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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10) Anti-Brexit Protesters Descend on London as Parliament Debates

The rally’s organizers said they hoped more than a million people would join a demonstration rejecting Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s withdrawal deal.
By Marc Santora and Anne Schaverien, October 19, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/19/world/europe/brexit-peoples-vote-march.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

“We are now reaching a crucial moment in the Brexit crisis,” said the organizers of the London rally on Saturday.CreditKirsty Wigglesworth/Associated Press

LONDON — As lawmakers huddled inside the House of Commons on Saturday to debate Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal, hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered outside the Palace of Westminster to demand that voters be given the final say on Brexit.

Organizers said they hoped to draw more than a million protesters, which would make it one of the largest demonstrations in British history. 

The stated desire of the marchers was to call for a second referendum on any Brexit deal that lawmakers approve, but most had a more basic goal.

“No Brexit” was the chant that echoed through the stately streets and grand avenues of the city on a crisp and sunny autumn afternoon.

“This is a last-ditch attempt to get them to hear our voices,” said Ollie Lloyd, 42, who was among those protesting. The debate taking place in Parliament, he said, was about more than trade deals and plain economics.

“This is about what kind of country we want to be,” he said: “Do we want to be an open and tolerant country,” or one that is closed off and inward looking?

His father, Gil Lloyd, 68, was handing out anti-Brexit stickers at the march. 

Wearing a European Union sweatshirt and wristbands, and a button depicting a man meant to represent Britain shooting himself in the foot, he said it was important to participate in the demonstration even if he was not hopeful that a second referendum would take place. 

“I am just horrified at the whole thing,” he said.

Those mixed emotions seemed to capture the spirit of the day — a combination of defiance, determination, exhaustion and resignation.

Yet the mood was largely festive as the march made its way from the triumphal Marble Arch near Hyde Park, through Trafalgar Square, past the many monuments to past days of imperial power, and on to Parliament.

While protesters cheered and jeered outside the building, inside Mr. Johnson was making the case to Parliament that it was time for lawmakers to pass “a deal that can heal the rift in British politics” and “unite the warring instincts in our soul.”

He called the deal “the greatest single restoration of national sovereignty in parliamentary history.”

t was the first time the House of Commons had been called into session on a Saturday in nearly four decades, when lawmakers gathered to discuss the war in the Falkland Islands.

In a referendum three years ago, British voters narrowly supported leaving the European Union, which it had joined in 1973.

Since then, the divisions in the country have grown along with feelings of frustration, confusion, sadness and despair.

And growing public anger.

“The whole thing was sold on a lot of lies,” said Dorothy Milosevic, 63. “Since that morning when we woke up to find that the leavers had won, it is has been gloom and despondency.”

“It is important that our voice is heard,” she added. She had traveled from Oxford with her daughter, Angahard Holloway, 34, and her granddaughter, Eleanor, 12.

Those who would be most affected by Brexit, she said, were the young people. “They simply won’t have the same opportunities I was afforded,” she said.

Outside Parliament, three 16-year-old friends who attend school together said they felt it was important to take part in the march even though they were still two years away from voting age.

“We came here today because we want to let our voices be heard,” said one of the teenagers, Anoushka Nairac, a student at Magdalen College. “We have not been able to do it any other way.”

As for many others, the issues surrounding the Brexit debate are deeply personal.

“My father is an immigrant who set up his own company and provided jobs for citizens,” she said. “It makes me annoyed; people are not looking at the facts.” 

Even before Saturday, the anger over Brexit had led to some of the largest protests in British history.

The first People’s Vote March, which drew hundreds of thousands people, was held a year ago on the eve of a vote on an agreement put forth by Theresa May, who was then prime minister.

Mrs. May tried to persuade Parliament to pass her deal three times, and three times failed. Supporters of a people’s vote had hoped that the chaos would help build support for their cause.

But after her resignation, Mr. Johnson, a champion of Brexit, won the Conservative Party’s backing to take up residence at 10 Downing Street and set about pushing for a swift exit, deal or no deal.

He has steadfastly opposed the idea of another vote, saying that the people have already had their say.

Those who took to the streets on Saturday called that argument flawed 

They say that voters were misled before the referendum and that they should be given a chance to vote on a specific Brexit deal — with the benefit of being informed by years of debate and discussion — rather than the abstract notion of a withdrawal.

The protesters were joined by celebrities, opposition politicians and the former prime ministers Tony Blair, of the Labour Party, and John Major, a Conservative, who united to make a short film that was to be screened at the rally warning about the dangers Brexit posed to Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom.

The organizers of the march, reacting to criticism that their movement was mainly backed by people in wealthy areas, sought to build support outside London and have staged rallies around Britain, including in Glasgow and Edinburgh in Scotland; in Belfast, Northern Ireland; and in Cheltenham, in southern England

On Saturday, more than 170 buses had been arranged to bring protesters from around the country into London.

“We are now reaching a crucial moment in the Brexit crisis,” the organizers of the march said in a statement. “The Government has adopted the slogan ‘Get Brexit Done’ to try and browbeat an exhausted public into accepting whatever botched Brexit Boris Johnson presents to them but we know this slogan is a lie.”

Greg Brown, 41, an engineer from Middlesbrough, said he had made the trek from the northeast of England to show that even in Brexit strongholds like where he lives, opinion is divided.

“I am embarrassed to say that there was a big Leave vote in the north east,” he said. “Europe stands for peace, for multilateral negotiations, workers rights, paternity rights, jobs and free trade.”

“In the three years since the vote,” he said, “I have not yet heard a decent reason for voting Leave, and here we are standing on a cliff edge.”

Since lawmakers decided to delay the vote, it seems Mr. Brown, along with millions of others, will have to remain on the cliff’s edge a while longer.

