Get Malik Out of Ad-Seg Keith "Malik" Washington is an incarcerated activist who has spoken out on conditions of confinement in Texas prison and beyond:  from issues of toxic water and extreme heat, to physical and sexual abuse of imprisoned people, to religious discrimination and more.  Malik has also been a tireless leader in the movement to #EndPrisonSlavery which gained visibility during nationwide prison strikes in 2016 and 2018.  View his work at comrademalik.com or write him at: Keith H. Washington TDC# 1487958 McConnell Unit 3001 S. Emily Drive Beeville, TX 78102 Friends, it's time to get Malik out of solitary confinement. Malik has experienced intense, targeted harassment ever since he dared to start speaking against brutal conditions faced by incarcerated people in Texas and nationwide--but over the past few months, prison officials have stepped up their retaliation even more. In Administrative Segregation (solitary confinement) at McConnell Unit, Malik has experienced frequent humiliating strip searches, medical neglect, mail tampering and censorship, confinement 23 hours a day to a cell that often reached 100+ degrees in the summer, and other daily abuses too numerous to name.  It could not be more clear that they are trying to make an example of him because he is a committed freedom fighter.  So we have to step up. Who to contact: TDCJ Executive Director Bryan Collier Phone: (936)295-6371 Email:  exec.director@tdcj.texas.gov Senior Warden Philip Sinfuentes (McConnell Unit) Phone: (361) 362-2300

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Major George Tillery

MAJOR TILLERY FILES NEW LEGAL PETITION SEX FOR LIES AND MANUFACTURED TESTIMONY

April 25, 2018-- The arrest of two young men in Starbucks for the crime of "sitting while black," and the four years prison sentence to rapper Meek Mill for a minor parole violation are racist outrages in Philadelphia, PA that made national news in the past weeks. Yesterday Meek Mills was released on bail after a high profile defense campaign and a Pa Supreme Court decision citing evidence his conviction was based solely on a cop's false testimony. These events underscore the racism, frame-up, corruption and brutality at the core of the criminal injustice system. Pennsylvania "lifer" Major Tillery's fight for freedom puts a spotlight on the conviction of innocent men with no evidence except the lying testimony of jailhouse snitches who have been coerced and given favors by cops and prosecutors. Sex for Lies and Manufactured Testimony For thirty-five years Major Tillery has fought against his 1983 arrest, then conviction and sentence of life imprisonment without parole for an unsolved 1976 pool hall murder and assault. Major Tillery's defense has always been his innocence. The police and prosecution knew Tillery did not commit these crimes. Jailhouse informant Emanuel Claitt gave lying testimony that Tillery was one of the shooters. In May and June 2016, Emanuel Claitt gave sworn statements that his testimony was a total lie, and that the homicide cops and the prosecutors told him what to say and coached him before trial. Not only was he coerced to lie that Major Tillery was a shooter, but to lie and claim there were no plea deals made in exchange for his testimony. He provided the information about the specific homicide detectives and prosecutors involved in manufacturing his testimony and details about being allowed "sex for lies". In August 2016, Claitt reaffirmed his sworn statements in a videotape, posted on YouTube and on JusticeforMajorTillery.org. Major Tillery has Fought his Conviction and Advocated for Other Prisoners for over 30 Years Major Tillery Needs Your Help: Major Tillery and family HOW YOU CAN HELP Financial Support—Tillery's investigation is ongoing. He badly needs funds to fight for his freedom. Go to JPay.com; code: Major Tillery AM9786 PADOC Tell Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner: The Conviction Review Unit should investigate Major Tillery's case. He is innocent. The only evidence at trial was from lying jail house informants who now admit it was false. Call: 215-686-8000 or Email: justice@phila.gov Write to: Security Processing Center Major Tillery AM 9786 268 Bricker Road Bellefonte, PA 16823 For More Information, Go To: JusticeForMajorTillery.org Call/Write: Kamilah Iddeen (717) 379-9009, Kamilah29@yahoo.com Rachel Wolkenstein (917) 689-4009, RachelWolkenstein@gmail.com Obtain Updates: www.justice4majortillery.info *---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* *---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* On Monday March 4th, 2019 Leonard Peltier was advised that his request for a transfer had been unceremoniously denied by the United States Bureau of Prisons. The International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee appreciates and thanks the large number of his supporters who took the time to write, call, email, or fax the BOP in support of Leonard's request for a transfer. Those of us who have been supporting Leonard's freedom for a number of years are disappointed but resolute to continue pushing for his freedom and until that day, to continue to push for his transfer to be closer to his relatives and the Indigenous Nations who support him. 44 years is too damn long for an innocent man to be locked up. How can his co-defendants be innocent on the grounds of self-defense but Leonard remains in prison? The time is now for all of us to dig deep and do what we can and what we must to secure freedom for Leonard Peltier before it's too late. We need the support of all of you now, more than ever. The ILPDC plans to appeal this denial of his transfer to be closer to his family. We plan to demand he receive appropriate medical care, and to continue to uncover and utilize every legal mechanism to secure his release. To do these things we need money to support the legal work. Please call the ILPDC National office or email us for a copy of the postcard you can send to the White House. We need your help to ask President Trump for Leonard's freedom. DONATE  ©2019 ILPDC | 116 W Osborne Avenue Tampa, FL 33603  Web Version  Preferences  Forward  Unsubscribe   Powered by GoDaddy Email Marketing ® Free Leonard Peltier!

