BAUAW NEWSLETTER, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13, 2016

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*


Bay Area United Against War Newsletter

Table of Contents:

A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS

B. ARTICLES IN FULL


*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*



A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS




*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

WEEKEND OF RESISTANCE Mumia, Hep C, and the Nation’s Health Crisis #ReleaseHimNow #SaveThe1000 #WithItILIve #WithoutItIDie Right-click on the links below and “Save link As…” to download the: FRONT OF PALM CARD (JPG file) BACK OF PALM CARD (JPG file) Or Left-click on the links above to see the palm card on our website

FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016 – 2:30 PM MARCH TO THE GOVERNOR’S OFFICE City Hall, West Side, Philadelphia to Governor’s Office, 200 Broad Street, Philadelphia March will present petitions to the Governor’s office.

FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016 – 7:00 PM STRATEGIC PLANNING MEETING Paul Robeson House 49th and Walnut Streets, Philadelphia Meeting to get latest updates and plan future actions.

SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 2016 – 8:30 AM GET ON THE BUS Martin Luther King Jr. Labor Center 1199SEIU 310 W. 43rd Street (between 8th and 9th Avenues) New York, NY 10036 For bus ticket information, please call the FMAJC(NYC) Hotline 212-330-8029. The bus will be leaving Philadelphia on Saturday late afternoon for the return trip to NYC. For other events, Friday, Saturday night, and Sunday, please call the FMAJC(NYC) Hotline 212-330-8029, and indicate if you are driving (and if so, how many open seats you have) or need a ride to one or more of the other weekend events. This will allow us to help coordinate car pooling for the weekend.

SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 2016 – 12:00 NOON MARCH THROUGH THE HOOD! Malcolm X Park 52nd and Pine, Philadelphia March route and highlight stops along the way still being determined.

SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 2016 – 7:00 PM CONCERT FOR MUMIA Location to be announced, Philadelphia Taina Asili and other artists will be performing. Other details including the lineup are still being determined.

SUNDAY, APRIL 24, 2016 – 4:00 PM DAY OF PRAYER AND RESISTANCE MUMIA’S BIRTHDAY!! Church of the Advocate 18th and Diamond, Philadelphia Hear radical ecumenical perspectives on political prisoners and the medical crisis.

WEEK OF APRIL 18 THROUGH 24, 2016 Mumia in the Classroom Teach Mumia For more information, email: TeachMumia@gmail.com

ORGANIZERS:   International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal Website: http://www.freemumia.com   MOVE Website: http://onamove.com   Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC) Website: http://www.freemumia.com Hotline: 212-330-8029 International Action Center Website: http://iacenter.org Office: 212-633-6646 Campaign to Bring Mumia Home Website: http://www.bringmumiahome.com   RBG Fridays   Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal Website: http://www.emajonline.com

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

North America Premiere of Drone Whistleblower Doc NATIONAL BIRD

Dear Friends and Supporters:

We are pleased to announce the North American Premiere of our feature documentary National Bird at the Tribeca Film Festival in April and the West Coast Premiere at the San Francisco International Film Festival in May. 

National Bird follows the journeys of three whistleblowers who are determined to break the silence around the secret U.S. drone war. Their stories take dramatic turns, leading one of the veterans to Afghanistan where she learns about one of the worst U.S. airstrikes to have impacted civilians. For the first time, the Afghan survivors, men and women, speak openly about what has happened to them. 

National Bird was made by a team of mostly women - in front of the camera and behind.

We would love to share our film with you on the big screen and hope you can make it to one of our screenings. Each will be followed by a Q&A with protagonist Lisa and director Sonia Kennebeck, and on April 16 and 17 also with prominent whistleblower attorney Jesselyn Radack.

Sunday, May 1, at 8 PM
The Victoria Theatre, San Francisco

Monday, May 2, at 3 PM
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, San Francisco

Tuesday, May 3, at 4 PM
Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley

For tickets, please visit the SFIFF website for more information.

And please forward this email, follow, like and promote us on Facebook and Twitter!

We hope to see you soon!

The Team of National Bird

Sonia Kennebeck (Director and Producer), Ines Hofmann Kanna (Producer)

Torsten Lapp (Director of Photography), Maxine Goedicke (Editor), Insa Rudolph (Composer)

Wim Wenders and Errol Morris (Executive Producers)

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 

 Tell Mayor de Blasio: Fire ALL Officers Involved in Killing Ramarley! 

 Sign the petition:

http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/tell-mayor-de-blasio-fire-officer-richard-haste/?t=2&akid=5546.46097._uK0WA

 



*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Demonstrate – Demand GM pay $4 billion to Flint

 

General Motors is Guilty in Flint!

Demand GM, which made $9.7 billion in 2015, immediately contribute $4 billion to rebuild Flint’s water infrastructure, housing and schools, and provide quality, lifetime healthcare and services for Flint’s youth!



Working people across the U.S. and even many celebrities have made significant contributions to aid the people of Flint, who are experiencing the devastating effects of the Water Lead Poisoning Scandal. One entity, however, has been notably silent: General Motors Corporation. This is despite the fact that it was the actions of GM that are responsible for the financial destruction of Flint, which led to the city being placed under racist Emergency Management with the disastrous consequences that followed.

• GM eliminated 72,000 union auto worker jobs in the Flint from 1970 to the present, driving out half of the population, and turning Flint from one of the wealthiest cities in the U.S. to the poorest. GM moved operations all over the globe seeking low wages and replaced workers with robots in its drive for super-profits.
• When GM became aware of the toxic nature of Flint’s water supply in October 2014, it didn’t alert the public or call for the end of its use in family water taps. No, it negotiated an exemption for itself to get water from Lake Huron so its parts would not be corroded, the people be damned.
• GM is the single greatest polluter of the toxic Flint River, using it to dump industrial waste for years.
• GM promoted lead-based gasoline for 60 years to make its engines more efficient at the least cost, knowing full well the poisonous effects of lead.
• GM got a bailout from the federal government in 2009 which cost taxpayers $11 billion. The State of Michigan, under governors Granholm and Snyder, gave GM $4 billion in tax credits through 2030, meaning every year GM is profitable it pays ZERO state taxes.
• GM pocketed $9.7 billion in profits in 2015. It’s time for GM to pay its debt to the people of Flint.

For more info: 313-680-5508
http://moratorium-mi.org/demonstrate-demand-gm-pay-4-billion-to-flint/ 


*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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.

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

TAKE ACTION: Mumia is sick

Contact: Prison Radio  (info@prisonradio.org)

Website: 

http://bit.ly/hepcfaq

Date & Time: 

Thursday, March 24, 2016 - 18:00

Location: 

Earth

We are concerned about Mumia’s deteriorating health, as has been witnessed in recent weeks by his visiting doctor, clergy, counselors, teachers, family and friends. Evidence of intensifying hepatitis C symptoms and possible development of the diabetes that nearly killed him a year ago calls for immediate and appropriate treatment.

Help Mumia's lawyers prepare to demand access to Mumia's medical records from court!

Call, fax and email with the following demands:  Immediate provision to Mumia of anti-viral treatment to cure his Hepatitis C condition that is, as his doctor testified in court, the persistent cause of worsening skin disease, almost certain liver damage, now extreme weight-gain and hunger, and other diabetic-like conditions. Immediate release of all recent blood test results to Mumia’s attorneys. Vigilant monitoring of Mumia for signs of diabetes, especially of his blood sugar level, since a diabetes attack nearly killed Mumia last Spring of 2015. Tom Wolf, PA Governor  Phone  717-787-2500 Fax 717-772-8284                                             Email governor@pa.gov John Wetzel, PA Department of Corrections Secretary Phone:  717-728-2573, 717 787 2500 Email:  ra-contactdoc@pa.gov Theresa DelBalso, SCI Mahanoy Prison Superintendent Phone: 570-773-2158 Dr. Paul Noel, Director of Medical Care at the PA Dept of Corrections Phone:  717-728-5309 x 5312 Email:  ra-contactdoc@pa.gov Dr. Carl Keldie, Chief Medical Officer of Correct Care Solutions Phone:  800-592-2974 x 5783

Sign the Petition now to demand Mumia's right to life-saving hepatitis C care.

Help Mumia's lawyers prepare to demand access to Mumia's medical records from court!

Thank you for keeping Mumia in your heart and mind, Noelle Hanrahan Director, Prison Radio

SUPPORTERS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL, AND FREE QUALITY HEALTH CARE FOR ALL:
The Oasis Clinic in Oakland, CA, which treats patients with Hepatitis-C (HCV), demands an end to the outrageous price-gouging of Big Pharma corporations, like Gilead Sciences, which hike-up the cost for essential, life-saving medications such as the cure for the deadly Hepatitis-C virus, in order to reap huge profits. The Oasis Clinic’s demand is:

PUBLIC HEALTH, NOT CORPORATE WEALTH!


WE DEMAND:

PUBLIC HEALTH, NOT CORPORATE WEALTH!

IMMEDIATE AND FREE TREATMENT FOR ALL HCV-INFECTED PRISONERS!

NO EXECUTION BY MEDICAL NEGLECT!

JAIL DRUG PROFITEERS, FREE MUMIA!

This message from:
Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 • Oakland CA 94610 • www.laboractionmumia.org
06 January 2016

Mumia Is Innocent!  Free Mumia!
 

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Imam Jamil (H.Rap Brown) moved

Some two weeks ago Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown) was moved by bus from USP Canaan in Waymart, PA. to USP Tucson, Arizona.  His mailing address is:  USP Tucson United States Penitentiary P.O. Box Tucson, AZ. 85734  (BOP number 99974555)

Sign the Petition:

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, THE Bureau of Prisons, The Governor of Georgia

We are aware of a review being launched of criminal cases to determine whether any defendants were wrongly convicted and or deserve a new trail because of flawed forensic evidence and or wrongly reported evidence. It was stated in the Washington Post in April of 2012 that Justice Department Officials had known for years that flawed forensic work led to convictions of innocent people. We seek to have included in the review of such cases that of Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin. We understand that all cases reviewed will include the Innocence Project. We look forward to your immediate attention to these overdue wrongs.
ASAP: The Forgotten Imam Project
P.O. Box 373
Four Oaks, NC 27524

Signed,
Luqman Abdullah-ibn Al-Sidiq

https://www.causes.com/actions/1671495-the-forgotten-imam-jamil-abdullah-al-amin-h-rap-brown?utm_campaign=post_mailer%2Fcampaign_update.cb_71432&utm_medium=email&utm_source=causes

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

FREE THE VIRGIN ISLANDS 3 NOW! DEATH TO OLD PIRACIES

 

Haneef Bey (Beaumont Gereau),   Abdul Azziz (Warren Ballentine),   Malik Bey (Meral Smith)

"AMERICA'S PARADISE" HAS BEEN THEIR HELL, 44 YEARS OF POLITICAL IMPRISONMENT, THE PAST 15 OF THEM WITHOUT EVEN THE PRETENSE OF THEM SERVING SENTENCES

While the U.S. today declares that the natural inhabitants of the Virgin Islands have "no fundamental rights," it claims that it fairly tried these men in 1972, then held them in the U.S. federal prison system for 29 years. In 2000, even though the U.S. retired their "sentences,"  it directed the colonial government to hold them nonetheless, indefinitely, and illegally, and this is exactly what it has done for 15-years. 

FOR RAISING THE FACT THEY HAVE BEEN ILLEGALLY HELD FOR THE PAST 15-YEARS BY THE u.s. COLONIAL GOVERNMENT THEY WERE LOCKED DOWN AS "SECURITY RISKS." THIS IS SPITE OF YEARS OF THEM GOING OUTSIDE THE PRISON TO COMMUNITY EVENTS WITHOUT ESCORT AS INVITED QUEST SPEAKERS AND HAD IN FACT, HAD JUST RETURNED FROM ONE. tHIS ACTION TOOK PLACE aT THE VERY TOME THAT THE COURT WAS TO HAVE ACTED ON THEIR HABEAS PETITIONS. oN THE DAY THEY SHOULD HAVE FREED, THEY ARE PUT IN THE WHOLE AND REMAIN THERE TO THIS DAY. tO DATE, IN UTTER VIOLATION OF THE LAW, THE u.s. dISTRICT COURT HAS WITHHELD PROCESS, IN VIOLATION OF THEIR HUMAN RIGHTS AS WELL. 

WHO ARE THE VIRGIN ISLAND 3   

    THE VIRGIN ISLAND 3, FORMERLY KNOWN AS THE “VIRGIN ISLAND 5,” HAVE BEEN IMPRISONED FOR 43-YEARS FOR THE KILLING OF SEVEN WHITES AND A MULATTO AT THE FOUNTAIN VALLEY GOLF COURSE IN ST. CROIX IN 1972. EVEN THOUGH THE INCIDENT WAS DESCRIBED AS A “ROBBERY GONE BAD,” THE U.S. GOVERNMENT TREATED IT AS THE TIP OF SOME SORT OF “MAU MAU” UPRISING TO FORCE ALL WHITE PEOPLE OUT OF THE ISLES. IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE INCIDENT THE U.S. SENT IN AN ARMY OF RACIST WHITE FBI AGENTS, ALONG WITH 300 MARINES, AND PLACED ALL OF THE ISLES IT CLAIMS TO “OWN” UNDER A STATE OF RACIST MARTIAL LAW. THE ENTIRE BLACK POPULATION  WAS SUSPECT, PARTICULARLY YOUNG BLACK MEN, WITH OVER 100 OF THEM BEING ROUNDED UP IN HOUSE TO HOUSE SEARCHES. MOST OF THE YOUNG MEN WERE SUBJECTED TO VARIOUS FORMS OF TORTURE THAT INCLUDED BEATINGS, WATER-BOARDING, ELECTRIC SHOCK, AND BEING HUNG FROM TREES AND BUILDINGS BY THEIR FEET. (for a more detailed account click this link "Maracatu")

     WITHIN A WEEK AFTER THE INCIDENT THE FBI SETTLED ON FIVE YOUNG MEN AS THE CULPRITS WITH SCANT EVIDENCE AND "CONFESSIONS" OBTAINED THROUGH TORTURE. THOSE FIVE YOUNG BLACK MEN WHERE ISHMAEL LABEET, RAPHAEL JOSEPH, WARREN BALLENTINE, BEAUMONT GEREU, AND MERAL SMITH. THEY WERE QUICKLY TRIED TOGETHER IN THE U.S. DISTRICT COURT BY A JUDGE WHO USED TO SERVE AS THE ATTORNEY FOR THE ROCKEFELLER FAMILY, WHICH OWNED THE GOLF COURSE. THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE TO CONVICT A ONE, WHICH WAS WHY THE STRATEGY WAS TO TRIE THEM TOGETHER, IN ORDER TO FUDGE THE FACTS. THE GUN USED TO KILL THE PEOPLE WAS AN AUTOMATIC RIFLE REGISTERED TO THE VI POLICE DEPARTMENT, BUT NO POLICE OFFICER WAS EVER MADE SUSPECT. THE ASSAILANTS WERE MASKED THE ENTIRE TIME AND THE INCIDENT OCCURRED IN A MATTER OF MINUTES WITH THE ASSAILANTS ALLEGEDLY DISAPPEARING BACK INTO THE SURROUNDING RAIN FORREST FROM WHICH THEY CAME. HOWEVER, SOME WITNESSES REPORTED THAT THE MEN DROVE OFF IN A CAR AND THAT THE INCIDENT WAS SOME SORT OF "HIT."  

