associated Press who witnessed the execution, said Mr. Lee was not visibly uncomfortable as he was put to death. The prisoner, Mr. Murphy said, was not responsive when the authorities performed consciousness checks.

        An evening of appeals kept Mr. Lee, 51, alive as his death warrant neared its midnight expiration. The United States Supreme Court, as well as a federal appeals court in St. Louis, issued temporary stays of execution while they considered his legal arguments. In Little Rock, the Arkansas capital, Gov. Asa Hutchinson monitored developments at the State Capitol.
        At one point on Thursday night, the Supreme Court nearly halted Mr. Lee’s execution, but decided, 5 to 4, to allow the state to proceed with its plan, which had called for eight prisoners to be put to death over less than two weeks. The court’s majority — which included the newest justice, Neil M. Gorsuch — did not explain its decision, but in a dissent, Justice Stephen G. Breyer complained about how the state had established its execution schedule because of the approaching expiration date of Arkansas’s stock of midazolam.
        “In my view, that factor, when considered as a determining factor separating those who live from those who die, is close to random,” Justice Breyer wrote. “I have previously noted the arbitrariness with which executions are carried out in this country. The cases now before us reinforce that point.”
        Through his lawyers, who raised concerns about his intellectual capacity and the personal conduct and conflicts of some people who were involved in his trial, Mr. Lee maintained his innocence, and a state judge’s ruling threatened to block the state from using one of its execution drugs.
        But the courts ultimately allowed his death sentence to be carried out, making him the first prisoner in Arkansas to be executed since 2005. He had been sentenced to death in 1995 after a jury found that he had murdered Ms. Reese with a tire thumper in Jacksonville. In a 1997 ruling that upheld the conviction, the Arkansas Supreme Court said Mr. Lee had struck Ms. Reese 36 times with the small bat-shaped tool, which her husband had given her for protection.
        The Arkansas Parole Board said this month that Mr. Lee’s plea for executive clemency was “without merit,” and this week, the courts repeatedly rebuffed arguments to, at the least, delay his execution.
        “Arkansas’s decision to rush through the execution of Mr. Lee just because its supply of lethal drugs are expiring at the end of the month denied him the opportunity to conduct DNA testing that could have proven his innocence,” Nina Morrison, one of Mr. Lee’s lawyers, said in a statement. “While reasonable people can disagree on whether death is an appropriate form of punishment, no one should be executed when there is a possibility that person is innocent.”
        As Mr. Lee’s lawyers spent Thursday urging the courts to spare his life, the cascade of legal developments did not affect the stay of execution that another inmate, Stacey E. Johnson, received on Wednesday evening, about 24 hours before he was scheduled to be put to death.
        Mr. Johnson has also claimed innocence, and the State Supreme Court’s decision will allow for new forensic testing of some evidence. He was convicted of the 1993 rape and murder of Carol Heath, whose two children, according to the state, “were left alone overnight with their mother’s lifeless body.”
        Some of the most pitched legal clashes surrounding Arkansas’s planned executions centered on the state’s execution drugs, including midazolam, a common sedative that has been used in executions in the United States since 2013.
        The drug was conceived decades ago as an alternative to Valium, and it grew in popularity to become one of the world’s essential drugs, a pharmaceutical staple for procedures like colonoscopies. But as states struggled to obtain drugs for executions, they began to turn to midazolam, which has also been known as Versed, as a way to render prisoners unconscious before infusions of other drugs that cause excruciating suffering.
        Most executions involving midazolam have gone as planned. But a handful — in Alabama, Arizona, Ohio and Oklahoma — were criticized as botched, and some opponents argued that the drug had not sedated prisoners enough to allow them to die painless deaths. In 2015, the United States Supreme Court upheld the use of midazolam as an execution drug, but its future has remained a subject of deep dispute that has bounced among the nation’s trial and appellate courts.
        Arkansas was merely the latest stage for a debate that has centered on the Eighth Amendment’s protections against cruel and unusual punishment. A Federal District Court judge in Little Rock moved on Saturday to block the Arkansas executions because of her concerns about midazolam. That decision was later overturned.
        But the state also faced resistance in the courts because of how it purchased the second of its lethal injection drugs, vecuronium bromide. The nation’s largest pharmaceutical distributor, McKesson Corporation, accused the state of deceiving it as part of an end-run around restrictions on the sales of drugs that can be used in lethal injections.
        According to the company, the Arkansas Department of Correction did not disclose its intent for the drug, which the state had struggled to purchase elsewhere. The inadvertent sale, the company said, was improper, and it demanded that Arkansas return the drug.
        Judge Alice Gray of Circuit Court in Little Rock issued an order blocking the state from using the drug, effectively staying the executions. The state, which denied wrongdoing, appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday.
        “No valid legal theory supports McKesson’s argument that a person who purchases a product must use that product in a certain way as dictated by the seller after the completion of the transaction, or must return the product on demand by the seller after the completion of the transaction,” lawyers for the state wrote in their appeal.
        The State Supreme Court agreed with the attorney general’s office on Thursday evening and lifted Judge Gray’s order, allowing prison officials to use the drug it bought from McKesson last summer.
        Mr. Lee’s execution prompted immediate criticism.
        “Today is a shameful day for Arkansas, which is callously rushing the judicial process by treating human beings as though they have a sell-by date,” Amnesty International said in a statement. “While other states have increasingly come to the conclusion that the capital punishment system is beyond repair, Arkansas is running in the opposite direction from progress. This assembly line of executions must stop, and this cruel and inhuman punishment should be ended once and for all.”
        But Arkansas officials cast the execution as a milestone.
        “Tonight, the lawful sentence of a jury which has been upheld by the courts through decades of challenges has been carried out,” the Arkansas attorney general, Leslie Rutledge, said in a statement. “The family of the late Debra Reese, who was brutally murdered with a tire thumper after being targeted because she was home alone, has waited more than 24 years to see justice done. I pray this lawful execution helps bring closure for the Reese family.”
        Speaking at the prison, Mr. Hutchinson’s spokesman, J. R. Davis, said, “It’s a moment of reflection, but at the end of the night, the right thing was done.”


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        3)  I.R.S. Enlists Debt Collectors to Recover Overdue Taxes
        "The provision was buried in a $305 billion highway funding bill. The agency hired four companies — CBE Group, ConServe, Performant and Pioneer Credit Recovery — and started giving them cases this month. ...The companies will work on commission, earning up to 25 percent of the delinquent debt they collect."
        By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG and STACY COWLEY

        The Internal Revenue Service is about to start using four private debt-collection companies to chase down overdue payments from hundreds of thousands of people who owe money to the federal government, a job it has handled in house for years.
        Unlike I.R.S. agents, who are not usually allowed to call delinquent taxpayers by telephone, the outside debt-collection agencies will have free rein to do so. Consumer watchdogs are fearful that some of the nation’s most vulnerable taxpayers will be harassed and that criminals will take advantage of the system by phoning people and impersonating I.R.S. collectors.
        Additionally, one of the four companies that the I.R.S. has hired, Pioneer Credit Recovery, a subsidiary of Navient, was effectively firedtwo years ago by the Education Department from its contract to collect delinquent debt for misleading borrowers about their loans at what the department called “unacceptably high rates.”