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11) What Is Brexit? A Simple Guide to Why It Matters and What Happens Next

By Benjamin Mueller, October 17, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/world/europe/what-is-brexit.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Britain has been haggling over the nation’s withdrawal from the European Union, the process known as Brexit, since the referendum in 2016. The badly divided government has been in crisis, unable to agree on an approach to perhaps the country’s biggest peacetime decision in decades. The deadline for leaving the bloc is fast approaching.

The struggle has already cost one prime minister, Theresa May, her job; she announced on May 24 that she would resign after failing to come up with a plan that satisfied her party, her coalition partners and officials in Brussels, the seat of the European Union.

The task then fell to her successor, Boris Johnson. The Conservative Party chose Mr. Johnson, a brash proponent of withdrawal, to succeed Mrs. May and take control of the Brexit process.

It has not gone well.

Many lawmakers were outraged over Mr. Johnson’s insistence that if need be, he would pull Britain from the European Union even without a formal agreement — a move many warn could mean major economic damage. When he maneuvered to cut out the lawmakers by suspending Parliament weeks before the deadline for withdrawal, Britain’s Supreme Court ruled that he had acted unlawfully and that Parliament must be allowed to resume as normal.

The deadline for withdrawal is currently Oct. 31. On Oct. 17, Mr. Johnson and E.U. negotiators announced that they had struck a draft deal, which still needed to clear several hurdles, including passage in the British and E.U. parliaments.

What ultimately emerges could determine the shape of Britain and its place in the world for decades. What follows is a basic guide to Brexit, what it is, how it developed into the mess it is today and how it could ultimately be resolved.

What is Brexit?

A portmanteau of the words “Britain” and “exit,” Brexit is shorthand for Britain’s split from the European Union, changing its relationship to the bloc on trade, security and migration.

Britain has been debating the pros and cons of membership in a European community of nations almost from the moment the idea was broached. It held its first referendum on membership in what was then called the European Economic Community in 1975, less than three years after it joined, when 67 percent of voters supported staying in the bloc.

In 2013, Prime Minister David Cameron promised a national referendum on European Union membership with the idea of settling the question once and for all. The options it offered were broad and vague — Remain or Leave — and Mr. Cameron was convinced that Remain would win handily.

Britons voted on June 23, 2016, as a refugee crisis made migration a subject of political rage across Europe and amid accusations that the Leave campaign had relied on lies and broken election laws. An ill-defined Brexit won 52 percent of the vote.

Not only did that not settle the debate, but it also saved for another day the tangled question of what should come next. After more than three years of debate and negotiation, that remains unanswered.

How did the referendum vote break down?

Most voters in England and Wales supported Brexit, particularly in rural areas and smaller cities. That overcame majority support for remaining in the European Union among voters in London, Scotland and Northern Ireland. See a detailed map of the vote.

Young people overwhelmingly voted against leaving, while older voters supported it.

Why is it such a big deal?

Europe is Britain’s most important export market and its biggest source of foreign investment, and membership in the bloc has helped London cement its position as a global financial center. An announcement, or at least a threat, from a major business to leave Britain because of Brexit is a regular occurrence. The list of companies that are thinking about relocating includes Airbus, which employs 14,000 people and supports more than 100,000 other jobs.

The government has projected that in 15 years, the country’s economy will be 4 percent to 9 percent smaller under Brexit than it would inside the bloc, depending on how it leaves.

Mrs. May had promised that Brexit would end free movement, the right of people from elsewhere in Europe to live and work in Britain, and vice versa. That was a triumph for some working-class people who see immigration as a threat to their jobs, but dispiriting for young Britons hoping to study or work abroad.

On Oct. 17, Britain and the European Union announced that they had struck an agreement on a draft deal. The draft has to be approved by the E.U. leaders, and most crucially, the British Parliament.

What’s holding it up?

Undoing 46 years of economic integration in one stroke was never going to be easy, and the Brexit process has been bedeviled by the same divisions that led to the referendum in the first place. Both Britain’s main parties, the governing Conservatives and the Labour opposition, are divided over what to do, leaving Parliament so factionalized that there may be no coherent plan that would get a majority.

After the announcement on Oct. 17 of a draft deal, the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland said that they could not support the proposal because of the tax arrangements involved. The Conservative Party has relied on the D.U.P. to remain in government since it lost its majority in the 2017 election, and their support for a Brexit deal is thought to be crucial for Mr. Johnson to get his deal through Parliament.

Britain’s opposition Labour Party slammed the proposed deal and said it wanted to put the agreement to a public vote, giving Britons a chance to support either leaving the European Union on Mr. Johnson’s terms or reversing Brexit altogether. It was their strongest endorsement of a second referendum.

We keep hearing about the Irish border. What’s that about?

The single greatest hangup is the question of Britain’s only land border with the European Union — the invisible line between Ireland, another member state of the bloc, and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom.

Mrs. May and her Irish counterpart, Leo Varadkar, want to prevent checkpoints from going up at the border; such barriers are generally seen as incompatible with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which brought respite from decades of violence in Northern Ireland.

But the method she agreed for guaranteeing that — called “the backstop” — has alienated much of Parliament.

The backstop would keep the United Kingdom in a trading relationship with Europe until a final deal to avoid a hard border could be agreed on, something that hard-line Brexiteers fear would never happen.

And it would bind Northern Ireland to even more European rules, to the dismay of those who reject any regulatory differences between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. Most notably, that includes the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, whose 10 lawmakers give Mrs. May her parliamentary majority.

Mr. Johnson has promised to negotiate a new deal without the backstop arrangement, which he says would leave Britain in an “absolutely unacceptable” situation.

D.U.P. lawmakers have long sought a veto on post-Brexit trading rules, seeing that provision as the only way to ensure that the territory does not diverge from the rest of the United Kingdom — but Mr. Johnson’s proposal with the E.U. does not provide one.