    AFTER A HASTY TRIAL, WHEN  THE JURY INFORMED THE JUDGE THAT THEY COULD NOT CONVICT, HE ORDERED THEM HELD FOR NINE DAYS UNTIL THEY CAME BACK WITH GUILTY VERDICTS AGAINST ALL FIVE. WITHIN THE HOUR AFTER GETTING THE GUILTY VERDICTS THE JUDGE HAD ALL FIVE BROUGHT BEFORE HIM AND SENTENCED EACH TO EIGHT CONSECUTIVE LIFE SENTENCES, THEN HAD THEM MARCHED FROM THE COURTHOUSE DOWN TO THE HARBOR IN CHRISTENSTED. IN THE HARBOR WERE A NUMBER OF SEA PLANES THAT THEN FLEW THE FIVE OFF TO FEDERAL PRISONS IN THE UNITED STATES. THE SPEEDY  ARREST, TRIAL, CONVICTION, AND IMPRISONMENT WERE INTENDED TO SEND A MESSAGE TO THE NATURAL INHABITANTS AGAINST EVEN CONTEMPLATING OPPOSING U.S. RULE, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME TO ENSURE WHITES THAT ANY BLACK UPRISING WOULD BE DEALT WITH QUICKLY, HARSHLY, AND EFFECTIVELY.  THE QUICK ARREST, PROSECUTION, TRIAL, CONVICTIONS, HARSH  SENTENCES, AND QUICK EXECUTION AMOUNTED TO A LYNCHING IN ORDER TO TERRORIZE THE NATURAL INHABITANTS. AND THIS IS WHY THESE MEN REMAIN IMPRISONED TO THIS DAY, IN ORDER TO MAINTAIN THAT TERROR MESSAGE.

iN 1983, WHILE BEING TRANSPORTED BACK TO PRISON IN THE STATES AFTER APPEARING BACK IN ST. CROIX FOR A COURT HEARING, , ISHMAEL LABEET HIJACKED THE PLANE  AND ESCAPED TO CUBA WHERE HE WAS GIVEN POLITICAL ASYLUM AND LIVES TODAY. IN 1992,  RAPHAEL JOSEPH ALONE WAS PARDONED BY THE GOVERNOR FOR GOOD BEHAVIOR, EVEN THOUGH HIS BEHAVIOR WAS NOT ANY BETTER THAN THE OTHER THREE. 

     IN 2000-01, ALTHOUGH THE U.S. FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS RETIRED THE SENTENCES OF THE REMAINING THREE AND  DISCHARGED THEM FROM ITS CUSTODY, IT  DID NOT RELEASE THEM FROM DETENTION. INSTEAD OF BEING RELEASED AS  REQUIRED BY LAW, THE THREE WERE ILLEGALLY "TRANSFERRED" TO THE CUSTODY OF THE COLONIAL GOVERNMENT, EVEN THOUGH THEY  NO LONGER HAD SENTENCES.

      FOR THE PAST 15-YEARS THESE MEN HAVE BEEN DETAINED WITHOUT EVEN THE PRETENSE OF A PRISON SENTENCE, HELD BY A GOVERNMENT IMPOSED AND CONTROLLED BY A FOREIGN POWER - THE UNITED STATES.  THIS GOES TO PROVE THAT FROM THE VERY OUTSET THEIR IMPRISONMENT WAS POLITICAL AND ILLEGAL, THESE MEN WERE MADE "TERROR SUSPECTS" 30-YEARS BEFORE GOERGE BUSH AND DICK CHENEY MADE THE TERM UP. jUST LIKE MANY OF THE SO-CALLED  "TERROR SUSPECTS" AT GUANTANAMO BAY, THIS MEN WERE SWEPT UP IN A WARLIKE U.S. INVASION OF THEIR COUNTRY. AND JUST LIKE WAS DONE TO THE SO-CALLED "TERROR SUSPECTS" AT GUANTANAMO BAY, THESE MEN WERE ALSO SUBJECTED TO "ENHANCED INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES," OR TORTURE. AND JUST LIKE WITH THE SO-CALLED "TERROR SUSPECTS" AT GUANTANAMO BAY THEIR CONTINUED DETENTION IS OUTSIDE OF ALL KNOWN LAW AND MORALITY. 

MALIK, HANEEF, AND ABDUL CAN BE REACHED BY MAIL AT THE GOLDEN GROVE PRISON, IF IN FACT THEY ARE STILL THERE AND NOT BEEN SPIRITED OFF TO SOME OTHER "BLACK SITE:" 

RURAL ROUTE 1, BOX 9955, KNGSHILL VI OO8500 

    HOWEVER, PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT THERE IS NO INTENT TO JUST LET THEM TO CONTINUE TO HOLD THEM, WE ARE NOT GOING TO WAIT FOR JUSTICE TO COME FROM A PLACE WERE IT DOES NOT EXIST. WE HAVE WORK TO DO IN THE ISLES RIGHT NOW.  YOU CAN HELP, PLEASE FOLLOW THE PEOPLE'S ALERT BELOW. THANK YOU

 PEOPLES' ALERT:

     ON DECEMBER 31, 2015, THE VIRGIN ISLAND 3 WERE LOCKED DOWN FOR PETITIONING THE U.S. DISTRICT COURT OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS, THE SAME COURT IN WHICH THEY WERE "TRIED" 44-YEARS AGO, TO END 15-YEARS OF  BEING ILLEGALLY DETAINED BY THE COLONIAL GOVERNMENT OF THE "U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS." INSTEAD OF DUE PROCESS, INSTEAD OF JUSTICE, THEY HAVE BEEN SUBJECTED TO MORE OPPRESSION AND REPRESSION

INSTEAD OF DUE PROCESS AND JUSTICE, THEY GOT RETRIBUTION 

  We need people to do the following things

SIGN PETITION TO GOV. KENNETH MAPP 

Click here to tell Governor Mapp to Free the 3 now

  DONATE TO THE GROUND WORK

Click here to give material support to this Fight for Justice 

      Kenneth Mapp is the governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, a former police officer in the states, is directly responsible for the illegal detention of the Virgin Islands 3. All he does not need a court  to order their release, all he  needs to do is to decide that his government will no long violate the law and the Human Rights of its own people. 

Read more at: http://virginislands3.yolasite.com/

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Afrikan Black Coalition just started a petition to the University of California Regents, UC President Napolitano, and UC Chief Investment Officer Bachher stating:

Last year, we pushed the University of California to divest $25 million in private prison shares. We dedicate this victory to the millions of our people languishing in America's mass incarceration regime. But the University of California still has not divested the $425 million in shares from Wells Fargo, one of the largest private prison funders.

Wells Fargo maintains a $900 million credit line to private prisons. If we all truly believe that #BlackLivesMatter from the hood to the academy, we must stand with our family and friends who are currently incarcerated or are at a higher risk of incarceration because of their very Blackness.

Tell the UC to divest effective immediately, all of the $425 million it has currently invested in Wells Fargo!

Sign now →
http://iam.colorofchange.org/petitions/university-of-california-uc-prison-divestment?akid=5321.46097.7YGjWo&amp=&bucket=COC&rd=1&source=mailing&t=11

UC, Divest from Wells Fargo Immediately!

We just started a petition titled "University California (UC) Divestment." Below is the appeal that we will deliver to the University of California next month:

We, the undersigned community members and justice seekers, are excited by the Afrikan Black Coalition's recent victory in getting the University of California to divest $25 million from the private prison corporations Corrections Corporations of America (CCA), The Geo Group, and G4S. The victory was historic because private prisons have exacerbated America's mass incarceration regime, are implicated in gross human rights violations, and should be outlawed.

However, we share the Afrikan Black Coalition's outrage and frustration resulting from the UC system's startling $425 million investment in Wells Fargo, one of the largest financiers of private prisons. According a report from Enlace, Wells Fargo acts as a syndication agent and issuing lender on CCA's $900 million line of credit. As of their latest filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Wells Fargo owned 998,350 shares in CCA and 462,342 shares in GEO Group, nearly 1.5 million shares total. It bears noting that Wells Fargo is a bank that practiced discriminatory lending and maneuvered people of color (primarily Black and Latino) into subprime mortgages that led to the financial meltdown of 2007-2008; and in response to accusations of racial discrimination in its lending practices, Wells Fargo settled for $175 million in 2012 with pending litigations from several U.S cities about discriminatory practices.

I share the Afrikan Black Coalition's outrage and frustration resulting from the UC system's startling $425 million investment in Wells Fargo, one of the largest financiers of private prisons.

It is for these reasons that we stand in solidarity with the Afrikan Black Coalition in its call for justice for those who are systematically dehumanized by an unforgiving and unfair judicial system that continues to criminalize Black and brown bodies. We acknowledge these cases illustrate the evolution of America's legal institution to uphold race, gender, and class hierarchies. By investing in Wells Fargo Bank, the University of California is actively supporting a legacy of historical emphasis on profit margins at the expense of human beings, and the continued mass criminalization of Black existence. It is an ethical embarrassment and a clear disregard for Black and immigrant lives for the UC to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Wells Fargo as a financier of private prisons. In the age of Black Lives Matter and a reinvigorated Black Freedom Struggle, the UC should NOT be bankrolling the inhuman mass incarceration regime that has gripped America.

I am outraged that Wells Fargo spends almost $1 billion funding modern-day slave plantations. The University of California should not be in business with such an immoral bank!
In Solidarity and Struggle,

Afrikan Black Coalition

Sign now →
http://iam.colorofchange.org/petitions/university-of-california-uc-prison-divestment?akid=5321.46097.7YGjWo&amp=&bucket=COC&rd=1&source=mailing&t=11


*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* *---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* URGENT UPDATE:  MAJOR TILLERY BACK IN THE HOLE!! FEDERAL RETALIATION LAWSUIT FILED!! Major Tillery was denied medical treatment, transferred and put in the hole “because of something prison administrators hate and fear among all things: prisoner unity, prisoner solidarity.” -Mumia Abu-Jamal SCI Frackville prison officials put Major Tillery back in the hole!! This is more retaliation against Tillery who is now fighting to get Hepatitis C treatment. Tillery was able to get word out through another prisoner who told us that several guards in the “AC annex” have been verbally harassing and trying to provoke men with racist comments. The “AC annex” is a cell block that houses both general population and disciplinary prisoners together. We don’t have the particulars of what falsified charges they put against Major. His daughter Kamilah Iddeen heard that he got 30 days and should be out of the RHU (restricted housing unit) on March 2. Last year Major Tillery stood up for Mumia, telling John Kerestes, the Superintendent at SCI Mahanoy, that Mumia is dying and needs to go to the hospital. Soon afterward, Mumia was rushed to the hospital in deadly diabetic shock. For that warning and refusing to remain silent in the face of medical neglect and mistreatment of all prisoners Major Tillery was put in the hole in another prison and denied medical care for his arthritis, liver problems and hepatitis C.   Major Tillery didn’t stop fighting for medical treatment for himself and other prisoners. On February 11, Major Tillery filed a 40 page, 7-count civil rights lawsuit against the Department of Corrections, the superintendents of SCI Mahanoy and SCI Frackville and other prison guards for retaliation in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Major Tillery demands that the DOC stop its retaliation, remove the false misconduct from his record, provide medical treatment and transfer him out of SCI Frackville to a different prison in eastern Pennsylvania so he remains near his family. This lawsuit is just part of Major Tillery’s fight for medical care and to protect himself and other prisoners who are standing up for justice. He has liver disease and chronic Hepatitis C that the DOC has known about for over a decade. Tillery is filing grievances against the prison and its medical staff to get the new antiviral medicine. This is part of the larger struggle to obtain Hep C treatment for the 10,000 prisoners in Pennsylvania and the estimated 700,000 prisoners nationally who have Hepatitis-C and could be cured. Major Tillery’s daughter, Kamilah Iddeen appeals for our support: It is so important that my Dad filed this lawsuit– it shows what really goes on inside the prison. Prison officials act as if my father is their property, that his family doesn’t exist, that he isn’t a man with people who love him. They lied to us every time we called and said he needed treatment. They lied and said he hadn’t told them, that he hadn’t filed grievances. The DOC plays mind games and punishes prisoners who stand up for themselves and for others. But my Dad won’t be broken. The DOC needs to learn they can’t do this to a prisoner and his family. Justice has to be done. Justice has to be served. Please help. Major Tillery needs your calls to the DOC. He also needs help in covering the costs of the court filing fees, copying and mailing expenses amount of over $500.  Please help. Send money: Go to: www.JPay.com  Code: Major Tillery AM9786 PADOC Demand the Department of Corrections: Stop the Retaliation Against Major Tillery. Exonerate Major Tillery for the false charges of drug possession. Remove the false misconduct from Major Tillery’s record. Transfer Major Tillery from SCI Frackville to another facility in eastern Pennsylvania near his family. Provide decent medical care to Major Tillery and all prisoners! Call and Email: Brenda Tritt, Supt, SCI Frackville, (570)  874-4516, btritt@pa.gov John Wetzel, Secty of the PA DOC, (717) 728-4109, ra-contactdoc@pa.gov Send Letters of support to: Major Tillery AM9786 SCI Frackville 1111 Altamont Blvd. Frackville, PA 17931 For More Information: Call/Write: Kamilah Iddeen (717) 379-9009, Kamilah29@yahoo.com Nancy Lockhart (843) 412-2035,  thewrongfulconviction@gmail.com Rachel Wolkenstein, Esq. (917) 689-4009, RachelWolkenstein@gmail.com Contribute: Go to www.JPay.com Code: Major Tillery AM9786 PADOC For more information: www.Justice4MajorTillery.blogspot.com  Major Tillery, his daughter, Kamillah and his two granddaughters:       Major Tillery filed a civil rights lawsuit pro se against John Wetzel, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC), SCI Mahanoy Superintendent John Kerestes, SCI Frackville Superintendent Brenda Tritt and 17 other prison officials. The DOC punished and retaliated against Tillery for acts of solidarity with Mumia Abu-Jamal and other prisoners fighting for the fundamental human right of medical care. The lawsuit was filed in the Schuylkill County Court of Common Please on January 5, 2015: This is a civil rights action brought by Major George Tillery, a 65 year-old African-American man to stop and remedy retaliation against him for his exercise of his First Amendment Rights. Tillery was subjected to numerous retaliatory acts by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections and its employees, including medical neglect and medical mistreatment, unjustified cell searches, transfer to another cell block, loss of his prison job and precipitous transfer from SCI Mahanoy to SCI Frackville and then being set-up with a false misconduct and given over four months in disciplinary custody (solitary confinement). This retaliation was intended to punish and stop Tillery from filing grievances challenging medical neglect and mistreatment of him and other prisoners, including the well-known journalist and former death row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. This retaliation was punishment for Tillery continuing to publicly advocate for Mumia Abu-Jamal, and to publicly expose the DOC’s neglect and mistreatment of prisoner’s medical problems as well as the DOC’s retaliation against Tillery; and continuing to file grievances objecting to these retaliatory actions by prison officials. Throughout his over thirty years in prison serving a sentence of life without parole, Tillery has challenged his conviction and sentence, and unconstitutional restrictions on access to courts, prison conditions including security classification and placement procedures, medical treatment, and housing conditions on behalf of himself and other prisoners.  He was held in solitary confinement in super-max institutions in the federal and Pennsylvania prison systems for over twenty of those years. Tillery was the lead plaintiff in Tillery v. Owens, a class action lawsuit filed July 23, 1987, challenging the constitutionality of the conditions of confinement at the State Correctional Institution at Pittsburgh ("SCIP") located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It started as a pro se legal action by Tillery. It resulted in an historic legal order requiring remediation of unconstitutional prison conditions including deficient security, fire protection, access to the courts, over-crowded housing, medical care, mental health care and dental services. The DOC was required to make prison renovations costing more than a million dollars. See Tillery v. Owens, 719 F.Supp. 1256 (W.D.Pa.1989). Major Tillery demands that the DOC stop its retaliation, remove the false misconduct from his record, provide medical treatment and transfer him out of SCI Frackville to a different prison in eastern Pennsylvania so he remains near his family. This lawsuit is just part of Major Tillery’s fight for medical care and to protect himself and other prisoners who are standing up for justice. He has liver disease and chronic Hepatitis C that the DOC has known about for over a decade. Tillery is filing grievances against the prison and its medical staff to get the new antiviral medicine. This is part of the larger struggle to obtain Hep C treatment for the 10,000 prisoners in Pennsylvania and the estimated 700,000 prisoners nationally who have Hepatitis-C and could be cured. Major Tillery’s daughter, Kamilah Iddeen appeals for our support: It is so important that my Dad filed this lawsuit– it shows what really goes on inside the prison. Prison officials act as if my father is their property, that his family doesn’t exist, that he isn’t a man with people who love him. They lied to us every time we called and said he needed treatment. They lied and said he hadn’t told them, that he hadn’t filed grievances. The DOC plays mind games and punishes prisoners who stand up for themselves and for others. But my Dad won’t be broken. The DOC needs to learn they can’t do this to a prisoner and his family. Justice has to be done. Justice has to be served. Please help. Call prison officials and demand: --Demand decent medical care for Major Tillery! --Stop the Retaliation Against Major Tillery. He should be exonerated for the false charges of drug possession and this misconduct removed from his record. --Transfer Major Tillery from SCI Frackville back to SCI Mahanoy or to another facility in eastern Pennsylvania to remain near his family.   Dept. Of Corrections Secretary John Wetzel (717) 728-4109 Superintendent SCI Frackville Brenda Tritt (570) 874-4516 Write to Major Tillery AM 9786 SCI Frackville 1111 Altamont Blvd. Frackville, PA 17931 For More Information, Go To: Justice4MajorTillery/blogspot Call/Write: Kamilah Iddeen (717) 379-9009, Kamilah29@yahoo.com Nancy Lockhart (843) 412-2035, thewrongfulconviction@gmail.com Rachel Wolkenstein, Esq. (917) 689-4009, RachelWolkenstein@gmail.com Contribute: Go to JPay.com; code: Major Tillery AM 9786 PADOC Justice4MajorTillery/blogspot