        Proponents of the plan, who include Democrats and Republicans, point out that the debtors are shirking their tax obligations and that collecting from them will add to the Treasury’s coffers. The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that the new debt-collection program had the potential to gain a net $2.4 billion over the next 10 years.
        “Collecting tax debt that’s due and not in dispute is a matter of fairness to the many taxpayers who pay what they owe,” said Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa. “It’s been clear for a long time that the I.R.S. isn’t collecting the debt that these contractors will focus on.”
        Twice before, in 1996 and 2006, the I.R.S. has tried to farm out some of its collection duties. Both times, the programs were shut down and deemed failures. The most recent attempt cost millions more than it took in. It also generated thousands of complaints, including one oft-repeated horror story about an older couple who received more than 150 phone calls in less than a month.
        Even so, Congress passed a law in 2015 ordering the I.R.S. to once again outsource some of its delinquent debt. The provision was buried in a $305 billion highway funding bill. The agency hired four companies — CBE Group, ConServe, Performant and Pioneer Credit Recovery — and started giving them cases this month.
        The companies will work on commission, earning up to 25 percent of the delinquent debt they collect.
        The I.R.S. is owed some $138 billion in severely overdue payments on 14 million accounts, according to agency data, and that huge sum drives lawmakers crazy. Enlisting the private sector’s expertise to solve the problem is an idea that comes up again and again.
        High-profile lawmakers on both sides of the aisle backed the latest debt-collection plan. In addition to Mr. Grassley, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, has been a proponent of using private collectors for years. Three of the four companies that won the latest I.R.S. contracts are based in the two senators’ states.
        Mr. Schumer held a news conference in October to announce the 300 new jobs Pioneer planned to add in upstate New York as a result of the I.R.S. contract. The jobs “will help inject new life into the regional economy,” he said.
        Proponents of this kind of outsourcing say that the benefits go beyond jobs. During his confirmation hearing, Steven T. Mnuchin, President Trump’s Treasury secretary, said that employing for-profit collectors to pursue money owed to the government “seems like a very obvious thing to do.”
        But Nina E. Olson, whose job at the Internal Revenue Service is to be an advocate on behalf of taxpayers, strongly disagrees.
        Outsourcing the collection of federal tax debt is “a bad idea,” she wrotein a letter to Congress. “It disproportionately impacts low-income and other vulnerable taxpayers, and despite two attempts at making it work, the program has lost money both times, undermining the sole rationale for its existence.”
        In years past, Ms. Olson said, the outside collectors employed by the government used psychological tricks that may have coerced some debtors into payments they could not afford.
        According to a study by the I.R.S.’s Taxpayer Advocate Service, which Ms. Olson runs, the last time the agency used outside collectors — from 2006 to 2009 — the companies collected a net amount of around $86 million while pursuing $1.6 billion in debt.
        After the remaining debt was returned to the I.R.S. for renewed collection attempts, agents brought in another $139 million — 62 percent more than their private counterparts.
        With the administrative cost of running the program factored in, the I.R.S. lost $4.4 million, an agency analysis found.
        John A. Koskinen, the commissioner of the I.R.S., said the new program takes a “streamlined” approach, with significantly lower overhead than the last attempt. The plan is to turn 140,000 accounts over to the four companies this year, all with a balance of $50,000 or less.
        “We will do everything we can to make sure this program is effective,” Mr. Koskinen said at a congressional hearing this month. “Because if it works, that would be fine. If it doesn’t work, I don’t want anyone saying, well, we actually sandbagged it some way or the other.”
        Both the I.R.S. and the debt collectors say they will be mindful of taxpayers’ rights. Pioneer will “comply with debt collection rules and consumer protections,” the company said in a statement posted on its website. (The other three collectors did not respond to requests for comment.)
        That has done little to assuage consumer advocates’ concerns about the potential for abuse. More than two dozen groups sent a letter to Mr. Koskinen last year urging the agency to adopt additional safeguards, such as excluding debtors whose incomes are less than 250 percent of the poverty level.
        Ms. Olson warned that the program appeared “to place a bull’s-eye on the backs of low-income taxpayers.”
        The I.R.S. does not try to collect from those who make only enough to afford basic living expenses. Some 1.8 million taxpayers have debts that the agency deems uncollectable because of economic hardship.
        But there are no legal protections to keep those taxpayers out of the private collection program. Ms. Olson’s office analyzed 360,000 delinquent accounts that could be turned over for private collection; among those who filed recent tax returns, more than a third had income of less than $20,000.
        “You don’t want to be going after folks like that,” said Chi Chi Wu, a lawyer with the National Consumer Law Center. “If you turn the screws on them to the point where they can’t afford their rent, that’s not good for anyone.”
        In February, the I.R.S. put out its annual list of the biggest tax frauds. Phone calls from criminals posing as I.R.S. agents were the top problem. “During filing season, the I.R.S. generally sees a surge in scam phone calls that threaten police arrest, deportation, license revocation and other things,” the report said.
        At the time, the commissioner, Mr. Koskinen, was quoted in a news release saying: “If you’re surprised to get a call from the I.R.S., it almost certainly isn’t the real I.R.S. We generally initially contact taxpayers by mail.” Now that private companies are authorized to call taxpayers on behalf of the agency, that advice may no longer hold.
        “This is like putting out barrels of honey for scammers,” said David C. Vladeck, a professor at Georgetown Law School and the former director of the Federal Trade Commission’s consumer protection bureau.
        He also is among the people alarmed by the agency’s selection of Pioneer, a unit of Navient, a debt-collection giant that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued in January. The bureau accused Navient of failing at nearly every stage of the student loan collection process.
        “What is the I.R.S. thinking?” Mr. Vladeck said. “There’s a very dark cloud hanging over Pioneer. The idea that the I.R.S. would engage it nonetheless to be its agent in debt collection is just stunning.”
        The I.R.S. declined to comment on its selection of Pioneer, which along with CBE was one of the three outside companies the agency used in 2006.
        The consumer agency’s lawsuit asserts that Pioneer misled troubled borrowers about the benefits of resuming payments on lapsed accounts. Navient is fighting the lawsuit and has denied any wrongdoing.
        The I.R.S. says that delinquent taxpayers whose accounts are turned over to the private collection agencies will have already received many letters by mail from the agency, urging them to pay and warning them that the debt would be turned over to a third party for collection.


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        4)  Immigration Inquiry Draws Protest at Tom Cat Bakery
        By TEJAL RAO




        The protest over a Department of Homeland Security investigation that began in December and threatened the jobs of several immigrant workers at Tom Cat Bakery in Long Island City, Queens, was meant to begin at 6 a.m. on Friday.
        But at 3 a.m., a few protesters arrived at the factory and chained themselves to the bakery’s trucks, disrupting morning deliveries. Four people were arrested, the police said.
        By 7, more than 100 people had gathered in the rain, carrying signs that read “No Human Is Illegal” and “Rise and Resist.” Members of a marching band, the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, played as a group of 100 people marched back and forth along 10th Street, chanting in both Spanish and English.
        Others in the food business around New York joined in the demonstrators’ call for “A Day Without Bread.” Eli and Max Sussman, brothers who run the Brooklyn restaurant Samesa, posted signs drawing attention to the protest, and to the rights of immigrant workers. On Friday, they donated 50 cents from the sale of every item that includes pita bread to a fund set up for workers. And at the register, they collected additional money.
        Yemeni bodega owners in Bay Ridge and other parts of southern Brooklyn put up posters in solidarity and in some cases refused to sell any bread on Friday. Many of the bodega owners who shut their stores in February, to protest President Trump’s travel ban, feel that the most vulnerable and weakest are being targeted, said Rabyaah Althaibani, a Yemeni-American activist.

        Tom Cat Bakery, which employs about 180 workers in Long Island City, opened in 1987 and was acquired last July by Yamazaki Baking Company, one of Japan’s largest bread producers; it supplies breads to many New York restaurants and stores.
        Last month, the company advised workers that it was being investigated by federal immigration officials.
        Henry Rivera, an employee for 11 years, said he and 30 other workers were each called into a private meeting with a manager and told that they could lose their jobs if they didn’t produce paperwork by this Friday showing they could work legally in the United States.
        “A lot went through my head,” said Mr. Rivera, 29, a father of two and an immigrant from Honduras, who spoke in Spanish. “Like, how will I pay my rent, and my bills.”
        Brandworkers, a nonprofit group that is an advocate for food-manufacturing workers, began organizing protests with Tom Cat employees.
        Rachael Yong Yow, a spokeswoman for the New York field office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency of the Homeland Security Department, would neither confirm nor deny that federal officials were investigating the bakery. The agency can fine any employer that knowingly hires unauthorized workers up to $21,916 per employee.
        William Wachtel, a spokesman for Tom Cat, said in a phone interview on Friday that the company first learned it was undergoing a routine audit in December, and later sought to help and retain all its employees, advising 31 people with inadequate documentation to seek immigration counsel, and offering to assist with payments for lawyers. At least nine employees were able to produce the necessary paperwork, Mr. Wachtel said, and will remain with the company.
        Keith Bleier, Tom Cat’s chief executive, said in a statement that the past few weeks had been a challenge for the bakery, and he praised his work force. “As you may know, your union, Local 53, stepped in and worked with us to ensure that the terms under which the affected employees are being released are consistent with the high value Tom Cat places on its family of workers,” he wrote.
        In an interview outside the factory, Oscar Ramirez, who worked at Tom Cat for 12 years, and is losing his job, said he did not feel scared or intimidated. “We’ve all done the best we can all these years,” he said, “and we demand justice and respect.”
        Despite the protest, by 7:30, the unmistakable smell of baking bread was in the air on 10th Street. “Work is getting done today, just at a really slow pace,” said Jay Rosario, 26, a Tom Cat employee who stepped out for a smoking break.
        Mr. Rosario was born and raised in East New York, Brooklyn, the son of Puerto Rican and Dominican parents. He started working the transfer belt at Tom Cat about three months ago, managing dough production.
        “They trained me,” he said of his protesting colleagues. “I have this job because of them. But also, isn’t 20 years long enough to get all your papers?”
        Mr. Rosario was not sure how his co-workers might obtain the proper papers, and wondered why a manager had not sat everyone down and explained what was going on.
        “Either way, it’s unfair,” he said.


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        5)  Scientists, Feeling Under Siege, March Against Trump Policies
        By NICHOLAS ST. FLEUR



        WASHINGTON — Thousands of scientists and their supporters, feeling increasingly threatened by the policies of President Trump, gathered Saturday in Washington under rainy skies for what they called the March for Science, abandoning a tradition of keeping the sciences out of politics and calling on the public to stand up for scientific enterprise.
        As the marchers trekked shoulder-to-shoulder toward the Capitol, the street echoed with their calls: “Save the E.P.A.” and “Save the N.I.H.” as well as their chants celebrating science, “Who run the world? Nerds,” and “If you like beer, thank yeast and scientists!” Some carried signs that showed rising oceans and polar bears in peril and faces of famous scientists like Mae Jamison, Rosalind Franklin and Marie Curie, and others touted a checklist of the diseases Americans no longer get thanks to vaccines.
        Although drizzle may have washed away the words on some signs, they aimed to deliver the message that science needs the public’s support.