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1) You're in a Police Lineup, Right Now

Face-recognition technology is the new norm. You may think, "I've got nothing to hide," but we all should be concerned.
By Clare Garvie, October 15, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/15/opinion/facial-recognition-police.html


Face recognition technology is being used to unlock phones, clear customs, identify immigrants and solve crimes. In the Video Op-Ed above, Clare Garvie demands the United States government hit pause on face recognition. She argues that while this convenient technology may seem benign to those who feel they have nothing to hide, face recognition is something we should all fear. Police databases now feature the faces of nearly half of Americans — most of whom have no idea their image is there. The invasive technology violates citizens' constitutional rights and is subject to an alarming level of manipulation and bias.

Our privacy, our right to anonymity in public and our right to free speech are in danger. Congress must declare a national moratorium on the use of face-recognition technology until legal restrictions limiting its use and scope can be developed. Without restrictions on face recognition, America's future is closer to a Chinese-style surveillance state than we'd like to think.

[If you're online — and, well, you are — chances are someone is using your information. We'll tell you what you can do about it. Sign up for our limited-run newsletter.]

Clare Garvie (@ClareAngelyn) is a senior associate studying face-recognition technology at the Georgetown Center on Privacy and Technology.

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2) Why Some Young Voters Are Choosing Democratic Socialism Over the Democratic Party

As the presidential debate comes to Ohio, the students in a local chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America are defining their political identity.
By Isabella Grullón Paz, October 15, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/15/us/politics/young-democratic-socialists.html

Daija Kidd, a junior, is co-chair of Ohio State University's chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America.CreditCreditAndrew Spear for The New York Times

COLUMBUS, Ohio — As Tuesday night's Democratic debate approached, members of the Young Democratic Socialists of America chapter at Ohio State University tried to figure out where to focus their energy.

At a meeting on campus last week designed to set their goals for the year, they talked about labor organizing, volunteering for Morgan Harper's congressional campaign and hosting a town hall-style event focused on climate change.

"It's all related, even though they look like separate issues, " said Daija Kidd, an African-American studies and sociology double major and co-chair of the Y.D.S.A. chapter, as she tried to get the other members to think about new campaigns for the year.

"We have these very specific events that we go to, like the climate strike," she said. "But I want to do something that is ongoing, because that is the purpose of democratic socialists. I don't want us to finish doing one big thing and have that be it — I want to keep it chugging along."

The group's effort to take on an aggressive and expansive agenda reflects the enormous energy on the far left heading into the 2020 election, and part of the appeal of democratic socialism in this cycle: setting an array of big goals to help deepen a movement that goes beyond one-off protest events and marches. 

For many young, liberal Americans, democratic socialism is a far better representation of their ambitions of far-reaching structural change across the economy and society than the agenda of the Democratic Party, which they see as overly influenced by corporate interests, big-money donors and moderate traditionalists.

The attempt at Ohio State to define objectives also comes as the Democratic presidential contenders are locked in a battle over what direction the party should take in order to win in 2020. Thatdynamic will be on display Tuesday night less than 15 miles from O.S.U., when the candidates gather for the fourth primary debate at Otterbein University in Westerville.

Two top candidates, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, have successfully pushed the primary conversation to the left. The D.S.A. saw drastic growth in its membership when Mr. Sanders, himself a democratic socialist, ran for president in 2016, and there are now nearly 60,000 members across the country. (Ms. Warren, who has pulled ahead of Mr. Sanders in polling and is a leading candidate for the nomination, backs many of the same progressive priorities as Mr. Sanders, but has also said she is "a capitalist to my bones.")

The national leaders of the Young Democratic Socialists of America have seized on Mr. Sanders's momentum with younger voters to expand their group's membership, too, growing from 25 registered chapters in 2016 to 84 in 2019, according to a Y.D.S.A organizer. Chapters have begun to spring up at high schools, as well. 

The chapter at O.S.U. was small for the past two years, with only 10 or 11 active members. Still, the group managed to create a campus campaign around Fight for $15, an effort to raise the minimum wage of university staff members to $15 an hour. They won that battle in August.

Now, each meeting draws 40 to 50 members, each one with a different reason for joining and something unique to fight for.

For many of them, Mr. Sanders was their introduction to the left. They see the D.S.A. as more than just a vehicle to advance the rights of workers — it is also a home for progressive policies and issues that they don't see being addressed by the major political parties in a way they agree with.

"I don't think they're totally abandoning capitalism per se, but certainly they're more likely to embrace policies tied to what we characterize as socialism," said Melissa Deckman, chair of the political science department at Washington College in Chestertown, Md., who is working on a book about the political engagement of Generation Z. "They're interested in free college tuition or in expanding health care."

As they grew up in the wake of a recession and watched the effects of climate change unfold, the Black Lives Matter movement form and gay marriage be legalized, the students were often just a click away from finding the next progressive policy to support.

Nathan Webster, a second-year electrical engineering major at Ohio State, learned about the Democratic Socialists of America through protests in his hometown, Painesville, Ohio, aimed at abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

"I come from a largely Latino town — some of my friends lost their parents to Border Patrol," Mr. Webster said.

"Near the end of high school, I realized what politics were and where I fall on the political spectrum," he added. "Originally I told myself, 'O.K., I'm a Democrat,' because I didn't know any better. I didn't know that there was something that could be more left."

For Ricky Vehar, an environmental engineering major, coming out as gay and then coming out as trans moved her closer to the Young Democratic Socialists of America.

"From my background, you wouldn't really expect me to become super left. I grew up in a middle-class family, in a good suburb," she said, adding that watching "the discrimination that those communities face not just because they're gay or trans, but because the system incentivizes discrimination against them, moved me toward the left."

James Fisher, a second-year student and a co-chair of the O.S.U. chapter, joined the group for similar reasons: He supports giving trans teenagers and adults better access to health care through Medicare for All.