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*


 
https://www.chelseamanning.org/featured/intheirownwords



In her own words:
Listen to Chelsea's story in Amnesty podcast


Whistleblower Chelsea Manning was the subject of Amnesty International’s podcast, In Their Own Words, a brand new series featuring the stories of human rights activists around the world.

One of the most trying aspects of Chelsea’s imprisonment has been the inability for the public to hear or see her.

"I feel like I've been stored away all this time without a voice," Chelsea has said.

In this episode, Amnesty finally gives Chelsea a voice, employing actress Michelle Hendley to speak Chelsea’s words. Through Michelle, we hear Chelsea tell us who she is as a person, what she’s been through, and what she’s going through now.

“I have to say, I cried a few times listening to this,” said Chelsea, after a Support Network volunteer played the podcast for her over the telephone. “Hearing her speak, and tell the story. She sounds like me. It sounds like the way I would tell my story.”

Since its release on Feb 5, the podcast has already been listened to over 10,000 times, passing up Amnesty’s first episode voiced by actor Christian Bale by over 4,000 listens. It received attention from Vice’s Broadley, BoingBoing, Pink News, Fight for the Future, the ACLU, the Advocate and numerous other online blogs and tweets.

Listen to the podcast or read the full transcript here
https://www.chelseamanning.org/featured/intheirownwords


 In her latest Guardian OpEd, Chelsea Manning shares about a rare and meaningful friendship she had while in the isolating environment of prison. "At the loneliest time of my life," explains Chelsea, "her friendship meant everything."
Prison keeps us isolated. But sometimes, sisterhood can bring us together
Chelsea Manning, Guardian OpEd
Feb 8, 2016

Prisons function by isolating those of us who are incarcerated from any means of support other than those charged with keeping us imprisoned: first, they physically isolate us from the outside world and those in it who love us; then they work to divide prisoners from one another by inculcating our distrust in one another.

The insecurity that comes from being behind bars with, at best, imperfect oversight makes us all feel responsible only for ourselves. We end up either docile, apathetic and unwilling to engage with each other, or hostile, angry, violent and resentful. When we don’t play by the written or unwritten rules – or, sometimes, because we do – we become targets...

Read the complete op-ed here
https://www.chelseamanning.org/featured/prison-keeps-us-isolated


*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

When Drone Whistleblowers are Under Attack, 

What Do We Do?

STAND UP, FIGHT BACK!

 We honor Stephan, Michael, Brandon and Cian!

These four former ex-drone pilots have courageously spoken out publicly against the U.S. drone assassination program.  They have not been charged with any crime, yet the U.S. government is retaliating against these truth-tellers by freezing all of their bank and credit card accounts.  WE MUST BACK THEM UP!
Listen to them here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43z6EMy8T28

PLEASE HELP THEM:

1.  Sign up on this support network:
         www.facebook.com/events/1502272456740302/

2.  Sign this petition  NOW:
               https://www.change.org/p/barack-obama-congress-attorney-general-loretta-lynch-protect-the-drone-assassination-program-whistleblowers?recruiter=436431670&utm_source=share_for_starters&utm_medium=copyLink

3.  Call and email officials TODAY, listed below and on FB site.

4.  Ask your organization if they would join our network.


**************************************************************
Statement of Support for Drone Whistleblowers
(Code Pink Women for Peace: East Bay, Golden Gate, and S.F. Chapters 11.28.15)

Code Pink Women for Peace support the very courageous actions of four former US drone operators, Michael Haas, Brandon Bryant, Cian Westmoreland, and Stephan Lewis, who have come under increasing attack for disclosing information about “widespread corruption and institutionalized indifference to civilian casualties that characterize the drone program.” As truth tellers, they stated in a public letter to President Obama that the killing of innocent civilians has been one of the most “devastating driving forces for terrorism and destabilization around the world.”* These public disclosures come only after repeated attempts to work privately within official channels failed.

Despite the fact that none of the four has been charged with criminal activity, all had their bank accounts and credit cards frozen. This retaliatory response by our government is consistent with the extrajudicial nature of US drone strikes.

We must support these former drone operators who have taken great risks to stop the drone killing. Write or call your US Senators, your US Representatives, President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, and CIA Director John Brennan demanding that Michael Haas, Brandon Bryant, Cian Westmoreland, and Stephan Lewis be applauded, not punished, for revealing the criminal and extrajudicial nature of drone strikes that has led to so many civilian deaths.

Petition

URGENT: Sign and Share NOW! Drone Whistleblower Protection Petition
https://www.change.org/p/barack-obama-congress-attorney-general-loretta-lynch-protect-the-drone-assassination-program-whistleblowers?recruiter=436431670&utm_source=share_for_starters&utm_medium=copyLink

Contacting your Government
- White House comment line: 202-456-1111

- Email President Obama: president@whitehouse.gov and cc info@whitehouse.gov

- White House switchboard: 202-456-1414 for telephone numbers of your Senators and Representatives.

- Email your Senators and Representatives:
http://www.house.gov/representatives/
http://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/

-Contact Ashton Carter Secretary of Defense: Go to http://www.defense.gov/About-DoD/Biographies/BiographyView/Article/602689 and select appropriate icon.

- Contact John Brennan, CIA Director: Go to
https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/leadership/john-o-brennan.html and select appropriate icon. 

For more information on the 4 Drone Whistleblowers:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1502272456740302/
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43z6EMy8T28
(Must see Democracy Now interview with the 4 drone operators)

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/18/life-as-a-drone-pilot-creech-air-force-base-nevada 

*http://thefreethoughtproject.com/drone-pilots-bank-accounts-credit-cards-frozen-feds-exposing-murder/#fqt0crLvckG2OdbD.99

Code Pink Women for Peace: eastbaycodepink@gmail.com



*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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

News Updates

• Death Row Stories

  Kevin Cooper's case will be the subject of a new episode of CNN's "Death Row Stories" airing on Sunday, July 26 at 7 p.m. PDT. The program will be repeated at 10 p.m. PDT. The episode, created by executive producers Robert Redford and Alex Gibney, will explore how Kevin Cooper was framed by the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department and District Attorney.Viewers on the east coast can see the program at 10 p.m. EDT and it will be rebroadcast at 1 a.m. EDT on July 27. Viewers in the Central Time zone can see it at 9 p.m. and midnight CDT. Viewers in the Mountain Time zone can see it at 8 p.m. and ll p.m MDT. It will be aired on CNN again during the following week and will also be able to be viewed on CNN's "Death Row Stories" website.

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

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

For Immediate Release – Thursday, October 29, 2015 

Solitary Prisoners' Lawyers Slam CDCR for Sleep Deprivation

Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition

SAN FRANCISCO – Yesterday, lawyers for prisoners in the class action case Ashker v. Brown submitted a letter condemning Pelican Bay prison guards' "wellness checks," which have widely been viewed as sleep deprivation. The letter was submitted to United States Magistrate Judge Nandor Vadas, and calls on the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to put an end to the checks.

Last month, prisoners achieved a historic victory in the settlement of Ashker v. Brown where the indefinite long term solitary confinement was effectively ended in California, with Magistrate Judge Vadas currently monitoring implementation of the settlement terms.

The guards at Pelican bay Security Housing Units have been conducting disruptive cell checks every 30 minutes around the clock for three months, causing prisoners widespread sleep disruption. The process is loud and according to prisoners, "the method and noise from the checks is torture."

Attorneys representing Pelican Bay SHU prisoners have just completed extensive interviews with prisoners who demand that "the every 30-minute checks have to be stopped or people are going to get sick or worse." In addition, they report that regular prison programs have been negatively impacted.

"To sleep is a fundamental human right," said Anne Weills, a member of the prisoners' legal team and one of the attorneys who conducted the interviews with prisoners in Pelican Bay. "To take away such a basic human right amounts to severe torture, adding to the already torturous conditions of being in solitary confinement."

Most prisoners report low energy, exhaustion and fatigue. Most state that they have trouble concentrating. They try to read, but they nod off and/or can't remember what they have read. Their writing is much slower ("I can't think to write"), and describe the constant welfare checks as having a negative impact on their mental state.

While this recent attorney survey was specifically focusing on sleep deprivation and its effects, prisoners volunteered information about the negative impact of these frequent checks: yard policy and practice has reduced access to recreation, access to showers has been reduced, programs and meals are being delayed, and property for those newly transferred to Pelican Bay is still being delayed and withheld.

Sleep deprivation constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Prisoners and their attorneys are demanding that these checks be halted.

--
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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


*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Campaign to Free Lorenzo Johnson
  
Updates from the New "Team Free Lorenzo Johnson":
Thank you all for your relentless effort in the fight against wrongful convictions and your determination to stand behind Lorenzo.

To garner even more support for Lorenzo Johnson, we have been hard at work updating the website and developing an even more formidable and dedicated team. Please take a moment to visit the new site here.

During the month of July, Lorenzo wrote two new articles for The Huffington Post titled "When Prosecutors Deny Justice for the Innocent," and "Hurry Up and Wait for Justice: The Struggle of Innocent Prisoners." In these articles, Lorenzo discusses the flaws in the criminal justice system, which he deems is a "serious problem in this country."

Lastly, Lorenzo has a message to you all.

A Letter from Lorenzo:

July 23, 2015
Dauphin County Prison
Harrisburg, PA

Dear Supporters,

I hope all is well with everyone and your families. As for myself, I'm still on my journey in pursuit of my vindication. Sorry for my website being shut down for a couple of weeks. It was being transferred to a new provider and management. I'm back and will do my best to keep everything up to speed with what's taking place.

I would like to thank ALL of my loyal supporters in the U.S. and in the MANY different counties that have signed on to support my innocence. Thanks for all of the letters, emails, photos, etc. Like I always say, I get energy to carry on and inspiration hearing form you, please stay engaged in my struggle.

As of this moment, nothing has changed, but – the continued delay tactics are constantly being used by my prosecutor, Deputy Attorney General William Stoycos. With the mounting of evidence that supports my innocence and police and prosecution misconduct claims that is steadily piling up, you would think that I would be having a couple of evidentiary hearings on my actual innocence appeal that have been pending since August 5, 2013.

At the time of this writing, I've been moved from SCI-Mahanoy to Dauphin County Prison and locked down for 23 hours and 40 minutes a day. In the 20 minutes I get to come out, I get to take a shower and make a short call. Prosecutor Stoycos had me moved so I can be a witness in his attempt to have my codefendant Corey Walker's attorney removed from representing him. How dare he call into question an attorney who is seeking justice for her client, when prosecutor Stoycos himself violated multiple constitutional rights of mine and Mr. Walker, that led to us being in prison for 20 years and counting.

Prosecutor Stoycos is continuously abusing his power and his endless resources he has at his disposal. He is not tough on crime, he's tough on Innocent Prisoners. Prosecutor Stoycos is doing everything in his power to prevent justice from taking place. I encourage everyone to continue to speak out against my nightmare, invite others to get involved by going to my website and signing my Freedom Petition and whatever else they're willing to do.

On a positive note, I just enrolled in warehouse management trade and started on July 13th. Unfortunately, you're only allowed to miss a couple of days and Prosecutor Stoycos had me temporarily transferred on July 14th … It's extremely hard on Lifers to get into these trades due to the fact that Lifers are placed at the back of the list of ALL vocational classes. I try to further my education every chance I get, so when I do come home, I will be certified in different work.