        “Science is a very human thing,” said Ashlea Morgan, a doctoral student in neurobiology at Columbia University. “The march is allowing the public to know that this is what science is, and it’s letting our legislators know that science is vitally important.”
        The demonstration in Washington — which started with teach-ins and a rally that packed the National Mall — was echoed by protests in hundreds of cities across the United States and around the world, including marches in Europe and Asia.
        The March for Science evolved from a social media campaign into an effort to get people onto the streets.
        Its organizers were motivated by Mr. Trump, who as a presidential candidate disparaged climate change as a hoax and cast suspicions on the safety of vaccines.
        Their resolve deepened, they said, when the president appointed cabinet members who seemed hostile to the sciences. He also proposed a budget with severe cuts for agencies like the National Institutes of Health — which would lose 18 percent of their funding in his blueprint — and the Environmental Protection Agency, which faces a 31 percent budget cut and the elimination of a quarter of the agency’s 15,000 employees.
        While traveling by motorcade to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Saturday, Mr. Trump passed dozens of demonstrators from the march holding signs, including one that said, “Stop denying the earth is dying,” according to a pool report. Later, the White House released a statement from Mr. Trump for Earth Day that did not mention the March for Science by name, but appeared directed at its participants. Calling science critical to economic growth and environmental protection, he said, “My administration is committed to advancing scientific research that leads to a better understanding of our environment and of environmental risks.”
        “As we do so, we should remember that rigorous science depends not on ideology, but on a spirit of honest inquiry and robust debate,” he added.
        Organizers said they hoped the day’s demonstrations result in sustained, coordinated action aimed at persuading elected officials to adopt policies consistent with the scientific consensus on climate change, vaccines and other issues.
        “This has been a living laboratory as scientists and science institutions are willing to take a step outside their comfort zone, outside of the labs and into the public spheres,” said Beka Economopoulos, a founder of the pop-up Natural History Museum and an organizer of the march.
        Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician who helped expose lead poisoningin Flint, Mich., and who spoke in Washington, called the protest the beginning of a movement to ensure that governments do not dismiss or deny science.
        “If we want to prevent future Flints, we need to embrace what we’ve learned and how far we’ve come in terms of science and technology,” Dr. Hanna-Attisha said in an interview.
        What began as a movement by scientists for scientists has drawn in many science enthusiasts, young and old.
        William Harrison, 9, from Washington, held up a waterlogged cardboard sign he drew with markers of a shark pleading with humanity to save him from global warming. He said science is important because without it, “we basically will not exist.”
        On the West Coast, Penelope DeVries, 69, carried a sign at the march in San Francisco that said, “Love your mother,” with a blue and green Earth, the paint still wet from when she made it on her kitchen floor.
        “I have three grandchildren, and I want them to have a beautiful life like I have,” she said.
        She was one of thousands of upbeat demonstrators who marched through the city’s downtown under mild weather.
        A volunteer at that march, Bryan Dunyak, 28, was motivated to help improve science outreach and improve public understanding of science.
        “The vast majority of people will never have the chance to ask a scientist, ‘Why do you do what you do?’” said Dr. Dunyak, who is a postdoctoral researcher in neurodegenerative disease at the University of California, San Francisco.
        Fearing that Mr. Trump may undermine public support for the sciences, many scientists at the marches said they believed now was the appropriate moment to express themselves politically.
        “I can’t think of a time where scientists felt the enterprise of science was being threatened in the way scientists feel now,” Naomi Oreskes, a professor of the history of science at Harvard University, said in an interview this week.
        Dr. Oreskes said the closest parallel to Saturday’s protests were the demonstrations for nuclear disarmament in the 1950s and ’60s. But scientists were then marching against the use of science to build weapons of mass destruction.
        Thousands converged on the Boston Common in a cold rain, and children danced to a brass band. Students from Harvard and M.I.T. marched over the bridge from Cambridge, and a contingent from Boston University chanted, “What do we want? Science! When do we want it? After peer review!”
        In a city and state where many work in hospitals and biomedical firms, Mr. Trump’s proposals to cut the National Institutes of Health’s budget were on the minds of many marchers there.
        Dr. George Q. Daley, the dean of Harvard Medical School, said in a speech that the proposed cuts would have a “cataclysmic effect” on the economy in Massachusetts.
        “This is a shortsighted decision that will set the biomedical enterprise on a path toward devastation,” Dr. Daley said.
        Julian Arthur, a product scientist who works on antibody production, agreed.
        “I feel that science funding should not be up to the whims of a frugal government,” he said.
        In New York, demonstrators stretched for 10 blocks along Central Park West, wedged between the park and a line of buildings on a gray and dreary day.
        Underlining the connection in the minds of many marchers between the science march, Earth Day and global warming, one participant, Christine Negra, 49, a chemist who works as a consultant on climate change issues, said she would attend next week’s People’s Climate March, too.
        “In the U.S., we’re lagging in our recognition about how important climate change is,” she said. “These public events are meant to shake people out of their daily lives so that people see how urgent the problem really is.”
        Many messages at the New York rally took on a political hue. One demonstrator carried a sign with a diagram. “Before you dismiss science, Mr. President,” it said, “here is the molecular formula for hair spray.” Another said, “Fund science, not walls.” And along the marching route, some were heard chanting, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Donald Trump has got to go,” as they passed the Trump International Hotel and Tower at Columbus Circle.
        For many marchers, especially those in the sciences who were demonstrating for the first time, political settings can be a source of discomfort. And critics of the march who are in the sciences expressed concern that such displays could be damaging.
        “I worry the march would drive the wedge deeper,” said Robert S. Young, a coastal geologist at Western Carolina University who wrote a New York Times Op-Ed article in January expressing misgivings about the march.
        Although Dr. Young planned to support friends at a satellite demonstration, he said it would be easy for conservatives to say the march was really about supporting liberal policies.
        “Going to a march is easy,” he said. “Spending the next couple of years reinventing how we communicate with red-state America, that’s hard.”
        In energy-rich Oklahoma, the home state of Scott Pruitt, the E.P.A. chief who repeatedly sued the agency when he was the state’s attorney general, a crowd estimated at more than 2,000 by law enforcement officials chanted “science is real.”
        The demonstrators gathered on a stone plaza before the State Capitol, which is fenced and scaffolded for renovation. They marched on a route that took them around a park that includes two restored oil derricks that once pumped oil from a source beneath the Capitol.
        Many at the Oklahoma City march seemed motivated by local issues. Lisa Pitts, a teacher, said she was marching because of concerns about the state’s education budget and to support science education.
        “We are not a poor state,” she said. “We should not be 50th in everything.”
        But concerns about the country’s direction under Mr. Trump were present there, too.
        “I don’t want to go back to having dirty air and water,” said Rene Roy, who formerly worked for the state’s environmental regulator and was concerned about Mr. Pruitt’s plans for the E.P.A.
        Back in Washington, Denis Hayes, who was the principal organizer of the first Earth Day in 1970, said concerns like Mr. Roy’s were an important source of motivation for the science march, which was coordinated with the Earth Day Network.
        “You have a clear enemy,” he said. “You’ve got a president who along with his vice president, his cabinet and his party leadership in both houses of Congress have a strong anti-environmental agenda. He’s basically trying to roll back everything that we’ve tried to do in the last half-century.”


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        6)  In Jail, Pads and Tampons as Bargaining Chips
        By ZOE GREENBERG




        When Tara Oldfield-Parker, 24, was arrested on charges of shoplifting, she had just gotten her period. She asked the officers in charge of her holding cell in a police station in Queens for a sanitary pad.
        Sure, they said. But they would need to call an ambulance to get one.
        After about an hour and a half, they produced a sterile gauze pad, apparently obtained from an ambulance. It was the kind of rectangular gauze used to bandage an arm, with no adhesive.
        It might seem strange that a place where female suspects are held would not have something as basic as a sanitary pad. Ms. Oldfield-Parker’s story reflects the way menstruation can be treated in New York’s jails: as an inconvenience, almost a surprise, to be met, at times, with an improvised response. Simple supplies like pads and tampons can become bargaining chips, used to maintain control by correction officers, or traded among incarcerated women, according to former inmates and advocates on the issue.