"Medicare for All can benefit the trans community in their ability to get good health care, and that's something that a lot of trans people struggle with," Mx. Fisher said. "It's embedded in the language of Medicare for All, that there's no exclusionary measures to it."

Others joined the Y.D.S.A. because they saw the benefits of nationalized health care firsthand. During a yearlong program in England, Johnny Amundson got very sick and was hospitalized for a month. His program enrolled him in the National Health Service, and he ended up paying just $200 in medical fees, he said.

"I saw that there's a difference between being able to have insurance, which my family has, and being able to have health care," Mr. Amundson said. He is now a fourth-year journalism and Russian double major at Ohio State, and he was one of the first members of the university's Young Democratic Socialists of America chapter.

Nikki Velamakanni, a political science major, joined Y.D.S.A. when she realized that she didn't want to join the College Democrats chapter on campus because of the stigma around it. 

"It's known to be more centrist, it's known to be more compromise-y," Ms. Velamakanni said. "Whereas the left is more, 'We stand for this and we're going to fight for it.'"

Dr. Deckman attributes the rise of the Y.D.S.A. to the changing perceptions that younger voters and soon-to-be voters have about government and democratic socialism, and the idea that younger people tend to be more liberal with each passing generation.

"They're more willing to have a bigger role for government to play in our lives," she said. "This younger generation is growing up seeing what deregulation is doing to the Earth, is doing to their ability to afford college, among other things. I think that's why they're finding democratic socialist ideas appealing."

Some of their parents were introduced to socialism during the Cold War, giving the word an entirely different meaning.

"Older Americans who lived during the Cold War, they link socialism strongly to communism. So there's this idea that if we raise socialism, our freedoms, especially religion, are going to be compromised," Dr. Deckman said. "And I don't think that sort of baggage matters to younger Americans."

For Evan Schmidt, a second-year economics major, "socialism is a word only. It doesn't necessarily have a direct correlation to any sort of regime or empire, which allows for that reconstruction around it."

He grew up in Manchester, Vt., where the idea of democratic socialism was less taboo thanks to Mr. Sanders. When he moved away, out of what he describes as a "sheltered neighborhood," he had his first experiences with people who grew up with less than he did. 

It ignited his passion for democratizing the workplace and helping others to achieve the same class mobility his family enjoyed. He joined the Young Democratic Socialists of America, he said, because he thinks "it's what the Democratic Party should be."

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3) For 'Erin Brockovich' Fans, a David vs. Goliath Tale With a Twist
By Gary Rivlin, October 14, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/books/review/exposure-dupont-robert-bilott.html

Robert Bilott represented a West Virginia cattle farmer in his long battle against corporate pollution. He writes about the case in "Exposure."CreditCreditTaft Stettinius & Hollister LP

 EXPOSURE
Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer's Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont
By Robert Bilott with Tom Shroder

Robert Bilott never set out to be anyone's hero. He made his living defending chemical companies at an old-line corporate law firm based in Cincinnati when, just a few months shy of making partner, he received a call from a West Virginia farmer who was convinced that the runoff from a nearby DuPont plant was killing his cows. The man had heard Bilott was an environmental lawyer, apparently not understanding that he wasn't the kind of attorney who brought cases on behalf of aggrieved individuals; instead, Bilott defended companies against such complaints. The caller, however, dropped a magic name: that of Bilott's grandmother, a beloved figure in his life. The farmer's case, filed in 1999, and a second, larger class action suit that grew out of it, would dominate the next 20 years of Bilott's life.

Bilott skillfully tells the story of his epic battle with DuPont and its lawyers in "Exposure," which lands in bookstores just ahead of a new movie, "Dark Waters," starring Mark Ruffalo as Bilott and Anne Hathaway as his put-upon wife. The screenplay is based on a 2016 article in The New York Times Magazine ("The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare"), not Bilott's manuscript. But as you read "Exposure," it's easy to imagine scenes in the film version of Bilott's life. You see the time he was unable to reach his office phone because of the small skyscrapers of boxes and documents that blocked his way, and the time he was rushed to the hospital because of the physical toll the case was taking on his life. In a made-for-Hollywood twist, DuPont bests Bilott by exploiting his pre-existing relationship with a DuPont lawyer and then he bests DuPont's attorneys through clever legal maneuvers of his own.

If Bilott makes for an unlikely warrior in the battle for safe drinking water, DuPont plays to type as the faceless behemoth that seems to care more about its bottom line than the health of its employees or the tens of thousands of people who lived near the giant plant it operates outside of Parkersburg, W.Va. Because, of course, it wasn't just the cows that were suffering. Scientists inside the company were concerned enough about a particularly noxious chemical called PFOA — used to manufacture Teflon, among other products — that they began testing DuPont's workers for exposure. But when the results suggested potential health problems, corporate's answer was to stop the testing. The ever-thorough Bilott discovers old laboratory animal studies that DuPont and 3M, which manufactured PFOA, had conducted decades earlier. The results showed dogs and monkeys dying from exposure to PFOA, cancer in rats along with birth defects in its unborn. Yet Bilott found no follow-up investigations. At least within the pages of "Exposure," plausible denial seems to be DuPont's corporate motto. Ultimately, Bilott discovers dangerously high concentrations of PFOA leaching into the surrounding community's drinking water.