How did we end up with an Oct. 31 deadline?

Just about the only clear decision Parliament has made on Brexit since the 2016 referendum was to give formal notice in 2017 to quit, under Article 50 of the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty, a legal process setting it on a two-year path to departure. That set March 29, 2019, as the formal divorce date.

When it became clear that Parliament would not accept Mrs. May’s deal by then, the European Union pushed the precipice back to April 12, to allow her to try again. The timing was dictated by the coming European Parliament elections, the thinking being that if Britain were to take part in that vote, it would need to begin preparing at least six weeks in advance.

Once again, the “cliff edge” of a no-deal Brexit loomed, but the new deadline did not yield any more agreement in London, forcing Mrs. May to plead, again, for more time. European leaders insisted on a longer delay this time, and set Oct. 31 as the date.

But in announcing her decision to step aside, Mrs. May acknowledged that lawmakers had yet to find a way to pass that deal, or to agree on what they wanted instead.

The fantasy that Brexit would be easy has crumbled, and lawmakers who made lofty promises to their constituents are having to face hard reality.

Somehow, having the nightmare come to a head — again — on Halloween seems fitting.

What happens next?

To be ratified, the deal announced on Oct. 17 must be approved by European Union leaders and by the British Parliament. Mr. Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, had also struck a deal with Brussels but suffered three thunderous defeats in Parliament.

Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, seen as vital to the passage of the agreement in Parliament, said it did not support the agreement. And the opposition Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, called on members of Parliament to reject it, saying, “It seems the prime minister has negotiated an even worse deal than Theresa May’s.”

Mr. Johnson announced the agreement on Twitter, saying that the parties had reached a “great new deal that takes back control” and that Parliament would now be clear to vote on the agreement on Oct. 18. Parliament had passed a law to force Mr. Johnson to seek a Brexit delay if he failed to negotiate a new deal with the E.U. at the summit on Oct. 17 and 18. Mr. Johnson said he would stand by the law but also pledged to lead Britain out of the E.U. on Oct. 31 no matter what happens.

What are the alternatives?

Mr. Johnson has said he would be prepared to lead a no-deal withdrawal, but that he would work toward a better deal. A less strident leader might have tacked to the center by committing to a customs union with Europe — a close trading relationship that would prevent the imposition of tariffs and quotas. That would solve the Irish border dilemma and possibly win votes from Labour lawmakers.

Mr. Corbyn has worked hard not to commit Labour to a distinct course on Brexit. But under pressure from many of his members, he has moved toward supporting a second referendum on the eventual withdrawal agreement. On Oct. 17, Labor gave its strongest endorsement yet for a second referendum, and swiftly walked it back.

A referendum could take many forms, and even among its backers, there is no agreement on that, either. Nor is it certain that a rerun of the vote would deliver a different result.

Still other pro-Europe voters want Parliament to kill Brexit on its own, or at least delay it for years, by revoking Article 50.

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12) I Had a Late-Term Abortion. I Am Not a Monster.

I am a grieving mother who protected her child from a life of pain and suffering.
By Lyndsay Werking-Yip, October 18, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/19/opinion/sunday/late-term-abortion.html

CreditCreditGolden Cosmos

I am a baby killer.

I stopped mid-step on my way into my office in Manhattan, and that thought scrolled through my brain yet again: “I am a baby killer.” It was an April day this year, nine weeks after I ended my child’s life.

I decided to keep walking.

That is a choice I have to make every day: Give up or keep moving. I have been choosing the latter, over and over again.

I consider myself “pro-life.” But that phrase is heavy with multiple meanings. Like “pro-choice.” I identify with both of those terms. I am a walking contradiction.

It all began in January. My husband and I went to our 20-week anatomy scan. We watched in amazement and excitement as the tech showed us all the precious growing parts of our baby girl: her spine, left hand, right ankle, 10 fingers, 10 toes, lips, tiny little tush. After the appointment, I downloaded all of these images to my phone, where they are still stored. “She looks perfect,” the tech said. My heart swelled with pride when she added: “Your baby is being nice. She isn’t moving too much.”

Not until the end of the appointment did we get our first hint that all was not well. “I see something,” the tech said. “I’m not sure what it is. Come back tomorrow.”

What followed was a few weeks of agony: an amniocentesis, a fetal M.R.I., multiple ultrasounds. After much waiting, we learned the diagnosis: severe brain abnormalities. There was a small empty space where brain matter should have developed in our child’s frontal lobe. She also had agenesis of the corpus callosum, which meant that the middle structure joining left and right hemispheres hadn’t grown properly. And there was a third abnormality, a “rough” area of gray matter.

We knew the diagnosis but we didn’t know what it would mean for our daughter’s daily life. It was explained to us that she would face seizures. Hourly, daily, weekly or monthly? No one could say. She would face developmental delays. Could she breathe? Yes. Could she feed herself, crawl, walk, talk? No one could say. She would face cognitive impairment. Would she know what was happening to her? Would she know us as her parents? No one could say.

What was certain was pain, confusion, frustration, isolation. Precisely how much? Exactly how severe? Only time would tell.

If you identify as “pro-life,” what does that phrase mean to you? I know that in advocacy circles, it means, essentially, “anti-abortion.” But what does life mean to you — the life that you are “for”? Does it mean breathing on your own? Does it mean having a heartbeat? What are the markers of a life of quality, of purpose, of meaning? If your brain was not functioning following a traumatic car accident, would you want your body artificially sustained indefinitely? What is the threshold of experience for you to want to continue living?

I’m asking honestly. People’s answers differ. If it’s hard to imagine answering these questions for yourself, can you imagine being asked to answer them for someone else?