        Each level of incarceration in New York has a different policy (or no policy) related to menstruation. Ms. Oldfield-Parker’s cell had no supplies. But in the state’s prisons and jails, these women and advocates say, inconsistent access to tampons and pads has less to do with stock and more to do with power. The facilities have enough supplies, but they are not available equally to all the women who need them.
        At the Rose M. Singer Center on Rikers Island, where about 600 women usually are imprisoned, pads and tampons are distributed weekly. It’s up to officers to determine how the pads reach the women: Some leave them out in a bucket or box; others hand them out to individual women who ask.
        “Some women have reported no issues at all; they ask and get what they need,” said Kelsey De Avila, a jail services social worker with Brooklyn Defender Services who spends about three days a week on Rikers. “Others have to beg for it.”
        Since the distribution is left up to individual officers, there is an easy opportunity for mishandling.
        BettyAnn Whaley, 56, who was released from Rikers last June and now lives in the North Bronx, said pads were accessible “seven out of 10 times,” though they were a flimsy version of what you might buy at a store. Tampons were harder to get.
        “They were only given to certain housing units,” Ms. Whaley said in an interview after her release. And even then, she added, “they were only dispensed to certain individuals — you had to be sort of chummy-chummy in order to receive them.”
        Others agreed that it isn’t an issue of supply. Chandra Bozelko, a writer and advocate who was incarcerated at a state prison in Connecticut, said menstrual supplies were indeed used as tools of control. Officers sometimes tried to teach women a lesson by limiting access, affecting self-esteem as well as basic hygiene.
        “It turns you on yourself,” Ms. Bozelko said. “You start to hate your body.”
        In both state and city facilities in New York, women recalled humiliating experiences related to getting what they needed.
        Christine, 24, who requested that her surname not be used because she is incarcerated upstate, said she would never forget what happened to her at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a maximum-security women’s prison in Westchester County that serves as a reception center for newcomers. She was going to be transferred to another prison, so her father came to visit her. She had her period and had not been given any pads. After the visit, she was strip-searched as blood ran down her legs. The female correction officer was cruel, she said.
        “She was telling me how disgusting I was, ‘It’s disgusting,’” she recalled. “I was so embarrassed.”
        When asked about the episode, a spokesman for the State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, which oversees New York’s state prisons, wrote that the agency was “continuously reviewing its policies to best meet female inmates’ personal hygiene needs.” The spokesman added that under departmental policy, “female inmates are provided sanitary napkins on an as-needed basis.”
        Ms. Whaley recalled an episode at Rikers when a correction officer threw a bag of tampons into the air and watched as inmates dived to the ground to retrieve them, because they didn’t know when they would next be able to get tampons.
        The city’s Correction Department, which manages Rikers, looked into the matter after being questioned about it, but said there was no way for it to confirm that it had occurred. The department said that with an average of 500 grievances filed a year at the Singer Center, none in the past three years had been related to menstrual hygiene.
        Lacking menstrual supplies can also disrupt an incarcerated woman’s rehabilitation. Andrea Nieves, a Brooklyn public defender, testified last year before a New York City Council committee looking into the availability of feminine hygiene products in jails that a client at Rikers asked her social worker not to visit while the client was menstruating, afraid that she would bleed through her uniform and be ashamed.
        Name-brand tampons are available at the jail commissary for about $4 a box, though some women can’t afford them. At Rikers, women said tampons were valuable enough that they could be traded for a bag of chips or a pack of coffee.
        This sense of scarcity was echoed at other facilities: Frances McMurry, who had been incarcerated at Taconic Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison in Bedford Hills, N.Y., through last September, said sanitary products were “a higher currency than sugar, coffee and cigarettes.”
        Last June, the Council passed a law requiring city jails to provide free feminine hygiene products to inmates. It’s not clear that the law made a difference. It does not include an enforcement mechanism and does not apply to state prisons, where a 2015 report by the nonprofit Correctional Association of New York found that more than half of survey respondents (514 of 957) said the monthly supply of menstrual pads did not meet their needs.
        Ms. Bozelko, who is an adviser for a book about the politics of periods, mentioned two ways in which prisons and jails could improve. First, require officers to put the pads or tampons in a public place, as some already do at Rikers, so that women do not need to ask for them. Some may be wasted, but Ms. Bozelko said that was the price of making sure women have what they need. And, second, individual officers need to be held accountable if they do not supply the products.
        Ms. Bozelko said she was often asked about a scene from the Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black,” in which the protagonist wears shower shoes made out of sanitary napkins. Though she recalled that some incarcerated women used pads for other purposes, Ms. Bozelko said she could not understand it.
        “I’d rather get foot fungus than waste those things,” she said. “I had to go to war for each one of them.”


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        7)  Fatal Malaria in the U.S. More Common Than Previously Known
        By  DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. 



        Serious and fatal bouts of malaria in the United States are a greater problem than has been previously reported, according to a new study. Most appear to be in immigrants who have made summer or Christmas visits to their home countries without taking precautions against infection.
        The typical victim appears to be a man ranging in age from 20 to 50 who is from Africa or the Caribbean, said the lead author, Diana Khuu, an epidemiologist at the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles.
        But among the hospitalized women, an unusually high number — 14 percent — were pregnant. Because pregnancy lowers immune defenses, malaria can be lethal to both mother and fetus.
        Although the study was based on hospital data rather than interviews with patients, the authors suspect that many of the victims grew up in malarial areas, developed immunity in childhood from repeated infections, and then did not realize that their childhood immunity had disappeared after years in the United States.
        “They just think they’re going home, so they don’t have to prepare for anything,” Dr. Khuu said.
        The fact that malaria immunity wanes after a few years away from repeated exposure is well-known to malaria experts, but not common knowledge, so immigrants may not get prescriptions for anti-malaria drugs before traveling or sleep under mosquito nets in a malarial area.
        Although world malaria deaths have dropped about 60 percent since 2000, the disease kills about 429,000 people each year. Most are children under 5 in Africa.

        The authors analyzed about 100 million hospital discharge records for 2000 to 2014 in the National Inpatient Sample of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, part of the Department of Health and Human Services.
        The study was published Monday by The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
        The authors counted 22,000 patients hospitalized for malaria, about five times as many as were hospitalized, for example, for dengue fever, another mosquito-borne tropical disease. Nearly 5,000 of them had serious complications like kidney failure or coma, and 182 died.
        The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated there are about 1,500 to 2,000 cases of malaria a year in the United States, while the study concluded there are at least 2,100.
        The C.D.C. estimates are based on reports sent in by doctors and laboratories, and many doctors do not realize that they are obligated to report all cases to state health authorities, Dr. Khuu said.
        Case counts were greatest in East Coast cities, some of which have many immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean.
        Among hospitalized patients whose races were recorded, more than half were black; 60 percent were male and the peak age range was 25 to 44, the study found. Whites were the second-largest racial group and Asians the third.
        Countries of origin were not recorded, but C.D.C. records suggest that many travelers to India get malaria while on family visits, Dr. Khuu said.
        Cases peaked in August and again in January, suggesting that they were linked to summer and Christmas visits, Dr. Khuu said.


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        8)  Spend a Dollar on Drug Treatment, and Save More on Crime Reduction
        By Austin Frakt, April 24, 2017
        https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/24/upshot/spend-a-dollar-on-drug-treatment-and-save-more-on-crime-reduction.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus&action=click&contentCollection=us&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=sectionfront

        The burden of substance abuse disorders can fall heavily on the families and friends of those who battle addictions. But society also pays a great deal through increased crime. Treatment programs can reduce those costs.
        For at least two decades, we’ve known substance use and crime go hand in hand. More than half of violent offenders and one-third of property offenders say they committed crimes while under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
        Researchers with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently estimated that prescription opioid abuse, dependence and overdoses cost the public sector $23 billion a year, with a third of that attributable to crime. An additional $55 billion per year reflects private-sector costs attributable to productivity losses and health care expenses.
        About 80,000 Americans are incarcerated for opioid-related crimes alone. The total annual economic burden of all substance use disorders — not just those involving opioids — is in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
        In an editorial accompanying the C.D.C. researchers’ study, Harold Pollack, co-director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, wrote that opioid-associated crime, like all crime, extracts an even larger toll when you consider its impact on families and communities.
        “The most important reason to support treatment is to improve the well-being and social function of people with addiction disorders,” Mr. Pollack said. But there are other social benefits. When the criminally active get help for this, “the economic value of crime reduction largely or totally offsets the costs of treatment,” he added.
        Relative to the costs of crime alone, treatment for substance use disorders is a good deal. Even though a typical burglary may result in a few thousand dollars of tangible losses, researchers have estimated that people are willing to pay 10 times that amount to avoid that loss and 100 times more to avoid armed robbery. This reflects the fact that crime exacts a large psychological toll — the threat or climate of it is far more costly than the crimes themselves.
        The most cost-effective treatment for opioid use disorders includes counseling along with a craving-relieving prescription drug, like methadone or buprenorphine, sometimes combined with other medications. According to an economic analysis by the New England Comparative Effectiveness Public Advisory Council, this kind of treatment actually saves society money. For instance, New England states could save $1.3 billion by expanding treatment of opioid-dependent persons by 25 percent.
        Though the war on drugs has not had a tangible impact on crime, treatment for substance use disorders has. A study by Emory University scholars found that a 10 percent increase in the treatment rate reduces the robbery and larceny theft rates by about 3 percent and the aggravated assault rate by 4 to 9 percent.
        For a dollar spent on treatment, up to three are saved in crime reduction. An earlier study found that interventions to address substance use disorders save more in reduced crime than they save in reduced health care spending.
        Several systematic reviewsand meta-analyses of therapies for opioid addiction found thatmethadone therapy reduced criminal activities related to heroin use. One analysis of more than 8,000 heroin users found that their offending rates were lower while on methadone therapy than when not on it.
        For every 100 patients on methadone per year, there were 12 fewer robberies, 57 fewer break-and-enters and 56 fewer auto thefts. Another systematic review found that provision of heroin by doctors to patients addicted to it — permitted in Canada and some other countries — reduces crime.
        Findings such as these justify drug courts, which divert drug offenders from the traditional criminal justice system into treatment. But what about helping those with substance use disorders obtain treatment before they commit crimes and land in court? Given the crime-deterring value of treatment (among its other benefits), you’d think we’d make it easy for patients to get.
        We don’t. The need for treatment far exceeds its supply. Many treatment programs have waiting lists, and the vast majority of those with substance use or dependency problems go untreated.
        Stigma plays a role, which is why addiction treatment works best when it is integrated with and supported alongside ordinary medical care. A pervasive not-in-my-backyard attitude challenges the establishment of more programs. A recent study by economists from Texas A&M and Montana State Universities suggests this is shortsighted.
        The researchers found that the opening of an additional treatment facility in a county is associated with lower drug-related mortality in that county, as well as lower crime. The effect of crime reduction alone would save an estimated $4.2 million per facility per year, or almost four times its cost.
        “Addiction treatment may be the one area of health policy right now in which Democrats and Republicans want to work together to meet an important public health challenge,” Mr. Pollack said. “The economic and crime-reduction benefit of these services certainly provide good reason for this.”