Bilott is an engaging narrator who breaks our hearts with tales of clients suffering excruciating ailments and amazes us with endless 14-hour days scouring technical reports in search of that one clue that might help him make his case. The naïve corporate defense attorney we meet at the book's start is gone by the end, and he seems no longer surprised when he realizes that regulators, including the Environmental Protection Agency, are in DuPont's pocket. By the time he learns PFOA and its chemical cousins are in the blood of virtually all of us, he knows it's fallen to him to do the E.P.A.'s job. The book ends with him filing a federal class action suit against eight chemical companies on behalf of every American. His education is complete.

Gary Rivlin is the author of "Katrina: After the Flood."

EXPOSURE
Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer's Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont
By Robert Bilott with Tom Shroder
400 pp. Atria Books. $28.

 

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4) We Need More Government Whistle-Blowers

New York City requires its employees to report corruption. It has worked.

By Margaret Garnett and Preet Bharara, October 17, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/opinion/whistle-blower-trump.html

CreditCreditErin Schaff/The New York Times

Over the past few weeks, the country has been riveted by the news of a whistle-blower within the intelligence community who filed a formal complaint alleging wrongdoing by President Trump. In turn, we have watched the whistle-blower defamed by the president and his allies, even accused of treason, despite meticulously following the lawful process to report possible criminal conduct. This took remarkable courage. There was no legal obligation to report it, and serious risks to career, reputation and even personal safety for doing so. 

We know from the work we did as prosecutors and investigators that whistle-blowers are essential to exposing corruption and holding the corrupt accountable. But with few exceptions, the law imposes no general obligation on citizens to report criminal activity to authorities. A "duty to report" is rare in American law. Mostly you may simply avert your eyes, keep your mouth shut and suffer no consequence. The rare exceptions concern particularly vulnerable populations like children, which is why teachers, doctors and other caregivers have a legal obligation to report credible evidence of child abuse.

As with child abuse, public corruption happens in the shadows and is notoriously difficult to uncover, investigate and prosecute. In our experience, uncovering such behavior and holding public officials accountable depends on fellow public servants blowing the whistle. The broader culture can encourage this. But as we have seen in the past three years, norms and unwritten rules about conduct in public life — even those that once seemed immutable — are only as durable as the people who choose to live, or not live, by them. That's a weak foundation for guarding against breaches of the public trust.

Now consider a system in which there is an obligation to report corruption, to point a finger at waste, fraud and abuse. You don't have to imagine it, because New York City government imposes an uncommon obligation on public servants, requiring them to report wrongdoing or jeopardize their jobs and professional advancement if they do not.

The city has a long and storied history of public corruption scandals. But out of that history grew this unusual and effective rule for combating corruption. An executive order, first issued by Mayor Ed Koch in 1978 and ratified by every mayor since, directs that all New York City employees have an obligation to report to the city's independent Department of Investigation any instance of corruption, waste, fraud or abuse by public officials or city contractors. Failure to report can be cause for discipline or termination. The law arose after scandals within city government went unchecked, despite city employees' having knowledge of the corruption that fueled them. All city employees now receive regular anti-corruption training from the D.O.I., which underscores the obligation to report wrongdoing as well as the legal protections they have when they do report.

New York City is far from perfect, but this distinctive rule has borne extraordinary fruit. Many of the most significant criminal cases that the D.O.I. has investigated began with, or were greatly enhanced by, information reported by city employees or contractors — including cases prosecuted by the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York during our time there. These include the CityTime scandal, in which executives at Science Applications International Corporation bilked New York City out of half a billion dollars, and the sweeping investigation into day care providers known as Operation Pay Care, which exposed a million-dollar fraud and resulted in the convictions of 15 people, including seven city employees. New York City's duty to report has helped law enforcement expose corrupt public officials and those who seek to corrupt them.

A duty to report may at first seem to only add to the dilemma facing a would-be whistle-blower, but that duty, combined with protections for those who act on it, creates a kind of virtuous cycle. A statutory duty normalizes the reporting of wrongdoing and lessens the stigma of doing so. Rules can operate to shape culture, not just punish, and a culture in which the rules are well known supports their efficacy and makes compliance easier. It would be ideal if all government employees had the courage to voluntarily report wrongdoing. And an ethical culture can certainly help make such reporting more likely. But New York City's experience shows that we need not rely solely on personal bravery, or on changing people's hearts, to have effective systems that can alert us to public corruption and fraud.

Just in the past month, the D.O.I. began two criminal investigations based on calls from city employees who were each offered a bribe. One of the calls emphasized the power behind the mandatory reporting rule. In making the report, the employee noted that he thought the bribe offer might be an "integrity test" by his employer, and he knew that if it was, it would not be enough to save his job to simply decline the bribe, as he did, but that to pass the test, he was also required to notify D.O.I. of the attempted bribe. One might hope that all public employees would be offended by the offer of a bribe and would report such conduct. But moral impulses are not always enough to combat corruption, and the calculus becomes markedly harder when the wrongdoing is not as stark as a bribe and the wrongdoer is not a stranger but a trusted colleague or an influential supervisor or a powerful elected official.

Insiders willing to report wrongdoing are vital to the fight against public corruption. It takes fortitude to come forward, even when you are required to do so. Those of us who believe in the promise and ideal of honest self-government have an obligation to support a process for whistle-blowers that helps diminish the amount of bravery and self-sacrifice required. The lesson of New York City's experience is that mandated reporting can work. It has contributed tremendously to changing the culture on child abuse, and in New York City it has exposed public corruption while making investigating and prosecuting it easier. Whatever the outcome of the current impeachment inquiry, it should begin a conversation about how to encourage government whistle-blowers to come forward, just as the aftermath of the Watergate scandal was the impetus for institutional reforms and safeguards. A duty to report deserves a place in that conversation.