My husband and I chose to end our child’s life. Many imagine this as an impossible decision to make, one that would take hours of deliberation. I will be honest with you. You may not want to hear this, but the decision was obvious to us. Our child would not be given a life of pain and suffering. Instead, we would take her pain on as our own.

I regret that we had to make the choice. I regret that she was so sick, so broken. But I do not regret the decision we made. Within 15 minutes of the diagnosis, we knew what we had to do: We would become baby killers.

Am I punishing myself by using that term? I don’t think so. I want people to know: I ended my child’s life. At 23 weeks and six days into my pregnancy, I had a “late term” abortion. When people ask, “How could you?” I reply that allowing her to live would have been a fate worse than death. Her diagnosis was not fatal, not incompatible with the bare mechanics of a living body. But it was incompatible with a fulfilling life. And that makes all the difference to me. That’s why I call myself “pro-life.”

The night before our abortion (a procedure that takes three days to complete), President Trump delivered the annual State of the Union address. I did not watch, but later I saw his comments about late-term abortion make the rounds on social media. Who are these monstrous women and doctors that, in his lurid language, “rip” babies “from the mother’s womb moments before birth”?

My child was lovingly cared for until her last heartbeat. She was gently laid to rest after her footprints were stamped in black ink on a rectangle of paper. Those same footprints hang on my bedroom wall along with a locket containing her ashes.

Is this not the picture of maternal feticide you had in mind? I am not a dark shadowy imaginary figure. I am a grieving mother.

President Trump lamented the “living, feeling, beautiful babies who will never get the chance to share their love and their dreams with the world.” I, too, lament their unlived potential. Through a fluke of nature, my beautiful baby was given a broken brain. A brain that would have limited every moment of her life. If she had made it to full term, what love and dreams would she have shared with the world?

Do you know what I find more chilling than the specter of a ghoulish doctor “ripping” babies out of their mothers’ wombs? The idea that my husband and I should have been given the diagnosis, told of the dire outcomes — and then sent home to hope for a natural miscarriage. Is it any less barbaric to be told that your child will suffer and then be deprived of any ability to protect her?

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. Most of the related initiatives are designed to help those who have suffered “miscarriage, stillbirth and newborn death.” Where do I fit in? If my body had recognized that my baby was sick and miscarried naturally, I know that I would be offered immediate, unqualified compassion. But because I was faced with a choice, I am made to feel unworthy of support.

I mourn my daughter’s absence every day. I whisper her name in the morning when I wake up. I breathe it out before I go to sleep. She is present in my every thought and action.

I pray you never have to face a decision like the one I faced. You might swear up and down that you could never make the choice I did, but you never know for sure until the time comes. I know I made the best choice for my child. I do not regret it, and I will not hide it.

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13) In Hong Kong, Gasoline Bombs, Masks and … Goodbye Letters

Preparing for the worst, protesters have started writing “last letters” to their loved ones.

Video by Cora Engelbrecht, Orlando de Guzman and Ainara Tiefenthäler

Text by Cora Engelbrecht, October 20, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/20/world/asia/hong-kong-protesters-letters.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

“When you find this letter, I might have already been arrested or killed.”

This is how a 22-year-old protester in Hong Kong began what he worries could be the last letter to his family. He used the pseudonym “Nobody”; like most of the young people who have been confronting the police on the front lines, he fears arrest or death.

I met “Nobody” and his cohort during a recent Sunday demonstration. After 19 weeks of street battles with the police, the protesters’ roles are well rehearsed: They move swiftly, each to his or her appointed task, using codes and sign language. They assemble barricades in minutes, only to disperse in seconds.

But I came to observe handiwork of a different kind. As the violence intensified over the summer, I learned that young protesters were writing farewell notes to family and friends in the event that they were arrested or killed. They call them “Wai Shu,” or “last letters.” Some carry handwritten copies to the streets in their backpacks or wallets. Others hide them at home, in drawers and under mattresses. Several people read them to me off their phones.

“Nobody” told me he wrote his letter when he was at a protest last month in Causeway Bay, after witnessing an undercover officer fire into a crowd. “Right in front of me, live bullets,” he said. “At that moment, I learned that my life was at stake.”

The protests have become increasingly violent as they drag on. Protesters are now more aggressive, and the police regularly raid their homes. Arrests have surged.

On the street, “Nobody” and his teammates blend into the crowds of protesters clad in black, faces covered and armed with gasoline bombs. But their individual missives set them apart, chronicling their lives and loves and what might be lost.

“Dad, I’m unfilial for leaving you so early, before I could fulfill my obligations as a son, to be there for you,” “Nobody’s” teammate Ming wrote. “When I’m gone, please take good care of yourself.”

Another named Tank wrote: “I would be lying if I told you that I’m not afraid. But of course, we cannot give up.”

“Nobody” is a fashion designer. He is lanky, with thick hair that falls over his eyes. He owns a small business that tailors custom clothing and costumes for stage performers. 

He lives with his parents, but he was raised by his grandmother in mainland China. Since he joined the protests, he said, he has been doxxed and has had to change phone numbers several times. He won’t risk crossing through immigration, for fear of being arrested. The reality that he may never see his grandmother again fills him with regret.

“I actually worry that I will die and won’t see you anymore,” he wrote to her in his letter. “I worry that you will cry and feel devastated. But there is no way that I don’t take to the streets.”

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14) Another Hijab Furor Hits France, Over a Mother on a School Trip

“Not here, not today,” a French politician told a woman wearing a head scarf. A photograph of her crying son went viral.
By Aurelien Breeden, October 19, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/19/world/europe/france-hijab-school-trip-mother.html

Protesters in Besançon, France, on Wednesday supported a woman who was chided by a far-right politician for wearing a head scarf while accompanying students on a trip.CreditCreditSebastien Bozon/Agence France-Presse

PARIS — A heated debate over France’s values reignited across the country this week, the latest fight in a culture war that has raged for years in universities, the halls of government and even on the beach.