The month of the hearing has come and left, without me being brought to the courthouse … I'm one of MANY innocent prisoners who endures this non-stop madness in our pursuit of Justice and Freedom. Now that my webpage is almost caught up to speed, I promise prompt updates and as everyone knows that contacted me directly, I personally reply to those in the states and out of the country. For those who can make a financial contribution, everything counts. Take care and let's continue to fight until we achieve Freedom, Justice, and Equality for all innocent prisoners.

"The Pain Within"

Free the Innocent
Lorenzo "Cat" Johnson

[Note: Lorenzo has since been transferred back to SCI Mahanoy and can be reached at his usual address.]

Thank you all for reading this message and please take the time to visit the new 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

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


freelorenzojohnson.org

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

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

BACKGROUND:

On December 15, 2014 the Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor, Michigan was thrown into prison for 2.5 to 10 years. This 66-year-old leading African American activist was tried and convicted in front of an all-white jury and racist white judge and prosecutor for supposedly altering 5 dates on a recall petition against the mayor of Benton Harbor.

The prosecutor, with the judge's approval, repeatedly told the jury "you don't need evidence to convict Mr. Pinkney." And ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE WAS EVER PRESENTED THAT TIED REV. PINKNEY TO THE 'ALTERED' PETITIONS. Rev. Pinkney was immediately led away in handcuffs and thrown into Jackson Prison.

This is an outrageous charge. It is an outrageous conviction. It is an even more outrageous sentence! It must be appealed.

With your help supporters need to raise $20,000 for Rev. Pinkney's appeal.

Checks can be made out to BANCO (Black Autonomy Network Community Organization). This is the organization founded by Rev. Pinkney.  Mail them to: Mrs. Dorothy Pinkney, 1940 Union Street, Benton Harbor, MI 49022.

Donations can be accepted on-line at bhbanco.org – press the donate button.

For information on the decade long campaign to destroy Rev. Pinkney go to bhbanco.org and workers.org(search "Pinkney").

We urge your support to the efforts to Free Rev. Pinkney!Ramsey Clark – Former U.S. attorney general,
Cynthia McKinney – Former member of U.S. Congress,
Lynne Stewart – Former political prisoner and human rights attorney
Ralph Poynter – New Abolitionist Movement,
Abayomi Azikiwe – Editor, Pan-African News Wire<
Larry Holmes – Peoples Power Assembly,
David Sole – Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice
Sara Flounders – International Action Center

MESSAGE FROM REV. PINKNEY

I am now in Marquette prison over 15 hours from wife and family, sitting in prison for a crime that was never committed. Judge Schrock and Mike Sepic both admitted there was no evidence against me but now I sit in prison facing 30 months. Schrock actually stated that he wanted to make an example out of me. (to scare Benton Harbor residents even more...) ONLY IN AMERICA. I now have an army to help fight Berrien County. When I arrived at Jackson state prison on Dec. 15, I met several hundred people from Detroit, Flint, Kalamazoo, and Grand Rapids. Some people recognized me. There was an outstanding amount of support given by the prison inmates. When I was transported to Marquette Prison it took 2 days. The prisoners knew who I was. One of the guards looked me up on the internet and said, "who would believe Berrien County is this racist."

Background to Campaign to free Rev. Pinkney

Michigan political prisoner the Rev. Edward Pinkney is a victim of racist injustice. He was sentenced to 30 months to 10 years for supposedly changing the dates on 5 signatures on a petition to recall Benton Harbor Mayor James Hightower.

No material or circumstantial evidence was presented at the trial that would implicate Pinkney in the purported5 felonies. Many believe that Pinkney, a Berrien County activist and leader of the Black Autonomy Network Community Organization (BANCO), is being punished by local authorities for opposing the corporate plans of Whirlpool Corp, headquartered in Benton Harbor, Michigan.

In 2012, Pinkney and BANCO led an "Occupy the PGA [Professional Golfers' Association of America]" demonstration against a world-renowned golf tournament held at the newly created Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course on the shoreline of Lake Michigan. The course was carved out of Jean Klock Park, which had been donated to the city of Benton Harbor decades ago.

Berrien County officials were determined to defeat the recall campaign against Mayor Hightower, who opposed a program that would have taxed local corporations in order to create jobs and improve conditions in Benton Harbor, a majority African-American municipality. Like other Michigan cities, it has been devastated by widespread poverty and unemployment.

The Benton Harbor corporate power structure has used similar fraudulent charges to stop past efforts to recall or vote out of office the racist white officials, from mayor, judges, prosecutors in a majority Black city. Rev Pinkney who always quotes scripture, as many Christian ministers do, was even convicted for quoting scripture in a newspaper column. This outrageous conviction was overturned on appeal. We must do this again!

To sign the petition in support of the Rev. Edward Pinkney, log on to: tinyurl.com/ps4lwyn.

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.

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

COURAGE TO RESIST

http://couragetoresist.org/

New Action--write letters to DoD officials requesting clemency for Chelsea!

Secretary of the Army John McHugh

President Obama has delegated review of Chelsea Manning's clemency appeal to individuals within the Department of Defense.

Please write them to express your support for heroic WikiLeaks' whistle-blower former US Army intelligence analyst PFC Chelsea Manning's release from military prison.

It is important that each of these authorities realize the wide support that Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning enjoys worldwide. They need to be reminded that millions understand that Manning is a political prisoner, imprisoned for following her conscience. While it is highly unlikely that any of these individuals would independently move to release Manning, a reduction in Manning's outrageous 35-year prison sentence is a possibility at this stage.

Take action TODAY – Write letters supporting Chelsea's clemency petition to the following DoD authorities:

Secretary of the Army John McHugh

101 Army Pentagon

Washington, DC 20310-0101

The Judge Advocate General

2200 Army Pentagon

Washington, DC 20310-2200

Army Clemency and Parole Board

251 18th St, Suite 385

Arlington, VA 22202-3532

Directorate of Inmate Administration

Attn: Boards Branch

U.S. Disciplinary Barracks

1301 N. Warehouse Road

Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027-2304

Suggestions for letters send to DoD officials:

The letter should focus on your support for Chelsea Manning, and especially why you believe justice will be served if Chelsea Manning's sentence is reduced.  The letter should NOT be anti-military as this will be unlikely to help.

A suggested message: "Chelsea Manning has been punished enough for violating military regulations in the course of being true to her conscience.  I urge you to use your authorityto reduce Pvt. Manning's sentence to time served."  Beyond that general message, feel free to personalize the details as to why you believe Chelsea deserves clemency.

Consider composing your letter on personalized letterhead -you can create this yourself (here are templates and some tips for doing that).

A comment on this post will NOT be seen by DoD authorities–please send your letters to the addresses above

This clemency petition is separate from Chelsea Manning's upcoming appeal before the US Army Court of Criminal Appeals next year, where Manning's new attorney Nancy Hollander will have an opportunity to highlight the prosecution's—and the trial judge's—misconduct during last year's trial at Ft. Meade, Maryland.

Help us continue to cover 100% of Chelsea's legal fees at this critical stage!


Courage to Resist
484 Lake Park Ave. #41
Oakland, CA 94610
510-488-3559
couragetoresist.org


*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*



B. ARTICLES IN FULL


*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

1) Need to Hide Some Income? You Don’t Have to Go to Panama

By PATRICIA COHEN

APRIL 7, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/08/business/need-to-hide-some-income-you-dont-have-to-go-to-panama.html?src=busln

2) David Cameron Faces Calls to Resign After Finally Admitting He Had Shares in Offshore Fund
By VICE News and Reuters
April 8, 2016 https://news.vice.com/article/british-pm-faces-calls-to-resign-after-admitting-he-had-shares-in-offshore-fund-1

3)  At Least 17 Civilians Killed in U.S. Airstrikes, Afghan Officials Say

By FAROOQ JAN MANGAL and MUJIB MASHAL

APRIL 7, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/08/world/asia/us-disputes-claim-that-airstrikes-killed-afghan-civilians.html?ref=world&_r=0

4)  U.S. Presses Bid to Force Apple to Unlock iPhone in New York

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

APRIL 8, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/09/technology/us-presses-bid-to-force-apple-to-unlock-iphone-in-new-york.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fnyregion&action=click&contentCollection=nyregion&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=4&pgtype=sectionfront

5)  Small, Piecemeal Mergers in Health Care Fly Under Regulators’ Radars

By REED ABELSON

APRIL 8, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/09/business/small-piecemeal-mergers-in-health-care-fly-under-regulators-radars.html?ref=business

6)  Climate-Related Death of Coral Around World Alarms Scientists

By MICHELLE INNIS

APRIL 9, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/world/asia/climate-related-death-of-coral-around-world-alarms-scientists.html?ref=world

7)  Chicago State, a Lifeline for Poor Blacks, Is Under Threat Itself

By JULIE BOSMAN

APRIL 9, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/us/chicago-state-a-lifeline-for-poor-blacks-is-under-threat-itself.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus&action=click&contentCollection=us&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront

8)  Culture of Concealment Protects Police Officers

By  GINIA BELLAFANTE 

APRIL 8, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/nyregion/culture-of-concealment-protects-police-officers.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fnyregion&action=click&contentCollection=nyregion&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront

9) The Rich Live Longer Everywhere. For the Poor, Geography Matters.

By NEIL IRWIN and QUOCTRUNG BUI

APRIL 11, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/04/11/upshot/for-the-poor-geography-is-life-and-death.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus&action=click&contentCollection=us&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront

10)  Did Blacks Really Endorse the 1994 Crime Bill?

By ELIZABETH HINTON, JULILLY KOHLER-HAUSMANN and VESLA M. WEAVER

APRIL 13, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/opinion/did-blacks-really-endorse-the-1994-crime-bill.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&_r=0

11)  Inky the Octopus Escapes From a New Zealand Aquarium

By DAN BILEFSKY

APRIL 13, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/world/asia/inky-octopus-new-zealand-aquarium.html?ref=world

12)  Greece Holds Activists as Migrants and Police Clash Anew at Macedonia Border

By LIZ ALDERMAN

APRIL 13, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/world/europe/migrant-crisis-idomeni-protests.html?ref=world

13)  In Flint, Rashes Stir Fears of Showering as Scientists Hunt for Culprit

By ABBY GOODNOUG

APRIL 13, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/us/in-flint-rashes-stirfears-of-showering-as-scientists-hunt-forculprit.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus&action=click&contentCollection=us&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront

14)  Panel Calls for Major Changes at Texas Jail That Held Sandra Bland

By DAVID MONTGOMERY

APRIL 12, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/us/panel-calls-for-major-changes-at-texas-jail-that-held-sandra-bland.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus&action=click&contentCollection=us&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=sectionfront

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

1) Need to Hide Some Income? You Don’t Have to Go to Panama

By PATRICIA COHEN

APRIL 7, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/08/business/need-to-hide-some-income-you-dont-have-to-go-to-panama.html?src=busln

For wealthy Americans looking to veil their assets and shield some of their income from taxation, there is no need to go to Panama or any other offshore tax haven. It’s easy to establish a shell corporation right here at home.

“In Wyoming, Nevada and Delaware, it’s possible to create these shell corporations with virtually no questions asked,” said Matthew Gardner, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonprofit research organization in Washington.

In some places, it can be more difficult to get a fishing license than to register a shell company. And it doesn’t cost much more.

The Panama Papers — the cache of leaked documents from a Panama law firm, Mossack Fonseca — have revealed how thousands of the firm’s clients, including an array of powerful figures around the world, stashed billions of dollars in tax havens. So far only a tiny number of American names have surfaced (although that could change as more of the documents are reviewed).

That in no way means that Americans citizens are refraining from such practices, experts emphasized.

“This is just one firm in one place,” said Gabriel Zucman, an economist and the author of “The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens,” “So it cannot be representative of what’s happening as a whole in the world.”

But Mr. Zucman, who estimates that about 8 percent of the world’s financial wealth — more than $7.6 trillion — is hidden in offshore accounts, said another reason was that it is so simple to create anonymous shell companies within the United States.

Wealthy individuals and businesses that want to mask their ownership can conveniently do so in the United States, and then stash those assets abroad.

Yet while the United States demands that financial institutions in other countries share information about Americans with accounts abroad, it has refused to reciprocate.

“You see a ton of wealth in tax havens in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands that is owned by shell companies that are incorporated in Panama or in Delaware,” he said. “The bulk of this wealth does not seem to be duly declared on tax returns.”

A recent report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy called “Delaware: An Onshore Tax Haven” noted that the state’s lack of transparency combined with an enticing loophole in its tax code “makes it a magnet for people looking to create anonymous shell companies, which individuals and corporations can use to evade an inestimable amount in federal and foreign taxes.”

Heather A. Lowe, the legal counsel and director of government affairs for Global Financial Integrity, a research and advocacy group in Washington, warned that the problem was much more widespread than just a handful of states.

“You can create anonymous companies anywhere in the United States,” Ms. Lowe said. “The reason people know about Delaware, Nevada and Wyoming is because these states market themselves internationally.”

In annual reports, Delaware’s secretary of state has boasted of marketing efforts that have “helped the state reach thousands of legal professionals in dozens of countries across the globe” and visits by delegations to Brazil, Israel, Canada and Spain “to tell the Delaware story.” The resulting incorporation fees make up a hefty portion of state revenue.

Although there are legitimate reasons that individuals and businesses want to screen their holdings — for privacy or to prevent competitors from discovering investment plans — several experts said cloaking wrongdoing was a more common purpose.

Aside from avoiding taxes, shell companies are routinely used by terrorist organizations to hide assets, by political donors to sidestep campaign finance laws and by criminals to launder money, Mr. Gardner said.

The Treasury Department indicated this week that it planned to require financial institutions to verify the identities of customers who set up accounts in the names of shell companies, thus closing a loophole in the American banking system that thwarts transparency efforts.

The Treasury also recently began a program that tracks people who use shell companies to purchase expensive real estate in New York and Miami.

But the new rules would not affect state law.

John A. Cassara, a former special agent for the Treasury Department, said that American and foreign law enforcement officials conducting investigations were regularly stymied by state secrecy laws surrounding shell corporations.

“If somebody is conducting an investigation and it comes back to a Delaware company and you want to find who or what is behind that company, you basically strike out,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s the F.B.I., at the federal level, state or local. Even the Department of Justice can’t get the information. There is nothing you can do.”

He recalled a case where investigators ended up abandoning their inquiry of a Nevada-based corporation that had received more than 3,700 suspicious wire transfers totaling $81 million over two years.

“Why incorporate in Nevada?” the state’s website advertised in 2007. “Minimal reporting and disclosing requirements. Stockholders are not public record.”

Mossack Fonseca, the Panama law firm, set up offices in Nevada and Wyoming.

After revelations came to light about Americans using Swiss bank accounts to evade taxes, the United States in 2010 passed the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which requires financial firms in other countries to disclose details about American clients with offshore accounts.