My NYT Comment:

This article makes no mention of Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden—all three criminalized for exposing illegal and criminal practices by the U.S. Government. We don't need laws to demand whistleblowing. We need laws to protect whistleblowers when they disclose the truth.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/opinion/whistle-blower-trump.html#commentsContainer&permid=103148454:103148454

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5) Chicago Teachers' Strike: Citywide Scramble as Classes Come to Halt

A walkout in the nation's third-largest school district canceled instruction across Chicago. It was uncertain how long the strike might last.

By Mitch Smith and Monica Davey, October 17, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/us/chicago-schools-strike.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=US%20News

Students and teachers on the picket line outside Maria Saucedo Scholastic Academy in Chicago on Thursday.CreditCreditJoshua Lott for The New York Times

CHICAGO — Tens of thousands of public school teachers took to picket lines on Thursday morning as a strike in the nation's third-largest school district canceled classes across the city, sent parents racing to find child care and left Chicago's new mayor, Lori Lightfoot, grappling with her most significant crisis to date. 

City officials said schools remained open to students, who would be fed three meals and were being supervised by nonunion workers like principals. But some parents were skeptical of that option, signing up for last-minute camps at community centers and local parks. Others said they were staying home from work or hiring babysitters. School bus service was suspended. 

Outside schools across the city, clusters of teachers and supporters — many of them dressed in red — held signs and handed out apple cider and coffee, waving to passing cars and answering questions for parents who walked up. 

"We want to be in our classrooms with our babies, but we need to get them the class sizes and counselors and support that they need," said Shemeka Elam, a third-grade teacher who stood outside Anna R. Langford Community Academy on the city's South Side. Many passing cars honked in support as they passed Ms. Elam and other teachers beside the school.

The standoff between city officials and more than 20,000 Chicago teachers and thousands more school support workers had been brewing for months, but many residents had believed a strike would be averted. Now, with one landing weeks into the school year, they were worried about what it might mean for their families — for college applications, for sports seasons, for daily routines.

On the city's Far North Side, Eric Ndedi, the father of two boys — age 14 and 9 — said he had kept his children home with their mother even though school buildings were open. 

"It's more safe than going when there is no teacher," said Mr. Ndedi, 42, a ride-hailing driver who said he had been accustomed to teacher strikes while growing up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but had not previously experienced one in the United States. "It's better to stay at home."

Mr. Ndedi, who moved to Chicago three years ago, said he did not know enough to say who was to blame for the strike, but that "it's totally not good." He said he expected his sons to spend the day watching television, and hoped they would be back in class on Friday.

It was uncertain how long the walkout would last. Jesse Sharkey, the president of the Chicago Teachers Union, has said that he hoped for a short strike and saw a path for an agreement, but that next steps were up to Ms. Lightfoot.

Outside Peirce International Studies School on the North Side on Thursday morning, Mr. Sharkey said, "It's up to the mayor to get a fast contract settlement, she has the power to do that. But we are going to hold fast to a just contract settlement."

The strike in Chicago follows a wave of teacher protests and work stoppages nationwide, including in conservative states like West Virginia and Oklahoma, as well as in large, liberal cities including Los Angeles and Denver. 

Across the country, teacher unions have demanded bigger budgets not just for salaries, but also for classroom supplies, smaller class sizes and additional support personnel, such as nurses and guidance counselors — the issues at the heart of the current conflict in Chicago. Along the protest lines on Thursday, teachers stressed that their biggest complaints were not about their own salaries, but concerns about equity for all of the city's public school students, including those on the West and South Sides, parts of the city that have often been overlooked and where schools have been closed in recent years.

Ms. Lightfoot said that there had been progress in recent days in negotiations on the issues of staffing and class size, but that other topics kept the two sides apart.

"They gave us a number of issues in the last 24 hours that we could not bridge those divides — and some of which, we're just not going to be able to get there," said Ms. Lightfoot, who took office this year after an overwhelming electoral victory and pledged to improve life in neighborhoods on the city's South and West Sides. About 47 percent of the Chicago public school system's students are Hispanic, 37 percent are African-American and 10 percent are white. Some 76 percent are economically disadvantaged. 

Ms. Lightfoot, who said she would be going door to door on Thursday in parts of the city to check on students, said, "this work stoppage will put a significant strain on working families."

The strike is the first for Chicago's school system since 2012, when teachers walked out for seven days.

The city said it had offered teachers a 16 percent raise over five years, while union leaders called for increases of 15 percent over a shorter three-year term. But union leaders also wanted written into their contracts the promise of smaller classes, more paid time to prepare lessons and the hiring of more school nurses, social workers, librarians and counselors. Other demands include affordable housing provisions and protections for immigrant students.

Mental health supports are crucial in a city where some public students are traumatized by exposure to gun violence, said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the Chicago teachers' parent union.

She accused Ms. Lightfoot of "dangling money" in front of teachers for salaries instead of supporting broader investments in schools.

"Why do we have to make an argument for a nurse in school every day?" Ms. Weingarten asked before the strike. She said she believed most of the money the union was asking for could be available without new taxes.

Kerry Kasper contributed reporting from Chicago, and Dana Goldstein from New York.

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6) No Address, No Next of Kin: Homeless in Life, Anonymous in Death

It took days to identify a homeless man killed in Chinatown. The name of a man who died in a manhole remains a mystery.
By Edgar Sandoval, Nikita Stewart and Ashley Southall, October 18, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/18/nyregion/homeless-murders-deaths.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage

Calla Kessler/The New York Times

One man was beaten with a metal bar as he slept on a sidewalk in Chinatown, his face mangled beyond recognition in one of the most brutal quadruple murders in the city’s recent memory.