This time, it started with a mother wearing a hijab on a school trip.

Veils and head scarves are political and social lightning rods in France, touching on issues so sensitive — secularism, feminism and the integration of Muslims — that they seem to inspire anger wherever they appear. Although the mother broke no laws by wearing the garment, which does not cover the face, she enraged far-right members of the local assembly that the schoolchildren were visiting. 

During the visit last week, in the central city of Dijon, one of the politicians, Julien Odoul, asked that the woman uncover herself.

“Madame has ample time to wear her veil at home, on the street, but not here, not today,” he said, citing France’s values of secularism, known as laïcité.

In a post on Twitter that included video of the incident, Mr. Odoul said wearing the veil was a “provocation” that couldn’t be “tolerated” after a fatal attack on Paris police officers this month by a Muslim among their ranks.

A commotion broke out. Other members of the assembly, including the president, objected to the request. The far-right politicians, who belong to the National Rally party, stormed out. And in a moment captured by a picture that soon spread widely, the woman’s son cried in her arms.

She has declined to speak to the news media, but the confrontationquickly gained national attention. Battle lines were swiftly drawn.

On one side, there are those who say the veil is a symbol of female submission or religious radicalism, an archaic garment that has no place in France’s secular republic. On the other are those who argue that veiled women are subjected to barely hidden racism and religious discrimination by people who refuse to accept French multiculturalism.

Valentine Zuber, a historian at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris who specializes in the study of religious tolerance in Europe, said that these two “intellectual and political camps are now at loggerheads.”

“There is a brutalization of the discourse, even at the elite level, that is quite frightening,” she said in an interview. 

Since 2011, it has been illegal to wear a face-covering veil in public in France. Many French people also agree with laws that bar state employees and school children from wearing “ostentatious” religious symbols.

But the consensus stops there. Over the past few years, disputes have focused on university students, burkinis and sports hijabs, to name just a few.

Whether mothers on school outings should be allowed to wear head scarves has become a particularly charged question, partly because French schools are seen as “sanctuaries” that shield children from external influences, religious or otherwise, Ms. Zuber said. 

Some politicians want to extend the clothing restrictions currently applied to teachers and students to parents who sign up for class trips. A recent poll, conducted before the incident in Dijon, found that 66 percent of French people agreed. 

“The veil should be banned on all school time,” Christian Jacob, the newly elected head of the right-wing Républicains party, told Le Figaro newspaper on Friday. “Not just on school premises.”

The government has shut the door on such legislation, and President Emmanuel Macron, trying to avoid a political minefield, has refused to weigh in with a formal speech on secularism. Last year, Mr. Macron said that although he respected a woman’s decision to wear the veil, he was “not personally happy” about it.

Mr. Macron, who in the aftermath of the Paris police attack called for a “society of vigilance” against the “Islamist hydra,” said this week that his priority was to fight “radicalization” and “communitarianism.”

“These fights are serious, they entail not to divide, not to stigmatize, and to work together,” he said. 

But Mr. Macron’s government and his party are split. 

Some, like the education minister, Jean-Michel Blanquer, and the economy minister, Bruno Le Maire, say that the veil, while legal, is not “desirable” in French society. Others, like the government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye and the lawmaker Aurélien Taché, have supported a mother’s right to wear a head scarf on school trips.

Ms. Zuber, the historian, said tensions over the Muslim veil were rooted in a longstanding cultural aversion to public expressions of faith. 

Enlightenment philosophers in the 18th century and the founding fathers of republican France largely rejected the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, sometimes fiercely, she said. That thinking, bolstered by a feminist rejection of the veil as a symbol of “submission,” is still present. 

Ms. Zuber said that the “resurgence of religious visibility in the public space” had made many French feel “that our freedoms are threatened.” She said some people saw the veil, “in and of itself, as proselytizing” for a faith.

A string of attacks by Islamist terrorists in recent years has only worsened such fears, especially on the far right. Marine Le Pen, for instance, who heads the National Rally party, told Europe 1 radiothis week that “the veil is not a trivial piece of cloth, it is a marker of radicalism.”

Some commentators have gone even further. One columnist, Yves Thréard, said on television that it was his right to hate a religion, and that he would sometimes get off a bus if a woman wearing a head scarf got on. Another journalist suggested that the veil could be considered a “political sign” similar to the Nazi SS uniform. Both later said they had misspoken.

To some, the tone of the debate has become increasingly alarming. One group of public figures, including actors, artists and academics, asked in an open letter in the newspaper Le Monde this week, “How far will we let the hatred of Muslims go?”

“How long are we going to accept that citizens be insulted, assaulted, attacked, stigmatized because of their religion?” they asked. The letter was later turned into a petition, which has gathered over 180,000 signatures so far. 

In an interview with the Collective Against Islamophobia in France, an advocacy group, the mother who went to Dijon said the incident had “destroyed her life.” The mother, identified by the group as Fatima E., also intends to file a legal complaint.

“Today, I have a negative opinion of what we call the republic,” she said, arguing that the episode would reinforce the belief held by some descendants of immigrants that “France is against them.”

“I have always argued against that discourse,” she said. “When we left the regional council, they came up to me to say: ‘You see, we told you so! They don’t like us!’ And then, I couldn’t even speak. The children had come there to learn: What did they learn?”

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15) Fort Worth Police Have More Violence to Answer For, Residents Say

Black residents of the city complained about mistreatment by the police long before Atatiana Jeffersons death. “I never was supposed to be arrested,” said one woman. “I was the caller.”
By Manny Fernandez, Sarah Mervosh and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, October 20, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/20/us/fort-worth-shooting-jefferson-dean.html

Dorshay Morris, called 911 to report that her boyfriend was drunk and threatening to kick in her door. She ended up spending four days in jail.CreditCreditAllison V. Smith for The New York Times

FORT WORTH — Before there was Atatiana Jefferson, there was Jackie Craig, a black woman who called the police to report that her white neighbor had grabbed her son — and found herself pinned to the ground by the officer who responded.