Yet the United States is one of the few countries that has refused to sign new international standards for exchanging similar financial information with other countries.

Another country that has failed to sign the standards? Panama.

“The United States demands that the rest of the world tell it when an American holds an account at a foreign institution, but the U.S. does not return the courtesy by automatically providing comparable information on foreign investors in U.S. banks to their home tax jurisdictions,” said Edward D. Kleinbard, a law professor at the University of Southern California and a former chief of staff of Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation.

Mr. Kleinbard and Ms. Lowe of Global Financial Integrity said that American banks are awash in money from foreign investors using shell corporations to conceal money from their own governments and law enforcement.

“Where is that money going?” Ms. Lowe asked. “Not to Delaware, Nevada and Wyoming, but New York, Miami and Los Angeles banks.”

Continue reading the main storyShare This Page

• Share
• Tweet
• Email
• More

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

2)  David Cameron Faces Calls to Resign After Finally Admitting He Had Shares in Offshore Fund

By VICE News and Reuters

April 8, 2016 https://news.vice.com/article/british-pm-faces-calls-to-resign-after-admitting-he-had-shares-in-offshore-fund-1

After a week in which he has been forced into making daily public statements, British Prime Minister David Cameron finally admitted in a TV interview on Thursday that he once had a stake in his late father's offshore trust, which was named in the Panama Papers.

Opposition politicians immediately called on him to resign for being "less than honest" with the British people, and demanded he publish full details of his tax arrangements immediately. The topic #ResignCameron was trending on Twitter on Friday morning.

Cameron told ITV News that he had owned shares in the Panamanian trust, Blairmore Holdings, but had sold them in 2010, before becoming prime minister.

"We owned 5,000 units in Blairmore Investment Trust, which we sold in January 2010. That was worth something like £30,000," he told the television channel.

"I paid income tax on the dividends. There was a profit on it but it was less than the capital gains tax allowance so I didn't pay capital gains tax," Cameron said.

Cameron was expected to publish his tax returns as soon as possible, said Sky News.

Cameron's late father Ian was among tens of thousands of people named in leaked documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca which showed how the world's rich and powerful stash their wealth.

The firm specializes in establishing offshore companies, which could be used to avoid taxes, but there are several legitimate reasons for individuals and corporations to set them up.

On Monday, a Downing Street spokesperson said the Prime Minister's tax affairs were a "private matter." At a press conference on Tuesday, Cameron told reporters that he had "no shares, no offshore trusts, no offshore funds, nothing like that." A statement from a spokesperson later that day said "the Prime Minister, his wife and their children do not benefit from any offshore funds."

Questions were then raised about whether Cameron had ever benefited in the past from the fund or stood to inherit money from it in future. A statement was then released on Wednesday saying: "There are no offshore funds or trusts which the prime minister, Mrs. Cameron or their children will benefit from in future," adding it was now time for the prime minister's critics to "put up or shut up."

They didn't heed his advice, and the questions kept coming. Cameron at last bowed to pressure on Thursday and made the admission he had owned shares in Blairmore.

He immediately faced accusations of hypocrisy, given his repeated past statements about tax evasion being "morally wrong." There were also calls by the opposition for him to resign after being "less than honest" with the British public. Cameron had spoken "out of both sides of his mouth" in recent days, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Owen Smith told the BBC, arguing there were now "doubts about the prime minister's trustworthiness."

Business Minister Nick Boles said while with the benefit of hindsight it might have been better if Cameron had immediately acknowledged his former stake in Blairmore, but the important thing was that the prime minister had not broken any laws and had paid all his taxes. He told Radio 4's Today program it was understandable why Cameron had delayed his admission: "Taxation is a private matter in this country ... So I think he thought 'I know I've compiled fully with all of the tax laws and I don't like feeding this mill of preying on his father's memory.' And his father is not here to defend himself."

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

3)  At Least 17 Civilians Killed in U.S. Airstrikes, Afghan Officials Say

By FAROOQ JAN MANGAL and MUJIB MASHAL

APRIL 7, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/08/world/asia/us-disputes-claim-that-airstrikes-killed-afghan-civilians.html?ref=world&_r=0

KHOST, Afghanistan — American airstrikes in the southeastern Afghan province of Paktika killed at least 17 civilians, local officials and elders said on Thursday, differing from official American and Afghan claims that only militants had been killed.

Hajji Muhammad Hasan, a former senator from the Gomal District, said that three drone strikes hit the area of Nematabad on Wednesday. He said that the first strike hit a pickup truck carrying Hajji Rozuddin, a local elder on his way to mediate a land dispute in the Kakarzai tribe. Also in the truck were four of Mr. Rozuddin’s bodyguards and seven other people.

A second strike soon after killed two people who had come to pick up the bodies, Mr. Hasan said. A third strike killed three others who had climbed a small hill to try to see what had happened and why the previous two men had not returned already. (There is rarely any phone signal in Gomal, in rugged terrain along the Pakistani border.)

“Hajji Rozuddin was strongly anti-Taliban — he carried bodyguards because the Taliban were trying to kill him,” Mr. Hasan said. “The car was completely destroyed, and there was little of the bodies left.”

Shaista Khan Akhtarzada, the district governor of Gomal, said an investigation team had determined that “the people killed were civilians.”

But the chief of police in Paktika Province, Gen. Zorawar Zahid, insisted that only Taliban had been killed in the strikes. In a differing account, the Afghan Defense Ministry said in a statement that operatives for Al Qaeda had been killed in Gomal.

A spokesman for the United States military in Afghanistan, Brig. Gen. Charles H. Cleveland, said: “We can confirm that the U.S. conducted two counterterrorism strikes in Paktika on Wednesday afternoon. There was no evidence to indicate that there were any civilian casualties at all.”

Officials and residents said that such airstrikes have been relatively rare in Paktika in recent months, even as the United States has intensified its air operations elsewhere in the country. Besides training and assisting the Afghan forces, who have struggled as they have taken over combat against the Taliban, some of the United States military presence here, numbered at about 9,800 troops over all, is focused on conducting counterterrorism operations.

In addition to targeting Al Qaeda, which continues to have a foothold in Pakistan and Afghanistan, President Obama in January authorized American forces to go after militants in Afghanistan who have claimed loyalty to the Islamic State.

The United States Air Force’s public data on strikes in Afghanistan suggests 242 “weapons released” in January and February, compared with 76 in the same period last year.

General Cleveland said that most of the “just under a hundred” American counterterrorism strikes in Afghanistan from Jan. 1 to March 31 were focused on Islamic State militants in eastern Nangarhar Province. (Each reported strike may involve more than one weapon.) He added that a few of those strikes had targeted Al Qaeda elsewhere in the country.

Farooq Jan Mangal reported from Khost, Afghanistan, and Mujib Mashal from Kabul.

Continue reading the main storyShare This Page

• Share
• Tweet
• Email
• More

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

4)  U.S. Presses Bid to Force Apple to Unlock iPhone in New York

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

APRIL 8, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/09/technology/us-presses-bid-to-force-apple-to-unlock-iphone-in-new-york.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fnyregion&action=click&contentCollection=nyregion&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=4&pgtype=sectionfront

WASHINGTON — In the next battleground in the Justice Department’s fight to unlock some of Apple’s well-encrypted iPhones, the agency on Friday pressed ahead with its efforts to get access to a locked phone linked to a methamphetamine ring in Brooklyn.

Although the F.B.I. unlocked a phone last month, ending its prominent legal battle with Apple in the case involving the mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., the Justice Department on Friday told a federal judge in the Eastern District of New York that it still needs the technology giant’s help to unlock the phone in the Brooklyn case.

It is seeking to overturn an earlier order from another judge in Brooklyn who sided with Apple and said the Justice Department had overreached in trying to force the company to give it access to an encrypted iPhone used by a convicted drug dealer.

In its letter on Friday, the Justice Department said that “the government’s application is not moot and the government continues to require Apple’s assistance in accessing the data that it is authorized to search by warrant.”

The F.B.I.’s fight with Apple over the iPhone used by one of the attackers in San Bernardino in December ended abruptly after the bureau paid an outside firm — which company and how much is still unknown — to demonstrate a way around two defense mechanisms in the phone.

With tensions high, the F.B.I. said this week that it had not yet shared that solution with Apple and had not decided whether to do so. Investigators have not said what data was retrieved or even whether it considers it useful.

Continue reading the main storyShare This Page

• Share
• Tweet
• Email
• More

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

5)  Small, Piecemeal Mergers in Health Care Fly Under Regulators’ Radars

By REED ABELSON

APRIL 8, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/09/business/small-piecemeal-mergers-in-health-care-fly-under-regulators-radars.html?ref=business

Federal officials are expected to argue in court starting Monday that a large hospital merger in the Chicago area could hurt consumers and should be stopped. It would be the latest in a series of efforts by regulators to push back against a wave of consolidation among major health care providers.

But a frenzy of smaller transactions is also profoundly changing the landscape, many of which face little regulatory resistance.

The deals are often for a couple of doctors here, or a hospital there, making them too small to attract much attention. But as those deals add up, they are creating groups that in some cases dominate local or regional markets. And they are raising questions about whether the gaze of antitrust officials is directed in the right place.

“There’s a lot of consolidation going on at a lot of levels,” said Leemore S. Dafny, a former federal official who is a health economist at Northwestern University.

She added, “I don’t think the antitrust laws are set up to stop it.”

Doctors and hospitals are making the calculation that bigger is definitely better. Consolidation, they say, helps them better coordinate care and manage patients, making care more effective and less expensive.

Skeptics, however, say that the small combinations can eventually translate into higher costs. By gaining market share, they say, hospitals are able to charge more for their care and gain more influence about where patients are sent for lucrative services.

Regulators, meanwhile, are left with limited information about the smaller deals, including answers about whether they diminish competition, leading to higher prices and lower-quality care.

Continue reading the main story

Dr. Farzad Mostashari, a former health official in the Obama administration, describes what is taking place as “creeping consolidation” — being done at a pace that keeps it away from prying eyes.

“If you move slowly enough, maybe nobody will notice,” he said.

Many of the smaller deals go unreported, leaving any tally of them incomplete. But at least 940 health care service transactions took place last year, up from about 480 in 2010, according to Irving Levin Associates, a research firm. This mix of deals, which involved groups like physician practices, hospitals and nursing homes, totaled some $175 billion.

Because of the consolidation, patients are more likely to be getting care from providers with formal ties to one another. The doctor who is employed by a hospital, for example, may send a patient for a CT scan at a facility owned by the same hospital. Patients may be discouraged from going to a provider outside a given network, either by their insurer or their doctor.

The combinations taking place include smaller hospital mergers, like one in Arizona in March, when two hospitals merged. The same month, Baptist Health, a small hospital group in Kentucky, said it planned to reach into Indiana to add another hospital. Neither of those deals has generated significant attention.

The difference in regulatory attention is particularly stark in Illinois.

The hospital deal in Chicago, between Advocate Health and NorthShore University HealthSystem, brings together two large systems, including hospitals and doctors’ groups. It was announced in 2014 and involves more than 6,000 doctors. Advocate and NorthShore say they will promise not to raise their prices above inflation. They also say they plan to introduce a health plan that will be cheaper than comparable policies offered by the insurers in the market.

But the deal is being opposed by the Federal Trade Commission in a case expected to start Monday at the United States District Court for Northern Illinois.

“This merger is likely to significantly increase the combined system’s bargaining power with health plans, which in turn will harm consumers by bringing about higher prices and lower quality,” Deborah L. Feinstein, the director of the F.T.C.’s competition bureau, said in a statement in December.

The same sort of attention has not been paid to the growth of the state’s largest independent physician group.

The company, DuPage Medical Group, started as an eight-doctor practice in the Chicago suburbs in the 1960s and then combined with other practices. In the last five years, it has made about 16 deals and doubled in size to 500 doctors.

Many of its acquisitions barely register — eight specialists last month, two small physician groups in February, a handful of doctors joining at a time. But it has been enough that DuPage now has ambitions of going national. Late last year, it teamed up with a private investment firm to provide it with $250 million for its goal.

“We saw what was happening,” said Michael A. Kasper, the chief executive of DuPage Medical Group. “There was going to be mass consolidation at the hospital and physician level.”

As a bigger organization, he said, DuPage has more leverage with area hospitals. “There’s no question we have a higher degree of influence because of our size,” he said.

Several companies are also amassing doctors who specialize in fields like emergency medicine, trying to capture a sizable share of the physicians in that field and also expanding into related areas. In November, TeamHealth, which has about 16,000 doctors, bought IPC Healthcare, which specializes in care within the hospital, for $1.6 billion.

Federal Trade Commission officials have traditionally focused on deals known as horizontal combinations, when large hospital groups or physician practices merge in a local market. Last year, the agency and Idaho’s attorney general prevailed in a case against St. Luke’s Health System in Boise for buying the state’s largest independent multispecialty group because it would control too many doctors.

The agency is also watching the addition of doctors into these big groups, Ms. Feinstein said. But making the legal case against so-called vertical combinations — when a hospital buys doctors’ groups or expands into related areas like imaging or outpatient surgery — is not as straightforward.

These deals, experts say, can benefit consumers by making care more efficient. Integrated systems like Kaiser Permanente in California manage to combine the operations of hospitals, doctors’ clinics and a health plan into a well-regarded system.

But the track record for others is not well known, and many make promises that never materialize into lower prices or better care.

“It’s difficult to even understand the relationships between hospitals and doctors’ practices,” said Francine Lafontaine, a former F.T.C. official who is now at the University of Michigan. “We don’t have a lot of clear research.”

To keep track of what is going on in the market, Massachusetts now requires that any health care transactions be reported to a state agency. The agency has received notice of 57 deals since it began tracking them three years ago. A few other states are considering a similar reporting system.

But the expectation is that regulators will continue to have their hands full. The push toward new forms of payment and more coordinated care is pushing providers to enter these combinations, said Roger D. Strode, a health care lawyer for Foley & Lardner in Chicago.

“I don’t see this abating,” he said

Continue reading the main storyShare This Page

• Share
• Tweet
• Email
• More

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

6)  Climate-Related Death of Coral Around World Alarms Scientists

By MICHELLE INNIS

APRIL 9, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/world/asia/climate-related-death-of-coral-around-world-alarms-scientists.html?ref=world

SYDNEY, Australia — Kim Cobb, a marine scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, expected the coral to be damaged when she plunged into the deep blue waters off Kiritimati Island, a remote atoll near the center of the Pacific Ocean. Still, she was stunned by what she saw as she descended some 30 feet to the rim of a coral outcropping.

“The entire reef is covered with a red-brown fuzz,” Dr. Cobb said when she returned to the surface after her recent dive. “It is otherworldly. It is algae that has grown over dead coral. It was devastating.”

The damage off Kiritimati is part of a mass bleaching of coral reefs around the world, only the third on record and possibly the worst ever. Scientists believe that heat stress from multiple weather events including the latest severe El Niño, compounded by climate change, has threatened more than a third of Earth’s coral reefs. Many may not recover.