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        9)  Arkansas Executes 2 Inmates, a First for Any State on One Day Since 2000
        By JULIE TURKEWITZ and RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA


        VARNER, Ark. — Arkansas executed two convicted murderers on Monday night, the first time in almost 17 years that any state has executed two inmates on the same day, as the state carries out a series of capital punishments before one of its lethal injection drugs expires.
        Jack H. Jones Jr. died at 7:20 p.m. local time, and Marcel Williams at 10:33 p.m., both from the injection of a three-drug combination, after a flurry of failed, last-ditch appeals. The executions in the death chamber at the Cummings Unit, a state prison southwest of Pine Bluff, came four days after the state put to death another killer, Ledell Lee. A fourth condemned man, Kenneth Williams, is scheduled to be executed on Thursday.
        On Monday, the courts rejected a series of appeals by Mr. Jones and Mr. Williams, including an effort minutes before Mr. Williams’s execution, arguing it would be unconstitutionally cruel, based on complications Mr. Jones might have experienced. In a court filing, Mr. Williams’s lawyers wrote that infirmary workers had tried unsuccessfully to insert a central line in Mr. Jones’s neck for 45 minutes, before placing it elsewhere on his body. Then Mr. Jones gulped for air during the execution, the filing said, “evidence of continued consciousness.”

        Judge Kristine G. Baker of United States District Court in Little Rock, Ark., issued a temporary stay but ultimately rejected Mr. Williams’s claim, allowing his execution to proceed.
        Speaking to reporters after the two executions, a spokesman for Gov. Asa Hutchinson, J. R. Davis, called the procedures to carry out the executions “flawless.”
        A reporter who witnessed Mr. Jones’s execution said he gave a statement in which he apologized to the daughter of the woman he killed. “I am not a monster; there is a reason those things happened that day,” he said. “I am so sorry, Lacey. Try to understand. I love you like my child.”
        The reporter, Andrew DeMillo of The Associated Press, said he saw Mr. Jones move his lips for one to two minutes after the execution began. But he did not detect pain on the man’s face, and it was not clear if he was gasping for air.
        In a statement to reporters, the victim’s daughter, Lacey Seal, who herself was beaten unconscious by Mr. Jones, 52, expressed relief at his execution. “I am glad it’s done,” she said. “I’m glad that part of my life, that chapter, is closed.”
        At the prison, a spokesman for the State Correction Department, Solomon Graves, said both men had eaten their last meals. Mr. Jones requested three pieces of fried chicken, potato logs with tartar sauce, beef jerky bites, three Butterfinger bars, a chocolate milkshake with Butterfinger pieces, and fruit punch.
        Mr. Williams requested three pieces of fried chicken, banana pudding, nachos with chili cheese and jalapeño peppers, two Mountain Dews and potato logs with ketchup.
        After 12 years without an execution, Arkansas had planned to carry out eight in 10 days, the biggest concentration in the United States in decades, because its supply of one of the drugs has an April 30 expiration date. Four of the executions were blocked by courts, and the timetable has drawn protests and intense criticism from death-penalty opponents, who cited the rushed schedule as evidence of the arbitrary way capital punishment is applied.
        The last time a state carried out two capital sentences on the same day was when Texas did it, in August 2000, at a time when executions were more frequent in the United States.
        What drove Arkansas’s accelerated schedule was that the state’s store of midazolam, one of the drugs used in its lethal injections, was set to expire, and states have had trouble acquiring new supplies.
        Like several other states, Arkansas uses a three-drug combination in its lethal injections, but in recent years, drug companies have refused to sell their products for the purpose of executions. The first drug is midazolam, a sedative intended to render the inmate unconscious, though critics contend it is not always effective. The second drug is a paralytic to halt breathing, and the third stops the heart.
        A flurry of legal challenges in state and federal courts followed news of the state’s capital punishment schedule. Last Thursday, the state carried out the execution of Mr. Lee, 51, for the murder of Debra Reese, who was sexually assaulted and clubbed to death in 1993. Mr. Lee, the first inmate executed in Arkansas since 2005, maintained his innocence.
        In the days before Monday’s scheduled executions of Mr. Williams and Mr. Jones, their lawyers challenged the use of midazolam. They argued that the two inmates’ particular medical conditions made it likely that the sedative would be ineffectual, making the executions unconstitutionally painful.
        Judge Baker ruled against the condemned men, whose lawyers appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The appeals court turned them down. Judge Baker also ruled against the inmates in a separate challenge over when the curtains to the death chamber should be opened, allowing witnesses in an adjoining room to view the execution.
        In 1995, Mr. Jones raped, beat and strangled Mary Phillips, who was 34, and beat and choked her daughter, Lacey, who was 11 at the time, to unconsciousness, but the girl survived. He has admitted guilt and said repeatedly that he did not want clemency.
        Mr. Williams, 46, kidnapped, robbed, raped and strangled Stacy Errickson in 1994, and has also admitted his guilt. Ms. Errickson, 22, had two children.
        Kenneth Williams, the man scheduled to die on Thursday, killed a cheerleader at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff in December 1998 but escaped from a maximum-security prison after a jury sentenced him to life the next year. A few miles from the prison, he fatally shot Cecil Boren, a farmer who was working in the yard while his wife was at church, and stole his truck. Mr. Williams led the police into Missouri in a high-speed chase before he crashed into a car, killing the driver. In 2005, he confessed to killing a 36-year-old man the same day he shot the cheerleader.


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        10)   On This Block, Worries Run Deeper Than Flint’s Tainted Water
          Yes, this Michigan city is being promised clean water. But residents have
        seen no relief from more entrenched, though less publicized, problems.
          By JULIE BOSMAN, APRIL 25, 2017
          https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/25/us/flint-water-blight-violence.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

        FLINT, Mich. — One resident of Zimmerman Street has trouble sleeping from the gunfire that crackles through the air at night. A married couple down the block has heard squatters camped out in an abandoned house next door. A grandfather across the street cannot find steady work in the city, getting by with odd jobs that pay less than $9 an hour.
        If anxieties over the water in Flint have eased, they have been replaced with different ones.
        On this block of crumbling bungalows on Flint’s west side, residents said that life in Flint is as precarious as ever. Many are still distrustful of their tap water, though it now comes from Lake Huron, not the notoriously polluted Flint River. The government has just promised to replace lead pipes in houses throughout the city, another step to help people in Flint out of the three-year-old water crisis.
        But there has been no relief from some of their most entrenched though less-publicized problems. And many of those have grown worse because of the tainted water that poisoned residents and further eroded their city’s reputation and property values.
        Look down the block and you see what we’re dealing with, said Loyd Thomas, 70, a veteran of General Motors, standing on the front porch of his white bungalow.
        The house next door has burned down, like so many others in Flint. Often the fires are set by arsonists, bent on vandalism or insurance fraud, who are never caught. He points to the sloping surface of Zimmerman Street, a block pockmarked by craters and deep ruts that never seem to be fully fixed.
        “They say things here are going to get better, that we’re going to have a recovery,” Mr. Thomas said. “I just keep waiting on it.”
        Steven Diehl sits on his front step, his eyes trained on two of his children as they play, climbing a tree near the curb. On a warm April evening, Zimmerman Street is humming with life.
        It is Monday night, so Mr. Diehl, 29, allows them outside. On weekends, he is more cautious, rarely leaving the house in the evenings.
        His main worry about Flint these days is gun violence. Just the other night, he heard gunfire that sounded dangerously close. The next day, around 8 a.m., he was awakened by shots on the corner, apparently people firing their guns into the air. Last year, there were 45 homicides in the city.
        “People with the littlest problems shoot at each other instead of talking it out,” he said. “Everybody just wants to be bigger than the next man. That’s how people think out here.”
        Mr. Diehl works five hours a day at the sandwich shop Jimmy John’s, a flexible shift so he can be around for his children.
        Soon, he will gather the children — Jaxsin, 6, Kennedy, 5, and Stevie, 1 — and lock the doors for the night. “I take care of my own house,” he said. Inside, he says he has a sense of security.
        Anthony Johnson tends to some meaty ribs on the grill in his front yard across the street, a cloud of smoke billowing around him. His grandchildren scamper around the yard.
        Mr. Johnson had started the day like so many others: coffee, breakfast and a scan through Craigslist ads for work. Sometimes he finds restaurant jobs, roofing work, doing odd jobs for homeowners. They are almost always temporary gigs, and usually they are outside Flint, which has lost thousands of jobs in recent years. This day, he comes up empty.
        Some weeks are better than others — he usually finds work four days a week. “I’ve got to keep myself busy,” said Mr. Johnson, 40. “There are so many problems in this city, I can’t even count them. But jobs are No. 1. Without a job, you can’t support your family.”
        Most of the work he finds pays minimum wage, which in January was increased to $8.90 from $8.50 in Michigan. But it’s not enough. Mr. Johnson has had run-ins with the law, including a destruction of property conviction, though he doesn’t believe his record has impeded his job search. Through a cousin, he says, he just got a lead on a full-time job at a factory. He’s waiting to hear whether he will get an interview.
        He is also contemplating a move next month to North Carolina, where he says the work is steadier and more plentiful. Sometimes he wonders if he’s giving up on the city where he was born and raised.
        “I feel like Flint is falling,” Mr. Johnson said. “It just keeps on falling. I don’t think it’s going to get better.”
        Todd Davis and Tamatha Watson have lived in their two-story home on Zimmerman Street for more than a decade. They used to have a next-door neighbor, Dorothy Overman, who planted a community garden across the street and daffodils, ivy and tulips in her front yard. But Ms. Overman moved away and now that house stands empty and hollowed out, like several others on the block.
        Blight is pervasive in Flint. City officials estimated in 2015 that nearly 20,000 properties were in need of “blight elimination,” including vacant lots and crumbling buildings. On many blocks, there are more decaying, abandoned houses than inhabited ones.
        On Zimmerman Street, people like Ms. Watson, 47, feel that their sense of security has been abandoned with the houses. They worry that even more buildings will empty out. At night, they say they can hear people going inside the vacants, rustling around, stripping metals away, looking for valuables. Sometimes squatters use their phones as flashlights, casting an eerie glow visible to the neighbors.
        In March, Ms. Watson’s Chihuahua-dachshund mix, Mr. Boo Diddle, suddenly began barking in the direction of the house next door, which was once Ms. Overman’s. Ms. Watson peered out the window and saw a man in a blue shirt breaking the front door down. He left with the stove, brazenly rolling it away on a dolly. The haul left track marks in snow on the unshoveled sidewalk.
        Ms. Watson said she called 911, but that the police never came. A spokeswoman for Karen Weaver, the mayor of Flint, did not respond to an inquiry about the call. “The police don’t do anything,” she said. “They literally could have followed the tracks and figured out where he was.”
        Derek Sywyk and Kathryn Dunman used to like living on Zimmerman Street. They are within walking distance of a flower shop, a neighborhood tavern, a Mexican restaurant. They know their neighbors, like Ms. Watson and Mr. Davis, and exchange friendly waves with neighbors they don’t know as well.
        But they are stuck.
        “I would like to leave, but I don’t have the finances for that,” said Ms. Dunman, who owns the house and shares it with Mr. Sywyk, her boyfriend. Their living room is painted a cheerful yellow; the tables and walls are covered with Easter decorations, painted ceramic eggs and plush bunnies.
        Decades ago, houses on Zimmerman Street were worth much more. Mr. Sywyk’s grandparents bought the house next door for $65,000, he guesses in the 1980s; now it’s worth a small fraction of that price.
        Think of Ms. Overman’s house, across the street, Mr. Sywyk and Ms. Dunman said. She had lived there for more than 30 years and raised her children there. Four years ago, she was fed up with Flint’s problems and moved to Burton, a neighboring town. Ms. Overman says her house sold for only $5,000.
        Mr. Sywyk, who does volunteer work for the State Health Department, dreams of escaping. “It’s just so tiresome,” he said. “Sometimes I just want to give up.”
        If he moved up north, he said, he’d finally get away from Flint’s problems.
        Darla Wright’s worries over the water in Flint have never gone away.
        Ms. Wright, a stay-at-home mother, lives in a modest house on the block with her boyfriend, Jaron Jones, and their three children. It is her daughter Jariah whom Ms. Wright worries about the most.
        In 2014, the city made the switch to water from the Flint River, which flows a few blocks north of Zimmerman Street. Jariah, the youngest, was only a toddler then; now she is a bubbly, outgoing 6-year-old with shiny gold earrings in her ears. Hearing the adults talk about the water, she chimes in. “The water from the faucet is yucky,” she said.
        As Jariah zooms down the sidewalk on her bicycle, Ms. Wright, 30, watches her. She says the water made Jariah’s skin dry and patchy, sometimes discolored. Ms. Wright fears that her children were forever poisoned by the lead-tainted water they drank for so many months.
        Once or twice a week, she stops at a church a short drive away to pick up free bottled water. The family goes through at least 10 cases of water a week, using it for nearly everything short of flushing the toilet, though officials have assured residents that filtered tap water is safe.
        “I’m so scared,” she said. “There’s nothing we can do about it. I don’t know if I would let them drink the water ever again.”