There was Henry Newson, a black man who had just been discharged from the hospital and was waiting for a ride home when two officers working security questioned why he was there. He refused to leave, and a white officer punched him in the face. 

There was Craigory Adams, also black, who knocked on his neighbor’s door late one night carrying a barbecue fork — to keep stray dogs away, he said — and the neighbor called the police. A white officer pointed a shotgun at Mr. Adams but said he wasn’t meaning to fire it. He did, striking Mr. Adams in the arm. 

These names and others have all been brought up again in the days since Ms. Jefferson, a 28-year-old black woman, was shot and killed in her bedroom this month by a white police officer who was standing outside her window. In the largely black and Hispanic neighborhood in southeast Fort Worth where Ms. Jefferson lived, and in others nearby, many residents recalled times when they hadtried calling the police — and ended up sorry that they did.

“This is not an isolated incident,” said the Rev. Kyev Tatum, who is part of a coalition asking the Justice Department to investigate “over-aggressive policing” in Fort Worth’s communities of color. “This is historic and it is systemic, and we understand that racism is at the heart of this.”

The long-simmering tensions boiled to the surface this month after Ms. Jefferson became the sixth person to be killed by the Fort Worth police since June. Four of the six were black. 

Five years after a police shooting in Ferguson, Mo., stoked a national debate over race and policing, Fort Worth is far from the only community where residents complain that the conversation in their city never really went anywhere.

In Dallas, just 30 miles east of Fort Worth, a similar case played out tragically over the past year: A white off-duty police officer was sentenced to 10 years in prison earlier this month after she mistakenly entered the apartment of a black neighbor, Botham Shem Jean, and shot him to death while he was watching television.The long-simmering tensions boiled to the surface this month after Ms. Jefferson became the sixth person to be killed by the Fort Worth police since June. Four of the six were black. 

Five years after a police shooting in Ferguson, Mo., stoked a national debate over race and policing, Fort Worth is far from the only community where residents complain that the conversation in their city never really went anywhere.

In Dallas, just 30 miles east of Fort Worth, a similar case played out tragically over the past year: A white off-duty police officer was sentenced to 10 years in prison earlier this month after she mistakenly entered the apartment of a black neighbor, Botham Shem Jean, and shot him to death while he was watching television.

“There’s a pattern,” said Ms. Craig, 49. “They want to say that it’s not racially motivated,” she said. “It’s just obvious to the eye that it is.”

Ms. Jefferson’s death drew hundreds to a vigil outside her house in Fort Worth. At City Hall, protesters held signs reading “Say Her Name.” And on the Democratic presidential debate stage last week in Ohio, Julián Castro brought up Ms. Jefferson’s death to discuss police violence.

Fort Worth has a storied history as a Western outpost — it lives up to its Cowtown nickname with twice-daily cattle drives in the historic district — but today, the nation’s 13th largest city is in some ways two different places, divided along racial and economic lines. It is home to the Walmart heiress Alice Walton, the wealthiest person in Texas, but neighborhoods like Ms. Jefferson’s are dotted with abandoned homes. 

Most of the police force, about 65 percent, is white — as are the mayor, the city manager, a majority of the City Council and now the police chief, after the department’s first black chief was fired earlier this year. Black and Hispanic residents, who together make up a majority in the city, complain that they often feel ignored by city leadership, and unfairly targeted by the police. Black residents on their own make up about 18 percent of the population, but they accounted for 40 percent of arrests in 2017.

The latest turmoil began after midnight on Oct. 12, when Ms. Jefferson was playing video games with her 8-year-old nephew. Two officers responded to a neighbor’s report that her doors were open. As Ms. Jefferson grabbed a gun from her purse, one of the officers fired the fatal shot through a bedroom window without identifying himself, the police said. The officer, Aaron Y. Dean, who quickly resigned, now faces a murder charge.

From the beginning, city officials knew the case was going to be unlike any of the previous police shootings. The mayor, Betsy Price, said the interim police chief, Ed Kraus, called her at about 6:30 a.m., and told her the essence of what had occurred overnight.

“He just said, ‘I don’t think it’s going to be pretty,’” Mayor Price recalled. “‘It’s too early. I don’t have the details yet, but it looks like the wheels fell off.’”

Public resentment had been building for years. In interviews, many residents said they knew people who had been shot, shocked by stun guns or wrestled by the police. At least four highly publicized encounters have been documented in video footage and lawsuits. Some of those officers have faced criminal charges and left the department; others remain on the force.

‘Why Don’t You Teach Your Son Not to Litter?’

One of the first cases to incite outrage was Ms. Craig’s arrest in December 2016. 

It started with flavored raisins. Ms. Craig’s 8-year-old son dropped some raisins onto the street outside her white neighbor’s house. The man grabbed her son by the back of the neck and pushed him down to pick up the raisins, she said.

Ms. Craig called 911 and a white officer, William Martin, responded. As seen in body-camera footage and cellphone videos, one of the first questions Officer Martin asked was, “So why don’t you teach your son not to litter?” After Ms. Craig told him that her neighbor did not have the right to put his hands on her son, whether or not he had littered, the officer asked, “Why not?”

As Ms. Craig grew agitated, he added, “I’m just asking.”

Officer Martin told her that if she did not stop yelling at him, “you’re going to piss me off, and I’m going to take you to jail.”

Moments later, the officer pushed aside one of her daughters, Jacques Hymond, who was 15 at the time, pulled out his Taser and pointed it at Ms. Craig as he forced her to the pavement. He later handcuffed and arrested Ms. Craig, along with Jacques and Ms. Craig’s other daughter, Brea Hymond, who was 19 at the time.