Coral reefs are the crucial incubators of the ocean’s ecosystem, providing food and shelter to a quarter of all marine species, and they support fish stocks that feed more than one billion people. They are made up of millions of tiny animals, called polyps, that form symbiotic relationships with algae, which in turn capture sunlight and carbon dioxide to make sugars that feed the polyps.

An estimated 30 million small-scale fishermen and women depend on reefs for their livelihoods, more than one million in the Philippines alone. In Indonesia, fish supported by the reefs provide the primary source of protein.

“This is a huge, looming planetary crisis, and we are sticking our heads in the sand about it,” said Justin Marshall, the director of CoralWatch at Australia’s University of Queensland.

Bleaching occurs when high heat and bright sunshine cause the metabolism of the algae — which give coral reefs their brilliant colors and energy — to speed out of control, and they start creating toxins. The polyps recoil. If temperatures drop, the corals can recover, but denuded ones remain vulnerable to disease. When heat stress continues, they starve to death.

Continue reading the main story

Damaged or dying reefs have been found from Réunion, off the coast of Madagascar, to East Flores, Indonesia, and from Guam and Hawaii in the Pacific to the Florida Keys in the Atlantic.

The largest bleaching, at Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, was confirmed last month. In a survey of 520 individual reefs that make up the Great Barrier Reef’s northern section, scientists from Australia’s National Coral Bleaching Task Force found only four with no signs of bleaching. Some 620 miles of reef, much of it previously in pristine condition, had suffered significant bleaching.

In follow-up surveys, scientists diving on the reef said half the coral they had seen had died. Terry Hughes, the director of the Center ofExcellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University in Queensland, who took part in the survey, warned that even more would succumb if the water did not cool soon.

“There is a good chance a large portion of the damaged coral will die,” he added.

Scientists say the global bleaching is the result of an unusual confluence of events, each of which raised water temperatures already elevated by climate change.

In the North Atlantic, a strong high-pressure cell blocked the normal southward flow of polar air in 2013, kicking off the first of three warmer-than-normal winters in a row as far south as the Caribbean.

A large underwater heat wave formed in the northeastern Pacific in early 2014, and has since stretched into a wide band along the west coast of North America, from Baja California to the Bering Sea. Nicknamed the Blob, it is up to four degrees Fahrenheit warmer than surrounding waters, and has been blamed for a host of odd phenomena, including the beaching of hungry sea lions in California and the sighting of tropical skipjack tuna off Alaska.

Then came 2015, with the most powerful El Niño climate cycle in a century. It blasted heat across the tropical and southern Pacific, bleaching reefs from Kiritimati to Indonesia, and across the Indian Ocean to Réunion and Tanzania on Africa’s east coast.

“We are currently experiencing the longest global coral bleaching event ever observed,” said C. Mark Eakin, the Coral Reef Watch coordinator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Maryland. “We are going to lose a lot of the world’s reefs during this event.”

Reefs that take centuries to form can be destroyed in weeks. Individual corals may survive a bleaching, but repeated bleachings can kill them.

Lurid reports of damaged reefs started coming in from worried scientists in the summer of 2014.

Lyza Johnston, a marine biologist in the Northern Mariana Islands, dived to the reefs off Maug, a group of small islands: “In every direction, nearly all of the corals were bright white.”

Misaki Takabayashi, a marine scientist at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, surfed the waves above the blue rice coral there: “I could see what looked like bleached white ghosts popping up off the ocean floor at me.”

Cory Walter, a senior biologist at the Mote Marine Laboratory in Florida, peered down from a boat over Wonderland Reef off the Lower Florida Keys: “It almost looks like it snowed on the reef.”

Predicting the duration of the bleaching or forecasting the next one is difficult. The Blob has cooled somewhat, and El Niño, while weakening, is expected to stretch into 2017.

Dr. Eakin, the coral-reef specialist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said he expected the bleaching to continue for nine more months. Scientists will not be able to measure the full extent of the damage until it is over.

What is clear is that these events are happening with increasing frequency — and ferocity. The previous bleachings, in 2010 and 1998, do not appear to have been as extensive or prolonged as the current one.

The 1998 bleaching, which Dr. Eakin said had been set off by a fierce El Niño, killed around 16 percent of the world’s coral. By 2010, oceans had warmed enough that it took only a moderate El Niño to start another round.

Then in 2013, Dr. Eakin said, “a lot of bleaching happened due to climate change, before the El Niño had even kicked in.”

Reefs that were bleached in 2014, like those in the Florida Keys and the Caribbean, had no time to regenerate before suffering further thermal stress from El Niño last year, leaving the coral vulnerable to disease and death.

The reefs in the Florida Keys “are about to go into a third year straight of bleaching, something that has never happened before,” said Meaghan Johnson, a marine scientist at the Nature Conservancy. “We are worried about disease and mortality rates.”

Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, the director of Australia’s Global Change Institute, noted that 2015 was the hottest year ever recorded, both on land and in the oceans — breaking a record set just the year before.

“Rising temperatures due to climate change have pushed corals beyond their tolerance levels,” he said, adding that back-to-back bleaching can be particularly deadly to the corals.

El Niño warms the equatorial waters around Kiritimati Island more than anywhere else in the world, making it a likely harbinger for the health of reefs worldwide. That is why Dr. Cobb, the Georgia Tech scientist who made the recent dive, has been making the trek at least once a year for the past 18 to the tiny atoll, part of the Line Islands archipelago.

Though the atoll sits just north of the Equator, trade winds suck water up from the depths of the ocean, usually keeping the water temperature surrounding the reefs a healthy, nearly constant 78 degrees.

But in 2015, the expected upwelling of deep, cold water did not happen, Dr. Cobb said, speaking by satellite phone after her dive. So water in the atoll was 10 degrees warmer than normal, and never cooled enough to allow coral to recover.

“The worst has happened,” she said. “This shows how climate change and temperature stresses are affecting these reefs over the long haul. This reef may not ever be the same.”

Continue reading the main storyShare This Page

• Share
• Tweet
• Email
• More

• Save

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

7)  Chicago State, a Lifeline for Poor Blacks, Is Under Threat Itself

By JULIE BOSMAN

APRIL 9, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/us/chicago-state-a-lifeline-for-poor-blacks-is-under-threat-itself.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus&action=click&contentCollection=us&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront

CHICAGO — The lack of a state budget in Illinois has been dismissed by many here as politics as usual, another protracted ego contest between the Republican governor and the Democrats who rule the Legislature.

It does not feel that way at Chicago State University, a 150-year-old, predominantly African-American school on the city’s far South Side.

Since last July, when the fiscal year began, the university has received zero dollars from the state, though it relies on Illinois for 30 percent of its $105 million budget. If no one swoops in with a rescue plan, the school could shut down, stranding students mid-degree, eliminating hundreds of jobs and shuttering a path forward for a poor and underserved community.

In February, the school declared a financial emergency. Officials canceled spring break and moved commencement up to April 28, rushing to finish the semester before funding goes dry. Last month, members of the faculty and staff were notified that the school was making contingency plans to collect their keys. Reserve funds to pay employees will run out after April 30.

“People are losing their minds,” said Barbara Ameyedowo, 28, a math major who is expecting to graduate in December. “Students are leaving. I’m hopeful that it will be resolved, but I’m so sad. Chicago State is all this part of the South Side has left.”’

Governors and legislatures around the country have made deep cuts to state universities in recent years, leaving the smallest and least prestigious schools financially stressed, as tuition is hardly adequate to sustain many institutions. In Illinois, the absence of a budget means there has been no state financing, straining state universities and prompting some to furlough and lay off employees.

None, though, are in the dire predicament of Chicago State. Many, including the flagship University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, have healthy endowments or affluent alumni bases to lean on. Like some other predominantly minority institutions, Chicago State has neither.

“We are absolutely in financial disaster,” Thomas J. Calhoun Jr., the university president, said in an interview on Wednesday. “What do you do when your state just zips up the pocketbook and doesn’t give you anything?”

Continue reading the main story

The crisis has left many of the 4,500 students at Chicago State, the vast majority of whom are black and from low-income backgrounds, shaken and angry: Why are they, rather than their peers at more elite state universities, at risk of becoming the first major casualties of the budget stalemate?

“It’s aimed at hurting minorities,” Glenn Weston, 23, a junior who is studying accounting, said of the budget conflict. Though Chicago State University is not a member of the historically black colleges and universities system, he said, “Chicago State is like the H.B.C.U. of Chicago. Other schools here would never close.”

For months, the students have organized in protest, their cries largely directed at Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican. In January, a group of students drew attention to their cause by forming a human chain and shutting down part of a busy expressway. At a rally downtown in February, students marched on sidewalks, chanting “Black education is good for your health” and “Black minds matter.”

Students are fearful that the school could shut down, leaving them with unfinished degrees and few options to transfer nearby.

For many students, the university is a lifeline. Originally founded as a teachers’ college during boom times in the 1860s, the small, austere campus of concrete plazas and low-slung brick buildings now occupies 160 acres of land deep on the South Side of Chicago. It is bordered by an expressway and a residential neighborhood that was once solidly middle-class but has been upended by poverty, gang violence and declining population. Streetlights are marked with dark green banners, the school color, stamped with the Chicago State logo.

“There’s a lot of frustration in the community,” said Phillip Beverly, a political-science professor at Chicago State, who grew up five blocks from the school and whose grandmother and wife are graduates. “You’re closing off an avenue for people to change their lives.”

Tuition and fees are low at about $12,000 a year, and close to 85 percent of the students qualify for Pell grants, federal aid for poor students.

“This is one of the least expensive schools,” said Melanie Ellis, the junior class president, 34. “You can pay $30,000 a year for U.I.C. or $10,000 a year for Chicago State,” she said, referring to University of Illinois at Chicago. “What do you choose?”

The university attracts untypical college students. The average age is 31; close to half are mothers (70 percent of the student population are women, and most of them have at least one child); and the average ACT score is 18.6 out of 36, compared with the national average of 21.

“We can’t just go to another school,” said Reiko Williamson, a senior who is studying nursing, as she left a class on a rainy afternoon. “This is all we have. This is all we can afford.”

To save money, Chicago State, which has about $50 million in deferred maintenance, has cut about 15 percent of its work force in the last year, frozen all travel expenses and renegotiated contracts.

But that has not been enough, and administrators say that they are waiting for elected officials in Springfield to pass a budget or approve an emergency infusion of cash — two reprieves that do not appear imminent.

The roots of the crisis lie in a stalemate that began last June, when Mr. Rauner vetoed a budget plan sent to him from the Democratic-controlled Legislature that was out of balance by more than $3 billion. With no overall plan in place, he has addressed problems piecemeal — signing a bill to fund K-12 education, for instance. But he did not do the same for higher education, and in his budget plan last year, he proposed a 31 percent funding cut for universities and community colleges.

Mr. Rauner recently called the potential closing of Chicago State “an outrage,” but blamed Democratic lawmakers for the crisis. “I believe that the supermajority in the Legislature is using Chicago State and many other service providers in Illinois as leverage to try to force a massive tax hike,” he said. “I believe that’s what’s going on, and that’s wrong.”

Other government programs are also feeling the pressure: Social service agencies are cutting help for the poor and mentally ill, museums are closing and rural hospitals are scaling back services. But for many students, the convenience and accessibility of Chicago State has had a profound impact on their ability to earn a degree — people like Ms. Ellis, for instance, who said that if the school closes, she could lose all of the credits she has already earned in the nursing program, since she was told that they are not transferable.

In the past, Chicago State has been plagued by problems of its own making: In 2011, an audit discovered rampant financial mismanagement, including a failure to bill students for their tuition for an entire semester in 2010. Mr. Calhoun, who took over as president several months ago, said he firmly believes those problems are in the past.

State Senator Emil Jones III, a Democrat who attended Chicago State and whose family has raised money for the university in the past, said that he was pushing for a legislative solution.

“Chicago State has been historically underfunded over the years,” he said. “When a crisis comes up and the funding stops, they will be the first to close.”

Clifton Conrad, a professor of education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the situation at Chicago State foreshadows what many small universities could experience in the coming years, as state budgets contract and less money is designated for higher education.

“I fear this may have drastic implications,” Professor Conrad said. “You have an institution, a public institution, that is so dependent on state funding. And now you have an ominous threat where students are now wondering, can they invest long term in this institution?”

Other universities in or near Chicago, including Governors State University and the private Roosevelt University, have offered to take in students who may be left stranded. Mr. Calhoun said that he hopes that will not become necessary. But, he said flatly, “any institution, Chicago State included, that has expenses but no revenues, will eventually have to close.”

Continue reading the main storyShare This Page

• Share
• Tweet
• Email
• More

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

8)  Culture of Concealment Protects Police Officers
By  GINIA BELLAFANTE 
APRIL 8, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/nyregion/culture-of-concealment-protects-police-officers.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fnyregion&action=click&contentCollection=nyregion&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront

When Glen Grays was inexplicably handcuffed and hauled off by the police in Brooklyn on March 17 while delivering the mail on his route in Crown Heights, the world soon learned a bit about him. At a news conference given by Eric L. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, at which a video of the encounter was made public, Mr. Grays’s mother explained that she had six sons and worried about all of them. In the days ahead, Mr. Grays spoke to reporters, telling them that he was, in fact, engaged to a New York City police officer, that he had worked hard all of his life, that he had never been arrested and that despite the indignities he had suffered at the hands of the four plainclothes police officers — who were supposed to be in uniform — he did not wish for them to be fired.

Days after the video gained national attention, the police commissioner, William J. Bratton, said he had strong concerns about the actions taken by the officers. By then the Police Department had already begun an investigation by its Internal Affairs Bureau and the officers had been removed from their assignment with the Conditions Unit, a neighborhood-based troubleshooting division, and put back on patrol. Later, the supervising officer was stripped of his gun and badge and put on desk duty.

Despite all that, the department did not reveal the names of the men involved or apprise the public of any history of complaints leveled against them. The officers’ names became known because of an accident report Mr. Grays obtained at the 71st Precinct station house, which identified them. After Mr. Grays was taken away by the police officers in an unmarked car, that vehicle had hit another in front of it.

Secrecy is, in essence, protocol. It is required by a controversial lawpassed 40 years ago, Section 50-a of the state’s civil rights code, which protects officers’ personnel records from public view, enshrining the suppression of information around police misconduct as governance.

Had Mr. Grays, in his 27 years, accumulated a litany of petty offenses and low-level drug possession charges, we would almost surely know about them. One comparatively less glaring dimension of the hypocrisy that surrounds cases in which ordinary people are harmed or killed by those entrusted to protect them is the vast difference in the way that law enforcement handles the biographies of those people. A system that safeguards the names of police officers above all else often too easily accommodates the tainting of victims. The most notorious example occurred 16 years ago, when Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani authorized the release of Patrick Dorismond’s arrest record after Mr. Dorismond had become the third unarmed black man shot and killed by New York City police officers in approximately a year. When asked to respond to criticism that he had been vilifying the dead man, the mayor only delivered his rebuke more emphatically, claiming that Mr. Dorismond was not “an altar boy.”