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        11)  Never Mind the Students; Homework Divides Parents
        By KYLE SPENCER



        Last spring, when Public School 11, a prekindergarten through fifth-grade school in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, banned mandatory traditional homework assignments for children up to fourth grade, you might have expected universal acclaim. Rather than filling out worksheets, students were encouraged to read nightly, and a websiteoffered tips for parents looking for engaging after-school activities.
        Instead, war broke out among the parents. Those who wanted to keep homework accused the anti-worksheet group of trying to force through a policy supported by a select few. Some privately called the plan “economically and racially insensitive,” favoring families with time and money to provide their own enrichment. There was a series of contentious PTA meetings and jockeying to get on the school’s leadership team, a board that some schools have had trouble getting parents to join. At least three families left the school.
        Robin Broshi, a former education technology consultant, parent of a third grader and one of the architects of the plan, said the changes gave students time to discover the things they were “really passionate about.” Homework time with her son used to be a “huge battle,” she added, but she said he now spends hours after school with innovative software programs that enthrall him.

        But Ashley Sierra, an executive assistant and single mother with three children at the school, said the policy had created an unwelcome burden on her and other less affluent families who can’t afford extra workbooks, or software programs to supplement the new policy. “I hate it,” Ms. Sierra said.
        Researchers who study academic history said they were not surprised that debate over young children and homework had resurfaced now. Education and parenting trends are cyclical, and the nation is coming off a stress-inducing, federally mandated accountability push that has put standardized testing at the center of the national education debate. Further, many parents say that homework has become particularly stressful since the arrival of Common Core, a set of rigorous and often confusing learning goals adopted by many states.
        Tom Hatch, a professor of education at Columbia University’s Teachers College and co-director of the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools and Teaching, said homework wars were really a proxy fight about what constitutes learning. He added that they were intrinsically linked to the debates over standardized testing that have fueled the national “opt-out” movement.
        “It’s a small part of a larger conversation about how kids should spend their time,” Professor Hatch said.
        Similar battles have been playing out around New York City: After P.S. 118, in Park Slope, Brooklyn, eliminated mandatory homework this school year, some parents insisted that the school provide worksheets for their children anyway. At P.S. 116 in Manhattan’s Kips Bay neighborhood, some parents threatened to leave after the principal, Jane Hsu, replaced “traditional homework” with voluntary recreational activities and family engagement — a program she calls “PDF” — or “playtime, downtime and family time.”
        And P.S. 29 in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, has had schoolwide conversations on homework, so far deciding to preserve it, but focusing on keeping it “feasible,” “meaningful” and “reasonable,” said Rebecca Fagin, the school’s principal.
        There is no official tally on the number of the city public elementary schools that are altering their approach to homework. The Department of Education does not mandate amounts of homework, and most plans are cobbled together as part of a shared vision between a school’s principal, parents and teachers.
        Conversations about the value of elementary school homework have spread nationally. Brandy Young, a second-grade teacher in northeastern Texas, calls herself “the No Homework Teacher” and has a website that proclaims: “Let’s make education GREAT Again.” In August, a letter she sent to parents announcing her decision to eliminate homework was shared more than 70,000 times on Facebook and received national media attention. In states from Florida to California, elementary schools are experimenting with no homework, or what some call “reform homework” policies, often with considerable resistance from parents — and sometimes teachers.
        Alfie Kohn, the author of 14 education-related books, including “The Homework Myth,” is a leader in the anti-homework camp. In a recent interview Mr. Kohn described homework as “educational malpractice,” and “an extremely effective way to extinguish children’s curiosity.” He noted that nations like Denmark and Japan, which routinely outperform the United States on international math and science assessments, often give their students far less homework.
        “They’re not trying to turn kids into calculators on legs,” he said.
        On the other side of the argument is Harris M. Cooper, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at Duke University and the author of “The Battle Over Homework.” He says he believes elementary school students should get small doses of engaging homework.
        But Dr. Cooper’s own research is often cited against him. A 2006 meta-analysis he conducted of more than 60 studies of homework’s efficacy showed that doing homework does not necessarily increase an elementary school student’s test scores or grades. Dr. Cooper updated the analysis in 2012, with similar results.
        But Dr. Cooper says these studies do not take into consideration homework’s obvious, but less trackable, benefits: teaching organization, time management and discipline. Small amounts of enriching and age-appropriate homework in the early grades, he says, serves as a good way for parents to observe their children’s progress and to teach young people that learning doesn’t happen only inside a classroom. He calls parents who seek to abolish after-school work “homework deniers.”
        Homework for young children has been a recurrent parenting issue since the beginning of the 20th century, according to Paula S. Fass, a professor emerita of history at the University of California, Berkeley and author of “The End of American Childhood.” Worry about its excesses have ebbed and flowed; students got heavy loads in the 1950s, when Americans were particularly worried about our ability to compete with the Russians after the launch of Sputnik. Homework spiked again in the 1980s with the release of the now-famous “A Nation at Risk” report, which indicated that American students were falling behind their peers in other parts of the world.
        Today, though, worry about excessive homework is competing with anxieties about student achievement and global competition. The situation is compounded by an urge among parents “to have as much control over their children as possible,” Dr. Fass said.
        “What you are looking at is the tension between that progressive view that children need to be protected from being adults, and still these parents want their kids to succeed,” she said.
        The National Education Association and the National PTA have weighed in, suggesting that students get 10 minutes of homework per grade, starting in first grade — what educators sometimes refer to as the “10-minute rule.” Dr. Harris also endorses this policy.
        But a small study, published in The American Journal of Family Therapy in 2015, suggested that early elementary students may be getting far more than the recommended amount. Researchers, who surveyed 1,100 parents of kindergarten through 12th-grade students in Providence, R.I., found that first graders averaged 28 minutes of homework per school night, and kindergartners, whom the N.E.A. does not recommend giving any homework to, averaged 25 minutes.
        Some homework supporters take issue with the accuracy of that study, saying it’s too local to be representative and may be misrepresenting homework time for most students. They point to an oft-cited 2007 national study conducted for MetLife that indicates that 60 percent of parents with school-age children are actually satisfied with the amount of homework their children are getting.
        The focus for many anti-homework parents is what they see as the quality of work assigned. They object to worksheets, but embrace projects that they believe encourage higher-level thinking. At P.S. 11 in Manhattan, even parents who support the no-homework policy said they often use online resources like Khan Academy, a nonprofit organization that provides free educational videos. The school’s website also includes handwriting exercises, scientific articles and math and reading lessons. Sophie Mintz, whose son is in second grade at the school, said that the no-homework policy had afforded him more time to build elaborate Lego structures.
        On a recent morning, Elizabeth Garraway, the principal of P.S. 118 in Park Slope, showed off the results of the new homework policy that, last fall, replaced required worksheets with voluntary at-home projects.
        In one third-grade class, a boy recently wrote, directed and recorded a “fireside chat” with his father, who played President Franklin D. Roosevelt. A girl arrived at school ready to showcase a PowerPoint presentation on Greek mythology. And Mia Bornstein, 8, showed up one morning with a broom handle bearing an oversize scroll that outlined life in Ancient Egypt. Mia said she had worked on it with her mother, an artist.
        How much time had she spent on it? Hours.