The other stumbled and fell into a manhole in Midtown Manhattanin the middle of the night, an accident that somehow escaped the notice of nearby workers, who later unknowingly sealed him in. He was not discovered until two weeks later.

Days passed in each case without the police or the medical examiner identifying the bodies. In the middle of a teeming metropolis, the two men seemed to be living off the grid and alienated from loved ones. 

No frantic co-workers or family members contacted the police to say someone they knew was missing.

Their unsettling deaths revealed the anonymity that shrouds the homeless and others living marginal lives in New York City.

The street can swallow people whole until they blend into their surroundings, ignored or tolerated by passers-by. Many do not carry a driver’s license or other identification and avoid giving their names to social workers or the police, out of fear or shame, advocates for the homeless said. 

“There’s people in the street that don’t care, because no one cares about them,” said Eddie Ramos, 56, a homeless man whose job is to reach out to his peers who need help with alcohol and drug abuse. 

By Thursday morning, investigators confirmed a name of the man beaten to death in Chinatown two weeks ago: He was Florencio Moran, 39. 

The medical examiner and the police said they still had not officially determined the identity of the man who was discovered on Monday in the manhole near Columbus Circle. 

The delay in identifying the men highlights the immense difficulties the police face when investigating deaths among the estimated 3,600 people living on the streets in New York City.

Investigators said they had little information about Mr. Moran, beyond records of arrests for criminal weapons possession and public drinking. Detectives have been unable to locate anyone in his family or to determine where he was from, the police said.

Mr. Moran was one of four men clubbed to death as they slept on the sidewalks around Chatham Square on Oct. 5. The police have charged another homeless man, Randy Rodriguez Santos, 24, with the murders. 

Identifying the victims proved a challenge, the police and medical examiners said, not just because of their facial injuries, but because they had not been in touch with their families. 

It is not uncommon for the police to have trouble discovering the identity of a homeless murder victim because homeless people are often reluctant to share their names with others on the street or the authorities.

Outreach workers said they can spend weeks, even months, trying to convince someone to give a full name.

For many people living unsheltered, a name may be one of the few possessions they have left, and they guard it the way other people shield social security numbers or A.T.M. codes, advocates for the homeless said.

“Some give me their nickname,” Mr. Ramos said. 

The city’s Medical Examiner’s office said out of a “large volume of cases” an average of 15 people a year go unidentified per year.

In the end, the police said, it was Mr. Moran’s arrests that left a trail for investigators: his fingerprints were on file. 

In April 2013, two days after his 33rd birthday, he was arrested on charges of drinking in public while aboard a train. 

“I was only drinking a little bit,” he told the police at a subway station in Queens. The case was dismissed, as was a weapons charge from August 2012. Another case for criminal possession of a weapon was sealed.

He once listed his address as a residence on Northern Boulevard in Queens that is the site of an employment office of Goodwill Industries of New York and Northern Jersey. The office offers help with résumés and job coaching to people with developmental disabilities. But there are other commercial tenants in the same building.

The Police Department declined to give details about the steps detectives took to identify Mr. Moran’s family members and the man found in the manhole.

Joseph Giacalone, a retired detective sergeant who now teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said investigators generally rely on a number of methods to connect a person’s living history with a lifeless body.

“The path of least resistance is to go and see if the person has a wallet on them,” he said. A driver’s license or medical insurance card often leads to family members, he said. 

“We still need a family member to identify the body,” he said.

But this simple process becomes more challenging when a person had been living on the street, and it becomes doubly hard when the body is in a state of decomposition, he said.

The next logical step is to trace a person’s history through fingerprints, but that is hit and miss, he said. 

Investigators also often canvass neighborhoods with photographs and sketches of the deceased to try to find anyone that knew them, he said.

“They hang them in shelters and show them to people on the street, to anyone who might be able to tell us who the person is,” he said.

Investigators and medical examiners also turn to DNA samples from a hair brush or a undergarment and try to match them to DNA samples submitted by family members looking for a missing relative, he said.

Sometimes, they never get an answer. There are more than a million people buried in the city’s potter’s field on Hart Island, many of them unidentified.

“If the family isn’t looking for them, thousands of people are buried in potter’s field,” Mr. Giacalone said. “But we never stop trying to find out who they are.”

Susan Beachy contributed research.

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7) Hong Kong Court Rules Against Same-Sex Unions

The decision is a setback to efforts to expand recognition of such partnerships in Asia, after Taiwan’s recognition of gay marriage stirred hopes among many.
By Tiffany May and Gerry Mullany, October 18, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/18/world/asia/hong-kong-same-sex-unions.html

A gay pride parade in Hong Kong in 2017.CreditCreditVicent Yu/Associated Press

HONG KONG — A Hong Kong court ruled Friday against allowing same-sex unions in the city, a setback for efforts to broaden recognition of such partnerships in Asia.

The decision by Hong Kong’s Court of First Instance upheld a government policy prohibiting such unions. It came five months after Taiwan’s government became the first in Asia to legalize same-sex marriages, stirring hope among many that other places in the region would follow suit.

In the ruling Friday, Judge Anderson Chow wrote that “updating” the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples would lead to “far-reaching consequences” that the court was not prepared to accept.

He said it was “beyond the proper scope of the functions or powers of the court, in the name of interpretation, to seek to effect a change of social policy on such a fundamental issue.”

The judicial review followed a petition filed in June 2018 by a woman, referred to as MK in court documents, who wanted to marry or enter into a legally recognized civil partnership with her partner in Hong Kong, where both were permanent residents. She argued that the government’s denial of same-sex marriage and civil unions was unconstitutional. 