Ms. Craig said she had hoped her arrest would serve as a warning of the need to make changes in the police department. A task force appointed by the City Council examined issues of race and culturein the police force, but major reforms never happened. The officer was suspended for 10 days but remains with the department. 

“I believe it will continue, because I’m not seeing any consequences behind the actions that these police officers are taking,” Ms. Craig said. “If there’s no punishment behind it, why not keep doing it?”

Another incident occurred in August 2017, when Dorshay Morris called 911 to report that her boyfriend was drunk and threatening to kick in her door. She had a knife in her purse to protect herself.

The two officers who arrived made her feel like a criminal, she said. When she refused to give them her ID, the officers grabbed her by the hair, and Sgt. Kenneth Pierce, who is white, ordered a rookie officer to shoot her with a Taser. She was taken into custody and charged with resisting arrest and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. She said she spent four days in jail. The charges were later dropped. Sergeant Pierce was fired, but was reinstatedafter he appealed.

“I never was supposed to be arrested,” Ms. Morris said in an interview this week. “I was the caller.”

Six Fatal Police Shootings

So far this year, Fort Worth police officers have fired shots at nine people, killing six and injuring two. The fatal shootings have all happened since June, and are more than the department had in the previous two years combined.

Policing experts caution against extrapolating from one year of data — the numbers can fluctuate from year to year — but six fatal shootings is more than most police departments in similarly sized cities have recorded. For example, in Indianapolis, police have fired at three people this year, killing one. And in San Francisco, police have not fired a gun at anyone this year, a spokeswoman said.

In one of the fatal cases in Fort Worth, an officer shot a white Army veteran who had barricaded himself with a rifle in his father’s home. The police said they thought he had pointed the rifle toward them when he was shot, but in fact, it was a flashlight. 

In another scrutinized case, an 18-year-old black man who was a person of interest in a homicide was killed while holding a gun and running from the police, according to video footage. Activists noted that he was shot in the back.

In each of the fatal shootings this year, the victims were armed. In several, they had barricaded themselves inside a home or vehicle in a standoff with the police. Still, four of the six victims, including Ms. Jefferson, were black, and community members have questioned whether the police could have done more to de-escalate or avoid risk. 

“Just because they had firearms doesn’t warrant a death sentence on the street,” said Pamela Young, an organizer who is pushing for community oversight of the police department.

The mayor and police officials have apologized for the killing of Ms. Jefferson, which they condemned as inexcusable. City leaders said that they planned to bring in an outside team of experts to review the police department, and that they were working on other changes to improve diversity and accountability.

“Please, do not let the actions of one officer reflect on the other 1,700,” Chief Kraus, who has been on the job since May, said during an emotional news conference. “There’s absolutely no excuse for this incident, and the person responsible will be held accountable.”

In an interview, Mayor Price said she had heard from some black residents who said they feared the police so much that they would no longer call them for help. She was deeply worried by that sentiment. But she flatly rejected the idea that the city’s white leadership was not engaged with black residents.

“I am in the minority community more than anywhere else,” the mayor said.

The tensions gripping the city were on full display on Oct. 15 when residents poured into City Hall for the City Council’s first meeting after the shooting — so many that a large, frustrated crowd was forced to wait for hours outside.

Many residents demanded to know not only what the city was going to do for the family of Ms. Jefferson — who many call “Tay” — but for everyone else.

“You mentioned that we need to provide Tay’s nephew with anything he needs,” Jen Sarduy, a black Fort Worth resident, told the council. “He needs his aunt alive. He needs to not have witnessed her murder. He needs the city to be equitable and just and safe.”

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16) In a Strong Economy, Why Are So Many Workers on Strike?

By Noam Schreiber, October 19, 2019
"Corporate profits are near a record high, up nearly 30 percent since the pre-recession peak in 2006. During the same time, the income of the typical household has increased by less than 4 percent. ...Overall strike activity has fallen sharply since the 1970s, as the ranks of unions have been depleted, dropping to about 10 percent of the work force from over 25 percent."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/19/business/economy/workers-strike-economy.html

Teachers in Arizona, Chicago and elsewhere have walked out in recent years, demanding that local officials put more money into schools.CreditRoss D. Franklin/Associated Press

At first glance, it may seem like a paradox: Even as the economy rides a 10-year winning streak, tens of thousands of workers across the country, from General Motors employees to teachers in Chicago, are striking to win better wages and benefits.

But, according to those on strike, the strong growth is precisely the point. Autoworkers, teachers and other workers accepted austerity when the economy was in a free fall, expecting to share in the gains once the recovery took hold.

Increasingly, however, many of those workers believe that they fell for a sucker’s bet, having watched their employers grow flush while their own incomes barely budged. Corporate profits are near a record high, up nearly 30 percent since the pre-recession peak in 2006. During the same time, the income of the typical household has increased by less than 4 percent. Some workers are responding with measures like strikes partly as a result.

“That was the understanding — that if we gave up the concessions back in 2007 and 2009, that once G.M. got back on their feet, we would slowly get those things back,” said Tammy Daggy, who worked at the now-idled G.M. plant in Lordstown, Ohio, for nearly 25 years. But on many issues, “we never did.”

To an extent, the pattern of strikes reflects a recurring feature of the labor market: Workers typically become bolder the longer an expansion continues, using the leverage they have when jobs are harder to fill to demand greater compensation. This was particularly true during the three decades after World War II, according to a survey of research by Jake Rosenfeld, a sociologist at Washington University in St. Louis.

Overall strike activity has fallen sharply since the 1970s, as the ranks of unions have been depleted, dropping to about 10 percent of the work force from over 25 percent. Employers have also responded more aggressively — for example, by permanently replacing striking employees.