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        11)  Wells Fargo Shareholders Tepidly Re-elect Bank’s Directors
        By STACY COWLEY

        PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Despite the turmoil that has engulfed Wells Fargo in the past year, shareholders voted on Tuesday to re-elect all of the bank’s 15 directors. But some edged in just barely, sending a message that many shareholders want further changes in the bank’s leadership.
        Activist shareholders had hoped to remove some or all of the board’s incumbents in the aftermath of the company’s sales scandal, but every board member won support from at least 53 percent of the shareholders casting votes.
        Still, in corporate governance circles, that level of support is remarkably tepid. Last year, every member of Wells Fargo’s board had at least 95 percent of votes cast in favor of election — including John G. Stumpf, the bank’s former chairman and chief executive, who abruptly retired in October.
        Wells Fargo has been in turmoil since its admission in September that over the course of several years, employees trying to meet aggressive sales quotas had opened as many as two million fraudulent accounts. The company paid $185 million to settle cases brought by two federal regulators and the Los Angeles city attorney and refunded $3.2 million to customers who were charged fees on unauthorized accounts.

        Wells Fargo has made extensive changes since then, including the replacement of its chief executive and the leader of its retail bank, alterations to governance and risk-management structure, and the elimination of sales goals for its retail bank employees.
        “There is no doubt that the last seven months have been one of the most difficult periods in our company’s 165-year history,” Timothy J. Sloan, the bank’s chief executive, said at the start of Tuesday’s meeting. “I can assure you that we are facing these problems head-on and that Wells Fargo is emerging a much stronger company.”
        But the tight margin by which some directors were elected is a sign that many shareholders are still dissatisfied with the company’s reformation.
        Some giant pension funds — like Calpers, which manages the retirement funds of California’s public employees, and its New York City counterpart — cast their votes against most of Wells’s board members, saying they failed in their duties to oversee the company.
        “A low acceptance vote is a signal to the board that it needs to immediately begin to reconstitute itself,” said Charles M. Elson, a professor of finance at the University of Delaware and an expert on corporate governance. “That ought to be the appropriate reaction.”



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        12)  River Piracy
        Rivers vanishing into thin air: this is what the climate crisis looks like
        By David Suzuki
        The Guardian, April 21, 2017
        https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/21/rivers-vanishing-thin-air-climate-crisis

        The Slims river in northern Canada gained infamy, not for its fishing or pristine waters, but for vanishing in a matter of four days in May 2016. This week we learned that it fell victim to “river piracy”—and climate change was almost certainly to blame.

        The river—which stretched up to 150 meters at its widest points and averaged depths around three meters—lost its water source to another nearby river during a period of intense melting affecting one of Canada’s largest glaciers. As a result, the Slims was reduced to a trickle in less than a week. 

        We can now add river piracy to the growing list of unexpected, dramatic and tragic consequences of human-caused climate change. Although this is the first observed case of river piracy, it likely won’t be the last. 

        The melting of Yukon’s massive Kaskawulsh glacier—known to the local Southern Tutchone First Nation as Tänshī—caused the drainage gradient to tip in favor of the second river, redirecting the meltwater to the Gulf of Alaska, thousands of miles from its original destination. 

        The science says there’s a 99.5 percent chance that climate change caused this dramatic transformation of the landscape. The continuing warming trend that caused the glacier to thin so extremely means the change is likely irreversible.

        Such a rapid transformation of the river alters more than just the physical geography and ecosystems of one of Canada’s most majestic and ecologically sensitive regions. It also affects local Indigenous communities. 

        Residents near Kluane Lake, which the Slims River used to feed, reported water level changes immediately after the river’s disappearance. The lake is now about three meters lower than normal, and is in jeopardy of being cut off from its own outflows—making traditional food for the Kluane people, such as trout and whitefish, much harder to find.

        Climate change’s extreme impacts are obvious to communities throughout the north, from documented hunting season changes and wildlife migrations to rising coastlines and drunken forests, where trees now lean into rivers as permafrost melts and land gives way.

        We’ve seen images of climate change shrinking the world’s glaciers before, which is worrying, if you consider that these glaciers are like bank accounts: they store snow and ice during cool, wet weather and release water when an area needs it most, during hot, dry summers or droughts. 

        When nature’s thresholds are passed, everything changes. Landscapes are radically transformed in the blink of an eye. In this case, river piracy is a dramatic reminder that the consequences of climate change are often unpredictable. 

        It’s also proof that climate change isn’t a problem of the future. It’s happening now. We’re seeing the increasing effects of climate change every day.

        So, what to do about this dismal assessment?

        We must transition our economies quickly and decisively away from fossil fuels to renewable energy, and governments must play leadership roles to make this happen. 

        We must move forward with a common understanding that we are embedded in the natural world, and what we do to our surroundings, we do to ourselves.

        I was part of the wave of hope that ushered in Justin Trudeau as Canada’s prime minister in 2015. I applauded Canada’s commitments to the Paris agreement, especially our country’s push to limit the average global temperature increase to 1.5C. 

        But since Paris, Prime Minister Trudeau has approved two oil pipelines and one of Canada’s largest carbon dioxide-emitting liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects, virtually ensuring that Canada will not meet its own climate targets. 

        As the new U.S. president works to dismantle hard-won climate initiatives south of our border, a clear and effective approach to climate change in Canada is more important than ever.

        Making deep reductions in carbon emissions can’t wait until 2050. Humans are the dominant force on the planet, and we’re causing unprecedented impacts. Human-caused climate change is making events like hurricanes, floods and droughts stronger and more frequent. 

        I believe there’s still hope. Nature has the ability to continue to shock us. If we pull back and give nature room to recover, it may surprise us.

        So who are the pirates? In the case of the Slims, certainly not the second river, and certainly not nature. We are the pirates, and we’re robbing ourselves. If we don’t act on climate change now, we’re stealing the prospect of a clean and healthy planet from ourselves, our children and generations to come.


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        13)  Marking Earth Day
        Indigenous people worldwide to fight corporate forces
        By Deirdre Fulton
        Common Dreams, April 21, 2017
        https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/04/21/marking-earth-day-indigenous-people-worldwide-fight-corporate-forces

        Indigenous people and allies around the world are mobilizing this Earth Day to demand respect for community land rights in the name of the climate, biodiversity, and human rights.

        “Peoples and local communities are the best guardians of their lands and forests, yet governments are giving the go-ahead to hydroelectric dams, industrial mining, predatory logging, extensive cattle ranching, and palm oil plantations that rob the forests’ customary owners of their homes and livelihoods, and threaten the climate and resources we all depend on,” declares a statement from organizers, who are operating under the umbrella of the global Land Rights Now campaign.

        As Antonio Dace, a member of the Munduruku community along the Tapajós River in the Brazilian Amazon, put it: “If you want to take care of the forest, you need to invest in us—Indigenous peoples—because no one takes better care of the forest than we do.”

        The Earth Day mobilization, involving Indigenous peoples, local communities, social movements, environmental activists, and women’s groups from around the world, will see close to 40 actions taking place in 27 countries over the next week, some in conjunction with like-minded initiatives including the March for Science on Saturday, the 10-year anniversary of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples beginning April 25, and the Peoples Climate March on April 29.

        The actions began Thursday, with communities in the Brazilian Amazon, Kenya, Guatemala, and Taiwan demanding respect for their rights in response to threats from business and government interests pushing projects like mega-dams, coal plants, palm oil plantations, and private development in ancestral community forests.

        “We’re not anti-development, but no one in the world has ventured into coal mining and faced no long-term consequences,” noted Ishaq Abubakar of the Lamu Youth Alliance in Kenya, where East Africa’s first coal plant is proposed for the coastal community of Lamu. “Coal is dirty energy, and its effects are detrimental.”

        Added Lamu activist Walik Ahmed, who is part of the Save Lamu Coalition calling for the project’s cancellation: “The whole world is worried about global warming and climate change. It can’t be these things do not matter for Lamu.”

        The movement is particularly fired up in Brazil, where Indigenous people this week launched an online petition against what they describe as an “unprecedented attack” on their rights.
        According to the petition, the right-wing government led by President Michel Temer and Justice Minister Osmar Serraglio has “slashed the budget and staff of Brazil’s Agency for Indigenous Affairs, dealing a huge blow to the agency’s work to grant legal titles for indigenous community territories. They’re pushing through a constitutional amendment to suppress additional legal titling of ancestral indigenous lands, fulfilling a long-term goal of their allies in the agribusiness lobby. And they have advanced legislation to open up already-titled indigenous territories to massive mining and dam projects.”