“MK’s decision to challenge this discrimination in court was an opportunity for Hong Kong to break away from the injustices of the past and start shaping a more fair and equal society,” Man-kei Tam, the director of Amnesty International Hong Kong, said Friday in a statement. “Sadly, the discriminatory treatment of same-sex couples will continue for the time being.”

A local push for recognition of same-sex unions had gained momentum after two smaller court victories. Hong Kong’s top court ruled in July 2018 that foreign same-sex couples living in the city who had legally gotten married elsewhere were entitled to spousal visas. 

Then, in June, it ruled that a gay civil servant and his husband were entitled to spousal benefits and a joint tax return. Advocates celebrated that decision as a small but important win for gay rights, even though the court had explicitly said that the decision was unrelated to the question of whether same-sex couples had the right to marry in Hong Kong.

A 2017 poll conducted by the University of Hong Kong found that more than half of residents surveyed supported same-sex marriage, compared with 38 percent in 2013.

Ray Chan, an openly gay Hong Kong lawmaker, criticized the Friday ruling on Twitter. He said that “certain rights and benefits are accorded to couples who were married or entered into a civil union overseas, but it is impossible for eligible couples to perform a marriage or enter into a civil union in Hong Kong. This is a fundamental flaw.”

Ezra Cheung contributed reporting.

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8) Bronx Shooting: Officer Kills Man in 2nd Deadly Police Encounter in 3 Days

The shooting occurred during a traffic stop near Woodlawn Cemetery, the police said.
By Ed Shanahan and Edgar Sandoval, October 17, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/nyregion/police-bronx-shooting.html

Investigators at the shooting site, near the intersection of Bainbridge Avenue and East 211th Street.CreditCreditGregg Vigliotti for The New York Times

A police sergeant fatally shot a man during a traffic stop in the Bronx on Thursday, officials said, the second deadly shooting by the New York police this week and the third time in three days that an officer fired at a suspect. 

The shooting happened about 3 p.m. near Woodlawn Cemetery after the sergeant and two officers in a marked car pulled over an S.U.V. because the driver was not wearing a seatbelt, the police said. 

The officers determined that the driver, whose name was not released, had three outstanding warrants for failing to pay fines for violations, including one for littering, the police said.

The officers told the driver they were arresting him as a result of the warrants, and he got out of the S.U.V., the police said.

Once out of the vehicle, though, the driver began to physically resist and then got back behind the wheel, officials said. The officers were on the driver’s side of the car, and the sergeant was on the passenger’s side, the police said. 

With both of the S.U.V.’s front doors open, the driver “initiated a violent struggle,” Terence A. Monahan, the chief of department, said at a news conference near the site of the shooting.

At that point, Chief Monahan said, the sergeant fired a stun gun at the driver, but the confrontation continued. As it did, the driver shifted into drive and then reverse “with the sergeant inside the vehicle at all times,” Chief Monahan said.

“When the car was put into reverse, the officer on the driver’s side had to release his grip” on the driver “and jump out of the way to avoid being hit by the car,” Chief Monahan said. The police had initially said one of the officers was dragged by the car.

When the car continued to move, the sergeant shot the driver once in the chest, killing him, the police said. The struggle lasted about a minute and a half, Chief Monahan said. 

A bystander’s video posted online by News 12 Bronx captures a sequence of events roughly in line with Chief Monahan’s description. Two officers — a man and woman — are seen on the driver’s side of a silver S.U.V., tussling with the driver. The car moves forward and then reverses.

The male officer jumps out of the way to avoid being hit by the open door, which slams shut. Then a shot rings out. Seconds later the male officer hauls a bleeding man from the driver’s seat onto the pavement and handcuffs him behind his back and then begins lifesaving measures.

The officers, sergeant and a passenger in the car were not hurt, the police said. A large quantity of drugs, including cocaine, heroin and Ecstasy, were found in the S.U.V., the police said. 

On Tuesday, anti-crime officers in Brooklyn fatally shot a man after encountering him firing at a second man. Several hours later, officers in the Bronx shot an armed man at the 225th Street subway station, hitting him once in the arm.

Last month, officers in the Bronx fatally shot another man in an episode that also involved the deadly “friendly fire” death of one of their colleagues, Officer Brian Mulkeen.

Ali Watkins contributed reporting.

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9) Union Says G.M. Strike Won’t End Until Workers Vote on Deal
By Neal E. Boudette, October 17, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/business/gm-uaw.html

Union workers from the idled General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio, traveled to Detroit to voice opposition to a tentative contract agreement. They insisted that the Lordstown plant be put back into production.CreditCreditBrittany Greeson for The New York Times

DETROIT — The longest strike against General Motors in half a century isn’t over yet.

Leaders of union locals voted Thursday to approve a tentative contract agreement with the automaker, but said the strike — already a month old — would continue until workers voted to ratify the deal.

After meeting for more than five hours in Detroit, the group said voting by the 49,000 members of the United Automobile Workers at G.M. plants would begin on Saturday and be completed within a week.

The union leadership did not comment after the meeting, which brought together nearly 200 U.A.W. representatives, and it was not clear whether there had been dissension in the room. But it will now be up to those representatives to sell the agreement to members.

According to a summary posted online by the union, the four-year deal includes wage increases, and a formula for allowing temporary workers to become full-time employees. It also provides for workers to reach the same top wage regardless of when they were hired, overhauling a dual-scale system that has produced wide pay disparities.

But the union appeared to fall short of its objectives for reopening plants and bringing jobs back to the United States from Mexico.

The tentative agreement would keep production going at the Detroit-Hamtramck plant, a factory for Chevrolets and Cadillacs that G.M. had said it would close. But the deal does not reverse plans for three plants that have been idled, including one in Lordstown, Ohio, though it provides retirement incentives for displaced workers.