Now, though, workers appear increasingly willing to walk off the job. Last year, the number of workers who participated in significant strikes soared to nearly 500,000, its highest point since the mid-1980s, while the total duration of such strikes reached a 15-year high.

The backdrop for this trend is a rising gap between the money employers are making and the portion they’re sharing with workers. The share of the national income that workers receive fell in the early 2000s to its lowest level since World War II according to some measures, then collapsed further in 2009. It has yet to recover.

That may be partly because the labor market is weaker than the picture painted by the official unemployment rate of 3.5 percent. That rate measures only the number of out-of-work Americans who say they are looking for jobs. It excludes Americans in their prime working years who are not actively looking for work but, given the opportunity, might choose to re-enter the work force.

According to Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, the group who could quickly re-enter the work force is potentially large, and may help employers avoid bidding up wages to lure those who are currently employed. “We still don’t know how much shadow labor is out there,” Mr. Kashkari said in an interview on Thursday.

But regardless of the strength of the labor market, in recent decades employers have amassed more power to hold wages down.

“In the late 1990s, it seemed like maybe a hot economy was sufficient” to substantially raise workers’ incomes and narrow inequality, said Jason Furman, who led the White House Council of Economic Advisers during President Barack Obama’s second term. But a series of reports that Mr. Furman’s council released in 2016 documented changes that have allowed employers to pocket more of the gains from growth. Those changes include noncompete clauses in employment contracts and even outright collusion, in which companies explicitly agree not to hire workers away from one another or to offer identical wages.

Employers argue that they need additional flexibility with their work force as they contend with global competition and technological changes.

Scholars say there was an element of economic opportunism behind the strikes of the 1950s and ’60s, as unions exploited their bargaining power in tight labor markets.

But workers say today’s strikes are fueled by a deeper sense of unfairness and economic anxiety. This past week, for example, unions representing about 2,000 workers at copper mines and smelters in Arizona and Texas went on strike, saying their members had not received raises for a decade.

“It’s about: ‘O.K., the government is not going to take care of us. Business is not going to take care of us. We’ve got to take care of ourselves,’” said D. Taylor, president of the hospitality workers union, UNITE HERE, which has had thousands of members strike in the past two years, including at Marriott International. “It’s been bubbling up for some time. Now it’s come up to the surface.”

In the airline industry, workers who made numerous concessions amid a wave of post-9/11 corporate restructurings complain that they continue to struggle under austerity even as the airlines post outsize profits.

“They got all these employees to agree to terms within the shadow of bankruptcy court, then they created these megamergers and are making billions,” said Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants.

While airline workers, unlike most private-sector workers, must receive permission from the government before they can strike, they have repeatedly demonstrated their anger. Thousands of airline catering workers, many of whom make under $12 per hour, voted to strike this year, pending the assent of a federal mediation board. Airline mechanics, including at Southwest Airlines, have won raises after effectively gumming up the operations of their employers: The mechanics significantly increased the number of low-grade maintenance problems they identified, leading to widespread flight delays and cancellations. (The mechanics denied that this was their intention.)

Teachers have expressed frustration that their districts were slow to reverse the spending cuts that followed the economic crisis a decade ago, even as state and local budgets have recovered.

“When the recession hit, teachers kind of buckled down. We said: ‘We get it. Everybody has got to pull their weight,’” said Noah Karvelis, who helped organize last year’s teacher walkouts in Arizona that forced lawmakers to raise teacher salaries and partially restore education funding. “But 10 years later, the state’s economy is back, we’re doing really well, and still the cuts are there. It was a huge, huge thing for us.”

In Chicago, teachers who went on strike on Thursday are demanding that local officials devote more of a recent billion-dollar cash infusion from the state to raises. They point out that teaching assistants’ pay starts at around $30,000 a year but they are required by law to live in the high-cost city. And veteran teachers often leave the district during the several years in which they only receive cost-of-living increases. The teachers also want the district to hire more school nurses and librarians, who are in short supply across Chicago.

“In Chicago, the citizenry during the austerity talks believed it,” said Michelle Gunderson, a first-grade teacher on the union’s bargaining committee, referring to the lean contract negotiated in 2016. “At that time, we had a Republican governor who wasn’t funding our schools. But now an infusion of money has come in that has not made it to the classroom.”

The school district has noted that $700 million of that money went directly to teacher pensions, and that the rest kept the district solvent. The district has proposed raising salaries 16 percent over five years and substantially increasing the number of nurses.

For its part, while G.M. has made $35 billion in profits in North America over the past three years, sales appear to be slowing in the United States and China. Domestic automakers also say they are under pressure from foreign rivals, which have lower labor costs in nonunion factories in the South, and to invest in developing electric vehicles.

That is one reason G.M. sought to preserve a so-called two-tiered wage scale introduced amid the company’s struggles over a decade ago, in which workers hired after 2007 make up to 45 percent less than the $31 an hour that veteran workers currently earn. The company also relies on a cadre of temporary workers who earn even less.

As part of the tentative deal the company reached with the United Automobile Workers, G.M. appears to have agreed to a path for temps to become permanent workers, and to alter its tiered wage scale. Workers will vote on the agreement over the next several days, and a result is expected on Friday.

Some workers are skeptical that the union made sufficient progress on these questions, and on the extent to which G.M. can continue to shift production to Mexico, which has imperiled jobs in the United States.

Selina Estrada, 32, who assembles doors at the G.M. plant in Spring Hill, Tenn., said she feared the company would prevent temporary workers from attaining permanent status by laying off those workers before they had achieved the required three years of “continuous service.”

“They’ll keep turning them around and laying them off right before their three years,” she said. “It’s never going to happen.”

David Yaffe-Bellany contributed reporting.

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*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* *---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* Working people are helping to feed the poor hungry corporations!  Charity for the Wealthy!