Four years ago, a day after 18-year-old Ramarley Graham, unarmed, was shot and killed by a police officer in the Bronx, an article in The Wall Street Journal quoted an anonymous law-enforcement source offering that Mr. Graham had eight prior arrests. This information was made known before the Police Department identified the officer who shot him, Richard Haste. Documents filed in conjunction with a wrongful-death suit against the city, which resulted in a $3.9 million award to Mr. Graham’s family, showed that most of the arrests had been dismissed, or sealed because of Graham’s age, and that access to his history could have been obtained only through “the illegal or improper retention of sealed information.”

We know that Eric Garner had a criminal record, but we know far less about Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who applied the fatal chokehold while attempting to arrest Mr. Garner for the sale of loose cigarettes on Staten Island two years ago. Hoping to learn more, the Legal Aid Society sued the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board, the independent agency that handles complaints against police officers, for a summary of substantiated claims and disciplinary actions against Mr. Pantaleo. A State Supreme court justice ruled in Legal Aid’s favor; the city appealed the decision in August.

All the while, both Officers Pantaleo and Haste have remained on the force, in administrative roles, collecting salaries.

In an effort to combat a culture of concealment, the Legal Aid Society last year began building a database to collect whatever information it could find about potential areas of misbehavior by police officers. Through the state’s Freedom of Information Law, for instance, the organization gathers city payroll data to examine overtime patterns. A lot of overtime can indicate either a penchant for hard work, or a propensity for making unnecessary arrests, with the notion that the attendant paperwork will extend the clock.

The three police officers and one lieutenant involved in the Grays case were all found to have amassed considerable overtime last year, according to Cynthia Conti-Cook, a staff lawyer for the Legal Aid Society. The lieutenant, Luis D. Machado, made more than $41,000 in supplemental income, meaning that he put in more overtime hours than 89 percent of the lieutenants working in Brooklyn. The officers, David G. Savella, Miguel I. Rodriguez and Lazo Lluka, each worked more overtime than at least 96 percent of the officers in Brooklyn. Responding to a request for comment, Lt. John Grimpel, a department spokesman, said the officers’ overtime levels last year were “well within the normal range for their assignments.”

When Section 50-a was under review in 1976, it had, not surprisingly, a great deal of support from prosecutors and police unions. In a letter opposing passage of the law, though, one prosecutor, Joseph P. Hoey, took an enlightened view. “Too often today the opinion is expressed that police work is just another job,” Mr. Hoey, who had been the United States attorney in Brooklyn, said. Making personnel records confidential would only bolster that belief, he argued.

“All the participants in the criminal justice system should constantly be reminded that their employment in this system is a privilege,” Mr. Hoey wrote, “and that the greatest part of this privilege is being charged with the trust of maintaining the public’s right to justice.”

Big City

Continue reading the main storyShare This Page

• Share
• Tweet
• Email
• More
• Save
  
  

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

9)The Rich Live Longer Everywhere. For the Poor, Geography Matters.
By NEIL IRWIN and QUOCTRUNG BUI
APRIL 11, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/04/11/upshot/for-the-poor-geography-is-life-and-death.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus&action=click&contentCollection=us&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront

For poor Americans, the place they call home can be a matter of life or death.

The poor in some cities — big ones like New York and Los Angeles, and also quite a few smaller ones like Birmingham, Ala. — live nearly as long as their middle-class neighbors or have seen rising life expectancy in the 21st century. But in some other parts of the country, adults with the lowest incomes die on average as young as people in much poorer nations like Rwanda, and their life spans are getting shorter.

In those differences, documented in sweeping new research, lies an optimistic message: The right mix of steps to improve habits and public health could help people live longer, regardless of how much money they make.

One conclusion from this work, published on Monday in The Journal of the American Medical Association, is that the gap in life spans between rich and poor widened from 2001 to 2014. The top 1 percent in income among American men live 15 years longer than the poorest 1 percent; for women, the gap is 10 years. These rich Americans have gained three years of longevity just in this century. They live longer almost without regard to where they live. Poor Americans had very little gain as a whole, with big differences among different places.

But the fact that some places have increased the life span of their poorest residents suggests that improving public health doesn’t require first fixing the broader, multidecade problem of income inequality. Small-scale, local policies to help the poor adopt and maintain healthier habits may succeed in extending their lives, regardless of what happens with trends in income inequality.

“You want to think about this problem at a more local level than you might have before,” said Raj Chetty, a Stanford economist who is the study’s lead author.

“You don’t want to just think about why things are going badly for the poor in America. You want to think specifically about why they’re going poorly in Tulsa and Detroit,” he said, naming two cities with the lowest levels of life expectancy among low-income residents.

The research, in the works for nearly three years and based on a vast trove of records on earnings and deaths, is the most detailed analysis to date of a pattern first identified at least a couple of centuries ago, that more money translates into a longer life.

It could be as simple as this: Wealth buys higher-quality medical care, which allows people to live into old age. But a long line of evidence, including the new work, suggests it’s less obvious than it might seem. The affluent seem to live in healthier ways. They exercise more, smoke less, feel less stress and are less likely to be obese.

It’s not even certain that the cause and effect flows from higher income to greater health; to some degree, it may go the other direction as well, because people who are healthy are better able to hold down a demanding job, and so have higher incomes.

The new paper, in fact, finds little correlation between a region’s Medicare spending rate or the proportion of the population with health insurance and how long its poor citizens live.

Public health experts who examined the results said the weak relationship did not mean that health insurance had no value. Research has long established that health care interventions have a much smaller effect on life span than behavioral factors like smoking and exercise. But health care does help people who are already sick lead healthier lives. And it can provide economic security and peace of mind that improve the lives of the poor in other ways.

Economic measures like the unemployment rate and income inequality also showed little relationship to low-income people’s life spans. There was a much stronger relationship between longevity and obesity and smoking rates, which is unsurprising. Places where poor citizens had long life spans also tended to have a high concentration of college graduates and high local government spending.

Life expectancy for the poor is lowest in a large swath that cuts through the middle of the country, and it appears in pockets in the rest of the country, in places like Nevada. David M. Cutler, a Harvard economist and an author of the paper, calls it the “drug overdose belt,” because the area matches in part a map of where the nation’s opioid epidemic is concentrated.

The new findings dovetail with a much-discussed paper by Anne Case and Angus Deaton published last year. That research showed rising death rates among middle-age white Americans, especially those with low education. It also showed a sharp increase in drug and alcohol poisonings, suicides and accidents in the first years of this century. Research from the Brookings Institution published in February also found a growing gap in life span between the rich and the poor.

“There is some deeper distress going on among white middle-aged Americans that may continue to propel these mortality rates higher,” Mr. Deaton, a Princeton economist who wrote an editorial critiquing the new paper by Mr. Chetty and his colleagues, said in an interview. “If so, these people at the bottom will live even less long than they’re calculating.”

The great question for public health officials is what strategies might help low-income people live as long as their richer neighbors.

“There is a very strong correlation between income and life span,” Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an interview. “But it is not inevitable. There are things we can do to change the life trajectory of people. What improves health in a community? It includes wide access to social, educational and economic opportunity.”

A common thread among many of the places with a smaller longevity gap was population density, with wealthy cities leading the way. New York has a high rate of social spending for low-income residents and has been aggressive in regulating trans fats and smoking.

In the area in and around Birmingham, Ala., the life span for adults in the bottom quarter of income rose 3.8 years for men and 2.2 years for women from 2001 to 2014. (Because people of different races have different life expectancies regardless of income, the researchers statistically adjusted these local numbers to simulate a world in which all places matched the racial composition of the country as a whole. These numbers are after these race adjustments.)

Dr. Mark E. Wilson, chief executive of the health department in Jefferson County, Ala., which includes Birmingham, ticked off a number of things that might have helped.

The county expanded availability of preventive health care like vaccinations and mammograms by opening clinics in poorer neighborhoods in the 1990s and early 2000s (though recently it has closed some of the clinics). Although a relatively high percentage of the population lacks health insurance, a portion of local taxes goes to hospital care for those who cannot pay. The county has been ahead of the rest of Alabama in banning smoking in restaurants and workplaces, with a law enacted in 2012. And philanthropic foundations backed by old industrial money have funded campaigns to make people healthier in the Birmingham area.

“These aren’t all huge-scale projects, but there is still an alignment of getting resources moving in the same direction around health,” Dr. Wilson said. “We’re trying to establish a culture of health and get it more and more on the radar screen of our community.”

Mr. Cutler, the Harvard economist, argues that the new research should serve as a jumping-off point.

“Why is it that Birmingham has done well but Tulsa has done poorly?” he said.

It may be good to know that poor Americans are living a lot longer in some places than in others, but it would be better to know — in terms of specific policy prescriptions — how the places with better results are doing it.

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

10)  Did Blacks Really Endorse the 1994 Crime Bill?

By ELIZABETH HINTON, JULILLY KOHLER-HAUSMANN and VESLA M. WEAVER

APRIL 13, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/opinion/did-blacks-really-endorse-the-1994-crime-bill.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&_r=0

AS political candidates and pundits grapple with the legacy of the 1994 crime bill and the era of mass incarceration that has seen millions of African-Americans locked in the nation’s prisons, one defense keeps popping up: that black citizens asked for it.

When confronted about her husband’s pivotal support for the bill, Hillary Clinton argued, even as she admitted the legislation’s shortcomings, that the bill was a response to “great demand, not just from America writ large, but from the black community, to get tougher on crime.”

Yet the historical record reveals a different story. Instead of being the unintended consequence of the democratic process at work, punitive crime policy is a result of a process of selectively hearing black voices on the question of crime.

There’s no question that by the early 1990s, blacks wanted an immediate response to the crime, violence and drug markets in their communities. But even at the time, many were asking for something different from the crime bill. Calls for tough sentencing and police protection were paired with calls for full employment, quality education and drug treatment, and criticism of police brutality.

It’s not just that those demands were ignored completely. It’s that some elements were elevated and others were diminished — what we call selective hearing. Policy makers pointed to black support for greater punishment and surveillance, without recognizing accompanying demands to redirect power and economic resources to low-income minority communities. When blacks ask for better policing, legislators tend to hear more instead.

Selective hearing has a deep history. In the Progressive Era, W.E.B. DuBois and Ida B. Wells called for state authorities to offer blacks the same social investmentthat reformers used to manage crime in white immigrant communities. But while whites received rehabilitation and welfare programs, black citizens found themselves overpunished and underprotected.

During the 1960s, blacks argued for full socioeconomic inclusion and an end to discriminatory policing, which they argued was a root cause of that decade’s urban unrest. Instead, they got militarized police forces and riot tanks in the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968.

In the ashes of the war on poverty, the trend accelerated. The penal system ballooned, while social supports directed toward the poorest and most vulnerable declined precipitously. Black leaders argued for full employment in the press and on the floor of Congress, urged vetoes of draconian legislation and drafted their own bills to support community-led anti-crime programs — and all to little avail.

Flash forward to the Clinton era. As soon as Chuck Schumer, Joseph R. Biden Jr. and others introduced their bipartisan crime bill in September of 1993, groups representing black communities pushed back. The N.A.A.C.P. called it a “crime against the American people.”

While supporting the idea of addressing crime, members of the Congressional Black Caucus criticized the bill itself and introduced an alternative bill that included investments in prevention and alternatives to incarceration, devoted $2 billion more to drug treatment and $3 billion more to early intervention programs. The caucus also put forward the Racial Justice Act, which would have made it possible to use statistical evidence of racial bias to challenge death sentences.

Given the history of selective hearing, what followed was no surprise. Black support for anti-crime legislation was highlighted, while black criticism of the specific legislation was tuned out. The caucus threatened to stall the bill, but lawmakers scrapped the Racial Justice Act when Republicans promised to filibuster any legislation that adopted its measures.

In final negotiations, Democratic leadership yielded to Republicans demanding that prevention (or “welfare for criminals” as one called it) be sliced in exchange for their votes. Senator Robert Dole insisted that the focus be “on cutting pork, not on cutting prisons or police.” The compromise eliminated $2.5 billion in social spending and only $800 million in prison expenditures.

This presented black lawmakers with a dilemma: Defeating the bill might pave the way for something even more draconian down the line, and lose critical prevention funding still in the bill. Ultimately, 26 of the 38 voting members supported the legislation. But those who broke ranks did so loudly: As Representative Robert C. Scott of Virginia explained, “You wouldn’t ask an opponent of abortion to look at a bill with the greatest expansion of abortion in the history of the United States, and argue that he ought to vote for it because it’s got some highway funding in it.”

Mr. Scott had it right: The bill allocated federal funds for up to 75 percent of the cost of new prisons, defined 60 new capital offenses, constricted inmates’ access to higher education and introduced 100,000 more police officers. Less than a quarter of the funding went to prevention programs. Over two decades later, this legislation continues to shape the lives of millions of African-Americans, overwhelmingly for the worse. This legislation further entrenched the idea that vulnerable urban communities are best managed through harsh punishment and heightened surveillance.

Making our neighborhoods places of mobility and fortune, not disinvestment and confinement, means that the voices of the people most affected must be heard and heeded. As we debate how to switch course, our popular understanding of the rise of “get tough” laws should not layer selective memory atop selective hearing of the past by justifying black incarceration with trite references to black voices.

Elizabeth Hinton is an assistant professor in the departments of history and African and African-American studies at Harvard. Julilly Kohler-Hausmann is an assistant professor of history at Cornell. Vesla M. Weaver is an associate professor in the departments of African-American studies and political science at Yale.

Continue reading the main storyShare This Page

• Share
• Tweet
• Email
• More
• Save

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

11)  Inky the Octopus Escapes From a New Zealand Aquarium

By DAN BILEFSKY

APRIL 13, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/world/asia/inky-octopus-new-zealand-aquarium.html?ref=world

It was an audacious nighttime escape.

After busting through an enclosure, the nimble contortionist quietly crossed the floor, slithered through a narrow drain hole about six inches in diameter and jumped into the sea. Then he disappeared.

This was no Houdini, but rather a common New Zealand octopus called Inky, about the size of a soccer ball.

The breakout at the National Aquarium of New Zealand in Napier, which has captured the imagination of New Zealanders and made headlines around the world, apparently began when Inky slipped through a small gap at the top of his tank.

Octopus tracks suggest he then scampered eight feet across the floor and slid down a 164-foot-long drainpipe that dropped him into Hawke’s Bay, on the east coast of North Island, according to reports in New Zealand’s news media.

The aquarium’s keepers noticed the escape when they came to work and discovered that Inky was not in his tank. A less independence-minded octopus, Blotchy, remained behind.