Brian Rothenberg, the union’s spokesman, said after Thursday’s meeting that the U.A.W.’s negotiating team “did everything they could” to save jobs.

“This was a strike not just by U.A.W. workers,” he said. “It became a strike for American workers and the middle class.” Workers walked off the job, he added, to secure fair wages and “a fair share of the profits.”

The company’s profits — and its implicit ability to share more of them with workers — were a continuing refrain for the union in the long negotiations with G.M., which started in July. In the last three years, the automaker has reported earnings of $35 billion in North America.

The contract negotiations grew tense at times. The union accused G.M. of not negotiating fairly and assailed the company for seeking to cut off workers’ health insurance during the strike, a move it ultimately did not make.

When the talks appeared to be at a stalemate last week, the chief executive, Mary T. Barra, met with the union’s top negotiators to get discussions back on track.

Remaining on strike is likely to be seen as a move by the union leadership to take a hard line with the company, a position that could rally support among the rank and file. In the last contract negotiations, in 2015, some workers complained that the union didn’t fight hard enough and gave in to too many management demands.

In announcing the accord on Wednesday, the U.A.W. said it had “achieved major wins.” But ratification is not a foregone conclusion. In the union’s last negotiations with G.M., in 2015, approval of a tentative agreement was delayed for a month and the terms had to be reworked.

A rejection of the proposed contract would be a rebuke to the U.A.W. president, Gary Jones, and his negotiating team.

“If the rank and file vote down an agreement their leaders send them, they also are voting down the leaders,” said Erik Gordon, a business professor at the University of Michigan who follows the auto industry. “Workers may ask whether it was worth being out of work a month to get a deal that could be close to what they would have gotten with no strike and no loss of pay.”

G.M. issued a statement urging the union “to move as quickly as possible through the ratification process, so we can resume operations.”

But for at least another week, the walkout will continue to take a financial toll on the company, its workers and its suppliers. Analysts estimate that the strike has cost G.M. $2 billion in operating profit. Workers are getting by on strike pay of $275 a week.

If the contract is ratified, each full-fledged U.A.W. worker will receive a signing bonus of $11,000, a 3 percent wage increase in the second and fourth years of the contract, and a 4 percent lump sum in the first and third years. Temporary workers would get a signing bonus of $4,500, the same wage increases as full-time workers and the possibility of becoming permanent employees within three years.

A notable provision would allow workers hired since 2007 to reach a top wage of $32 an hour after four years of service, the same maximum as more senior workers. The change would essentially eliminate the two-tier wage system, which the union says is a source of workplace tension.

Since 2007, new hires have started at about $17 an hour and moved to a top wage of $29 over eight years. Workers hired before 2007 earned the top wage of $31 an hour. That left some workers earning far less than more senior colleagues doing similar work.

The two-tier system was introduced when G.M., Ford Motor and Chrysler were struggling and needed to lower labor costs to compete with the nonunion, foreign-owned auto plants that had sprung up across Southern states.

The tentative G.M. deal would also eliminate a $12,000 cap on annual profit-sharing payouts, which could have a significant upside if G.M. continues its recent earnings performance.

Health care benefits are unchanged, with workers paying about 3 percent of the cost.

There were signs of dissent Thursday from union members outside the Renaissance Center office complex, where G.M. has its headquarters and where the union meeting took place. As the union officials arrived, they were greeted by about 30 workers from the Lordstown plant in red T-shirts shouting, “Vote no!”

“It’s no deal for us,” said one of the protesters, Todd Piroch, a Lordstown worker who has been transferred to a plant in Bowling Green, Ky., that assembles Chevrolet’s Corvette sports car. He said he was going to vote against the contract, but said he wasn’t sure workers elsewhere would do so.

“We’re just angry,” he said.

G.M. has promised to invest $7.7 billion in its manufacturing operations in the United States over the next four years, and a further $1.3 billion in ventures with partners, saying those moves would create or preserve 9,000 jobs. But the deal includes no specific promises to expand domestic production or to move manufacturing to the United States from Mexico, both of which were goals of the union going into the negotiations.

Mr. Rothenberg, the union spokesman, said the U.A.W. would make the details of G.M.’s investment plans public soon. In previous years, the union has presented a breakdown of plant-by-plant investments.

One of the union’s main objectives was getting G.M. to reopen the car factory in Lordstown, a goal that President Trump endorsed. But there is no indication that the matter was ever on the table in the contract talks. G.M. stopped production at that plant, and others in Baltimore and in Warren, Mich., as part of a cost-cutting effort that eliminated 2,800 factory jobs and thousands of white-collar positions.

In a statement on Thursday, General Motors said it was looking into building a battery factory near Lordstown that would employ about 1,000 workers. The plant would be built with a partner and unionized, but under a separate contract.

An electric-truck company that hopes to buy the Lordstown plant from G.M. would employ about 400 production workers, the automaker said.

The company has not indicated that displaced workers from its Lordstown plant would be given preference in hiring at either operation.

G.M. reaffirmed a plan announced in May to invest $700 million in three existing plants in Ohio — in Parma, Toledo and the Dayton area — with an expected net gain of 450 jobs.

“G.M. is committed to future investment and job growth in Ohio,” the company said.

If the G.M. contract is ratified, the U.A.W. will turn its focus to Ford Motor or Fiat Chrysler. Contracts with those manufacturers expired on Sept. 14, but workers continued reporting to assembly lines while the union negotiated with G.M.

David Yaffe-Bellany contributed reporting from New York.

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