        Failing to protect these lands puts Brazil at risk of failing to live up to its climate commitments, said Sônia Guajajara, national coordinator of Brazil’s Association of Indigenous Peoples, who noted “the section of the Amazon forest under our protection stores 13 billion tons of carbon.”
        But “[t]hose behind the anti-Indigenous offensive will find growing resistance both from Indians and from other sectors of society,” Indigenous rights activist Marcio Santilli told Mongabay earlier this month.

        Indeed, the movement “plans a major show of strength with an event on 24-28 April,” Mongabay reported. “The initiative, called the Acampamento Terra Livre (Free Land Camp), will bring together 1,500 Indigenous leaders from across the nation. They’ll set up camp in Brasilia, host marches, debates, protests, and cultural events. The Indigenous leaders will also seek meetings with the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches of the government. The aim is ‘to unify struggles in defense of the Indian people.’”

        And in turn, to defend the earth.

        “If it weren’t for us, the cattle and the soy would have taken this whole forest,” said Dace, of the Munduruku people. “I know we are only of the size of a grain of sand but we make a huge difference. The air you breathe comes from [the Amazon]. The water you drink comes from here. And so, by killing us, you are killing nature and therefore yourselves.”

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        14)  Vietnamese Villagers Release 19 Officials Held Hostage in Land Dispute
        By MIKE IVES

        HANOI, Vietnam — Villagers near Vietnam’s capital on Saturday released 19 officials they had held hostage for about a week, ending a rare standoff that underscored tensions over land rights in this Communist country.
        Thirty-eight police and security officials were captured last weekend in Dong Tam village, 25 miles south of the capital, Hanoi, in the dispute, activists said. The state news media said that 16 of the hostages were later released and that three had escaped.
        The remaining 19 were released after a meeting between the villagers and Hanoi’s top local official, Nguyen Duc Chung, the state-run newspaper Tuoi Tre said in an online report. Photos circulating on social media and the websites of state-run newspapers appeared to show hundreds of villagers at the scene.
        State media reports said the disputed 145 acres were originally earmarked for a military airport that was never built. The land was transferred in 2015 to Viettel, a military-backed telecommunications company, for a defense-related project, the reports said.
        But Tran Cuong, 40, a Dong Tam resident, said by telephone on Saturday that the authorities had allowed 14 local families to build houses on the land after the airport project was canceled, and that the exact ownership of the land was still unclear.

        “If it really is the military’s land, they need to show us some kind of paperwork,” Mr. Cuong said.
        On Saturday in Dong Tam, Mr. Chung, the Hanoi official, promised the villagers that the authorities would investigate the dispute and solve it within 45 days, according to Mr. Cuong.
        “We’re happy that our voices were heard,” Mr. Cuong said. “It’s been a frustrating few days, but now the problem will be solved in a positive way.”
        Experts and activists have said that villagers would almost certainly be punished for taking the officials hostage. But on Saturday, according to the Tuoi Tre report, Mr. Chung said they would not be prosecuted.
        Vietnam allows its citizens to own land on a quasi-private basis, but at the same time, all land is technically state property. Villagers are often evicted from farmland to make way for industrial or residential projects linked to state-affiliated companies.
        The government reformed its land law in 2013 in an attempt to reduce unrest over such evictions, but analysts say the changes were largely cosmetic and did not address many underlying problems.
        One central problem is that, as land values rise, the state has retained the power to confiscate land and give it to developers for so-called social-economic development, said Dang Hoang Giang, vice director of the Center for Community Support Development Studies, a Hanoi-based research institute that promotes good governing practices.
        “It’s very tempting for people in charge to misuse their power for rent-seeking,” Mr. Giang said.

        Chau Doan contributed reporting.



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        15)  Vietnam Land Protesters Free Final Hostages After City Official Visits
        By REUTERS

        HANOI — Protesters involved in a land dispute near Vietnam's capital, Hanoi, released the final 20 officials they had been holding as hostages for almost a week after a visit by a senior city official, Reuters witnesses said on Saturday.
        Villagers in Dong Tam, 40 km (25 miles) from the center of Hanoi, seized 38 officials, including police officers, last weekend after four people were arrested in retaliation for protests staged during the escalating land dispute.
        Fifteen of the officials were released on Monday and another three escaped, while authorities also released the detained protesters.
        Dong Tam villagers say they have received insufficient compensation by authorities who took over residential land for a telecommunications project.
        The release of the final 20 officials came after a visit to the village earlier on Saturday by Hanoi's People's Committee Chairman Nguyen Duc Chung, who spoke with villagers and listened to their complaints.

        Chung said the city would begin a comprehensive investigation of the dispute and promised to respond within 45 days. He also said none of the protesters would be prosecuted for taking the officials hostage, who he also said had been treated well.
        The released hostages shook hands and hugged villagers, who applauded loudly after hearing Chung's commitment.
        "We are very happy. Dong Tam village is freed," Nguyen Thi Loan, a villager who was responsible for taking care of the hostages, told Reuters.
        "Finally I can come home with my husband tonight," she said.
        Another villager said: "We are really looking forward to the result of the inspection and that the authority will help bring justice to us."
        Land disputes are common in Vietnam but it is rare for residents to take officials hostage in the communist state, where there is little tolerance for dissent.
        (This version of the story has been refiled to add dropped word "after" to headline)
        (Reporting by Nguyen Huy Kham; Writing by My Pham; Editing by Paul Tait)


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        16)  Report Compares Texas’ Solitary Confinement Policies to Torture
        By JACEY FORTIN



        During the decade he spent behind bars at the Polunsky Unit, the prison that houses all of Texas’ death row inmates, Alfred D. Brown would spend at least 22 hours a day alone in his cell.
        On some days, he might get to spend an hour alone in the common room or an outdoor courtyard. And every once in a while, he would secretly tap fingertips with other inmates, through the metal lattices on their cellblock doors.
        It was the only physical human contact he could find, Mr. Brown said in a phone interview.
        “I could talk to a guard, but I tried not to,” he said. “They’re out to get you.”

        Mr. Brown was released from prison in 2015 after evidence problems surfaced in his case and his murder conviction was thrown out. His experience at the Polunsky Unit is among dozens included in a critical report released Monday by the Human Rights Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law. Its authors concluded that solitary confinement in Texas violates international human rights standards and amounts to a form of torture.
        Ariel E. Dulitzky, a law professor who runs the clinic and is an author of the report, said that solitary confinement practices in Texas, in particular, are hurting the United States when it comes to human rights.
        “We decided that it was important, as a university in Texas, to pay attention to what was happening here — why Texas was bringing this international criticism against the U.S.,” Mr. Dulitzky said.
        The study was small and qualitative, analyzing questionnaire responses from 32 former Polunsky Unit inmates. It found that prisoners at the unit, in Livingston, Tex., suffered psychological problems as a result of confinement, compounded by a lack of access to health care and changes to execution schedules that forced some prisoners to prepare for death more than once.
        Mr. Brown, 35, remembers a never-ending cacophony there. “Everybody’d be talking over one another in there, so it’s like one big, bad radio station that can’t get a signal,” he said. “I lived in that cell like I was — I don’t know, I can’t even explain it. I put myself in that cell and just, like, zoned out.”
        The report refers to Texas’ death row practices as “particularly draconian,” pointing out, for example, that Polunsky Unit prisoners do not share meals or recreational time with other inmates; cannot have physical contact with their families, even on their way to execution; and are held in solitary confinement as a matter of policy, rather than for safety or disciplinary reasons.
        Mr. Dulitzky acknowledged that other states with capital punishment have similar policies. He maintained, however, that Texas is unusual in that it uses all of these practices.
        There are currently 233 men on death row at the Polunsky Unit, said Jason Clark, the public information director for the state’s Department of Criminal Justice. (Six women with death sentences are being held at another prison.)
        “Offenders on death row are individuals who have been convicted of heinous crimes and given the harshest sentence possible under the law,” Mr. Clark said in an emailed statement, adding that the department would “continue to ensure it fulfills its mission of public safety and house death row offenders appropriately.”
        Mr. Dulitzky acknowledged that many people in Texas were not concerned about prison conditions at the Polunsky Unit because inmates there have been convicted of the most severe offenses, like murder and rape.
        “We agree that if somebody commits a crime, they should receive a punishment,” he said. “But we say, at the same time, that once you impose a punishment on a person, you need to keep treating that person with humanity and with dignity.”
        Critics of Texas’ prison policies come from inside the system, as well.
        Lance Lowry, who is the president of the union chapter that represents correction workers in Huntsville, Tex., has been working in Texas prisons for decades. He said his objections to the state’s solitary confinement practices have more to do with efficacy than civil rights.
        “We really need to focus a lot more on behavior modification and giving officers more tools to manage these prison populations,” he said. “When you take everything away from prisoners, you have nothing to manage them with. And they can become very dangerous when they have nothing to lose.”
        The question now, Mr. Dulitzky said, is whether Texas’ Criminal Justice Department will listen to its critics.
        “Generally, the attitude has been a strong lack of transparency from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice,” he said. The report recommends using solitary confinement only as “a measure of last resort,” offering religious services and ensuring that inmates have access to natural light and fresh air.
        Mr. Lowry said that the system is not open to constructive criticism. “Retaliation is real,” he said. “When people do speak out, these agencies don’t like it, and a lot of people are scared to voice their concerns. I’ve definitely stepped out on a limb.”


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