The aquarium’s manager, Rob Yarrall, told Radio New Zealand that employees had searched the aquarium’s pipes after discovering Inky’s trail, to no avail.

The escape happened several months ago, but it only recently came to light. “He managed to make his way to one of the drain holes that go back to the ocean, and off he went,” Mr. Yarrall said. “Didn’t even leave us a message.”

Inky’s escape surprised few in the world of marine biology, where octopuses are known for their strength, dexterity and intelligence.

Alix Harvey, an aquarist at the Marine Biological Association in England, noted that octopuses, members of a class of marine animals including squid and cuttlefish called Cephalopoda, have shown themselves to be adept at escaping through spaces as small as a coin, constrained only by their beaks, the only inflexible part of their bodies.

Ms. Harvey said that octopuses had also been documented opening jarsand sneaking through tiny holes on boats, and that they could deflect predators by spraying an ink that lingers in the water and acts as a decoy. Some have been seen hauling coconut shells to build underwater shelters.

“Octopuses are fantastic escape artists,” she said. “They are programmed to hunt prey at night and have a natural inclination to move around at night.”

She continued, “They have a complex brain, have excellent eyesight, and research suggests they have an ability to learn and form mental maps.”

Ms. Harvey recalled one wily octopus at a British aquarium that escaped nightly from his tank, slithered to a nearby tank to snack on fish for dinner, and returned home.

Octopuses’ intelligence, she said, was partly an evolutionary response to their habitation in complex environments such as coral reefs, in which the animals need to hide from predators and sneak up on their prey.

Inky is not the first octopus to attract the spotlight. In the summer of 2010, Paul, an octopus in Germany, gained worldwide attention when he appeared to correctly pick the winning team in all seven of Germany’s games at the World Cup in South Africa — a feat that inspired a song. He has been immortalized in Oberhausen, Germany, with a six-foot plastic replica of him clutching a soccer ball.

Continue reading the main storyShare This Page

• Share
• Tweet
• Email
• More

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

12)  Greece Holds Activists as Migrants and Police Clash Anew at Macedonia Border

By LIZ ALDERMAN

APRIL 13, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/world/europe/migrant-crisis-idomeni-protests.html?ref=world

ATHENS — Clashes erupted at Greece’s northern border for the second time in three days on Wednesday, with the Macedonian police firing tear gas on scores of migrants as they protested border closings that have left more than 12,000 stranded in a makeshift refugee camp.

The protests in Idomeni, a town in Greece on the border with Macedonia, came as Greek authorities arrested 14 activists there, saying that they had incited the migrants to storm the razor-wire fence dividing the two countries.

The police accused the activists, from Britain, Germany and other European countries, of encouraging the migrants to protest by telling them that doing so would arouse sympathy among European governments and in that way help reopen borders and let them proceed on what was once the main migrant path to Germany, where most say they want to go.

Around 300 migrants, including women and children, were injured on Sunday when they sought to break through the border fence and the Macedonian police fired tear gas and rubber bullets.

Greek television showed a crowd of migrants on Wednesday, their faces covered with scarves, chanting, “Open the border!” as the Greek police moved in to restore calm. Macedonian police officers could be seen sitting on several tanks lined up on their side of the fence.

Less than two months after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of Greece warned that Europe’s migration policies risked turning his country into a “warehouse for souls,” Athens is struggling to manage the tide of people trapped in Greece since Balkan nations, like Macedonia, closed their borders, trying to avert a chaotic flow of tens of thousands of refugees and migrants into Europe like that of last year.

Since a European Union deal with Turkey to try to stem Europe’s migrant crisis went into effect on March 20, migrants who now arrive in Greece from Turkey face deportation. But the migrants, like those in Idomeni, who arrived before that date now find themselves stuck in recession-hit Greece, unable to make their way to their preferred destinations in Northern Europe.

The Greek government is overwhelmed by asylum applications from tens of thousands of migrants who realize they cannot move. Many are biding their time in Greece as they try to figure out what to do if their applications are rejected and they face deportation.

In the meantime, numerous countries have revived border controls 20 years after the so-called Schengen agreement permitted largely passport-free travel among European Union members.

The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, warned on Tuesday that it might soon authorize member states to extend border controls for up to two years instead of the normal six months, if Greece does not quickly outline how it plans to tighten control of its borders.

The commission said Greece had still not made adequate progress in registering thousands of migrants throughout the country. Analysts and European politicians have warned that reinstating border controls could deal a sharp blow to the European Union economy.

Continue reading the main storyShare This Page

• Share
• Tweet
• Email
• More

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

13)  In Flint, Rashes Stir Fears of Showering as Scientists Hunt for Culprit

By ABBY GOODNOUG

APRIL 13, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/us/in-flint-rashes-stirfears-of-showering-as-scientists-hunt-forculprit.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus&action=click&contentCollection=us&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront

FLINT, Mich. — Two years after Flint switched the source of its water, setting off a citywide health crisis, residents are still dealing with bottled water, filters and the inconvenience of living without safe drinking water. But near the top of the list of daily challenges that residents face is how and where to shower.

Reports of rashes, itchiness and hair loss are widespread, despite assurances from government scientists that they have not found any evidence that the city’s lead-tainted water is unsafe for bathing.

The complaints are so persistent — and the anxiety is so high — that Dr. Nicole Lurie, an assistant secretary at the United States Department of Health and Human Services who is coordinating the federal recovery effort here, said she had asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Environmental Protection Agency to work with the state on investigating whether the water quality was contributing to skin problems.

Many residents are convinced that showering in the water is harmful. Some have taken to bathing infrequently, dashing into and out of the shower once a week with their mouths tightly shut. Others wash only with baby wipes — or, if they can, at the homes of friends or relatives outside Flint. Many said they mourned the loss of the long, hot showers of their past.

“You wonder what you’re stepping into when you’re getting into the shower and just trying to make it as quick as possible,” said the Rev. Rigel J. Dawson, pastor of the North Central Church of Christ, where some members have been trying to help others find places outside the city to bathe. “That uncertainty really kind of plays on you after a while; it wears you down.”

The city began using the Flint River as its water supply in April 2014 to save money, but it failed to add chemicals to prevent pipe corrosion, causing lead to leach into the water system. The investigation is focused only on rashes that have developed or worsened since Flint switched back to using Detroit water in October, because scientists “can only test the water that’s there now,” said Dr. Jevon McFadden, a medical epidemiologist for the C.D.C.

While the level of contamination in Flint’s water is declining, the lead levels remain dangerous. But federal and state officials have repeatedly said residents cannot get lead poisoning from bathing in lead-laced water unless they ingest it.

Continue reading the main story

The scientists’ investigation involves extensively interviewing people with rashes, testing the water in their homes and referring them to local dermatologists, who are seeing them at no charge. Dr. McFadden said the investigation was looking for potential irritants in the water, including more than 20 heavy metals, a range of organic compounds, and byproducts of chlorine and other disinfectants.

So far the investigation has not turned up an obvious culprit, he said, though he added, “We are still very early in the process of pulling together data.”

As of Tuesday, investigators had talked to 538 people who complained of rashes or other skin problems. Of those, 388 qualified for the study because they had an active rash that appeared after the city switched back to Detroit water.

Strikingly, more than 80 percent reported changing their bathing habits substantially because of the water crisis, Dr. McFadden said.

“We may not have identified a cause yet,” he said, “but we certainly know this is a real challenge for the people of Flint, and we want to do everything we possibly can to try to get to the bottom of it.”

Marc Edwards, a Virginia Tech professor who helped identify and expose Flint’s lead problem, said there might never be a eureka moment connecting the rashes to something in the water. That is because scientific studies proving such a link are practically nonexistent, Dr. Edwards said during a news conference on Tuesday.

“That doesn’t mean the water is not causing the rashes somehow,” he said. “But we don’t have the scientific understanding to prove cause and effect.”

Dr. Walter Barkey, who is among four local dermatologists evaluating rashes as part of the investigation, said that about 70 percent of the people they had examined appeared to have eczematous dermatitis, a broad category of rash that may be caused by irritants or allergens.

Some people are genetically predisposed to the condition, Dr. Barkey said, and it is often exacerbated by cold, dry weather and stress, both of which have been in abundance in Flint since the lead contamination was revealed last fall. In general, he said, the spectrum of rashes seen by the volunteer team of dermatologists was similar to what they had seen in patients not exposed to Flint water.

“Add to that people changing their personal bathing habits, and it’s a perfect storm for the situation we are in, basically,” Dr. Barkey said. “But a lot of these people have a history that correlates with the water. They are definitely mistrustful of everything, and I don’t blame them.”

Dr. McFadden said the investigators hoped to have some preliminary findings on the rashes by the end of this month.

Dr. Edwards said that while he believed that Flint residents “should have no more concerns about taking a bath or shower at present than anyone in any other city,” he would not blame anyone for refusing to believe it.

“Some of those people are probably never going to take a bath or shower again without some level of fear,” he said, “given their experience.”

Marla Garland said she started to worry about the safety of the water this year when she felt an unpleasant tingly sensation during her weekly showers and itched ferociously afterward. She stopped bathing at home last month and joined a Y.M.C.A. in Flushing, a town bordering Flint, so she could shower in peace.

“It was like fire ants biting me,” Ms. Garland, 42, said, describing how she felt after bathing at home. “I scratched so hard I had bruises on my arms and legs.”

“Some people still say, ‘Are you sure it’s not psychosomatic?’ ” Ms. Garland added, tears welling in her eyes. “When you can’t shower and you’ve got to find somewhere to go and your car’s not working and you’re thinking, ‘I can’t sell this house,’ it all adds up, and it’s very frustrating.”

Tracey McCloud-Atkins, a dental assistant, lined up at a local church last month to get a coveted handout: a portable shower called a Pump-N-Spray. Members of Servants Without Borders, a charitable group based in Washington, traveled to Flint last month to give out more than 200 of the contraptions, which consist of a foot pedal and a nozzle that attach to a five-gallon jug of water. A spokeswoman for the group said it had received requests for 450 more and would return next month if it could raise enough money to buy them.

“My daughter is 17, and she uses it every day,” said Ms. McCloud-Atkins, 54, who said they kept the water jug half full and added a gallon or two of boiled bottled water when they were ready to use it. “She’s upset about not being able to take her hot baths. But who knows exactly what’s in the water?”

Once a month, Darline Long and her husband, Charles, splurge on a hotel room outside Flint, where they and their daughter, Wendy, 36, who has cerebral palsy, soak in long baths and showers. At home, Ms. Long has been warming huge pots of water on the stove and pouring them over Wendy as she sits in a chair in their bathtub. The family members have all had rough, itchy skin for over a year, she said, which they are treating with hydrocortisone cream. Ms. Long said she was also losing her hair, a problem she is convinced is due to the water.

When they can bathe at a hotel, Ms. Long said, “I feel clean — I feel really, totally free from being afraid of lead water.”

For Wendy, who has always loved baths, Ms. Long said, the hotel visits — including one at a Super 8 in neighboring Burton on Saturday — are particularly therapeutic.

“She was laughing and clapping her hands when she got in the water,” Ms. Long said. “She slept a whole lot better that night.”

Continue reading the main storyShare This Page

• Share
• Tweet
• Email
• More

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

14)  Panel Calls for Major Changes at Texas Jail That Held Sandra Bland

By DAVID MONTGOMERY

APRIL 12, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/us/panel-calls-for-major-changes-at-texas-jail-that-held-sandra-bland.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus&action=click&contentCollection=us&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=sectionfront

HEMPSTEAD, Tex. — A panel reviewing the Texas jail where a 28-year-old black woman, Sandra Bland, was found dead three days after being arrested in July has called for major changes in the treatment and medical screening of inmates.

“Presently, deputies screen arrestees for mental and medical problems, but this is not an accurate or efficient process,” said a report by an independent committee charged with investigating practices and policies at the facility, the Waller County jail. “Deputies do not possess the training or expertise to evaluate the medical and mental health needs of inmates.”

Lingering questions after Ms. Bland’s death, which was ruled a suicide, focused on medical information on a booking form as she was being processed into the jail after a confrontational traffic stop. Ms. Bland responded “yes” on the form when asked whether she had ever attempted suicide, and told jailers that she was taking medication for epilepsy.

Committee members called for new policies requiring medical specialists to conduct medical and mental screening, and said deputies might not be qualified to deal with such issues.

“Often, deputies taking mental health history do not know what to do with this information once it made part of the file,” the report said.

The panel also found that suicide prevention measures at the jail were applied “in a less than optimal manner.”

The review committee, made up of four lawyers and a former judge on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, was formed after Ms. Bland was found hanging from a garbage bag in her jail cell.

Ms. Bland, who had recently moved to Texas to accept a job at Prairie View A&M University, was arrested on July 10 after being pulled over for failing to signal a lane change. The encounter turned tense, and the arresting trooper, Brian T. Encinia, eventually ordered her out of her car after she refused to put out a cigarette.

Trooper Encinia was fired by the Texas Department of Public Safety after being indicted on a perjury charge in January. He pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charge. The grand jury declined to indict any of Ms. Bland’s jailers.

Craig Washington, the committee chairman and a former congressman, told reporters that the panel had focused specifically on conditions in the jail and not on Ms. Bland’s death or incarceration. Her name appeared only twice in the 11-page report, both times in reflective, tribute-like references.

“The committee was driven by Sandra Bland’s words: ‘I am going to Texas to make it better,’ ” members wrote in a two-sentence passage on cover page. Committee members also stated that, while studying “all areas” of the jail, “we are reminded of Sandra Bland’s untimely death as perhaps the impetus for this review.”

The panel issued nine recommendations, including building a new jail, buying body cameras, creating a digital booking process and separating jail administration from policing to enable deputies to concentrate on law enforcement.

Committee members, who participated in ride-alongs and were given access to the jail, said they had witnessed Sheriff Department employees insulting and dehumanizing people they encountered. The report called for “zero tolerance against the use of demeaning or derogatory language.”

In a related recommendation, the committee called for mandatory psychological evaluations and anger management courses to help deputies cope with stress.

The sheriff, R. Glenn Smith, who participated in the committee’s news conference, said he agreed with “about 99 percent” of the findings but suggested that he wanted to take a closer look at the recommendations on jail administration.

Mr. Washington, a lawyer in Houston, said the recommendations should also be broadly applied to other Texas sheriff’s offices. “I think this could be a model to others in law enforcement,” he said.

Continue reading the main storyShare This Page

• Share
• Tweet
• Email
• More

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

__._,_.___

---

Posted by: bonnieweinstein@yahoo.com

---

Reply via web post

•

Reply to sender

•

Reply to group

•

Start a New Topic

•

Messages in this topic (1)

VISIT YOUR GROUP

• Privacy • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use 

.

__,_._,___

__._,_.___

---

Posted by: bonnieweinstein@yahoo.com

---

Reply via web post

•

Reply to sender

•

Reply to group

•

Start a New Topic

•

Messages in this topic (1)

VISIT YOUR GROUP

• Privacy • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use 

.

__,_._,___