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) White Alabama Officer Guilty of Manslaughter for Killing Black Man

The officer shot Greg Gunn after initiating a stop-and-frisk encounter as the unarmed man was walking home from a card game in 2016.

By Vanessa Swales and Andeel Hassan, November 22, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/us/ac-smith-guilty-police-shooting.html

Greg Gunn, 58, was killed by a Montgomery, Ala., police officer in 2016.Credit...Albert Cesare/The Montgomery Advertiser, via Associated Press

An Alabama jury found a white police officer guilty of manslaughter on Friday in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man in Montgomery in 2016, the latest case in which an officer has been held to account for using lethal force. 

The officer, Aaron Cody Smith, 26, faced a murder charge, but the 12-person jury also had the option of convicting him of manslaughter, which it did after a few hours of deliberation. He resigned from the Montgomery Police Department after the verdict, Capt. Regina Duckett, a spokeswoman, said in an email.

Mr. Smith was patrolling the Mobile Heights neighborhood in February 2016 when he stopped Greg Gunn, who was returning home from a late-night card game. According to Mr. Smith, Mr. Gunn fled midway through the stop-and-frisk encounter. 

Mr. Smith chased Mr. Gunn, used his Taser on him three times, struck him with a metal baton and fired seven bullets from his gun. Five hit Mr. Gunn, who died steps from his home.

He later said that Mr. Gunn, 58, fit the description of a black man in dark clothing who had previously run from him in an area where burglaries had been reported. He also said Mr. Gunn tried to strike him with a paint pole during the encounter.

Prosecutors said Mr. Smith's account had many inconsistencies, including about the struggle that broke out after he patted down Mr. Gunn. Mr.. Smith did not turn on his body and dashboard cameras after getting out of his vehicle to stop Mr. Gunn at 3:20 a.m.

"We were very confident in the facts of the case," Daryl Bailey, the Montgomery County district attorney, said in comments to reporters after leaving the courtroom. Mr. Bailey said his office would ask for the maximum punishment, which is 20 years. Mr. Smith remained in custody after the verdict and his lawyer, Mickey McDermott, said he would appeal.

"He needs to be in the county jail until he goes to prison just like everybody else," said Mr. Bailey, who said there was no sentencing date yet.

The case created tensions between the city and the district attorney, who criticized the decision to allow Mr. Smith to remain on the payroll for the last three years. But Mr. Bailey reiterated on Friday afternoon that "this is not a conviction against the Montgomery Police Department."

There have been at least a dozen fatal police shootings in Alabama since 2015, according to a database created by The Washington Post. In February, an officer who killed a 21-year-old black man he had mistaken for a gunman was ultimately not taken to trial.

"This is a tragedy that we must not forget, we must learn from it, and move forward together to do everything in our power to make sure something like this never happens again," Steven Reed, Montgomery's mayor, said in a statement. 

"Better training could prevent a tragedy and prevent crime in general," he added, saying he would examine police practices. "One family's wounds will never be fully healed."

A national movement for racial justice, Black Lives Matter, was ignited when Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner in New York were killed by white police officers in the summer of 2014. Since then, there have been several more high-profile cases across the country in which a black man was killed by a white officer. 

Jason Van Dyke, a Chicago officer, was sentenced to seven years in prison in January for murdering Laquan McDonald.. Last month, Amber Guyger was sentenced to 10 years after murdering Botham Jean in his Dallas apartment. Ms.. Guyger was off duty at the time of the shooting.

The verdict in the Alabama case was the culmination of a winding judicial process. 

Eight judges had recused themselves in the case, which was relocated from Montgomery, where protests broke out after the shooting, to Ozark, about 85 miles southeast, in the majority-white Dale County. There had been concerns that news media coverage of the case could taint the pool of jurors.

"They brought this case to a very conservative county, expecting a different outcome," Franklin Gunn, Mr. Gunn's brother, said after the verdict was read. "But I believe that we have seen the best of Alabama today. One bad apple in a bunch has been weeded out."

Neil Vigdor contributed reporting.

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2) Glenn Greenwald: Bolsonaro Wants to Silence Free Press in Brazil

The president's political movement regards journalists as obstacles and prefers intimidation and violence to civic discourse.

By Glen Greenwald, November 25, 2019

https://www.nytimes..com/2019/11/25/opinion/glenn-greenwald-bolsonaro-brazil.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil making gestures mimicking a gun, a signature of his campaign, at the launch of his new political party, Alliance for Brazil, on Thursday.Credit...Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters

RIO DE JANEIRO — On Nov. 7, I was physically assaulted by a far-right, pro-Bolsonaro pundit, Augusto Nunes, at a television and radio studio in São Paulo while we were live on the air.

This is the latest, and perhaps most vivid, example of journalists and news organizations in Brazil being threatened, menaced and subjected to actual violence by the Bolsonaro movement, all for doing our jobs.

The episode illustrates how press freedoms and the democratic order in Brazil are endangered — not just with words, but violence — by this authoritarian movement that now wields power in the world's fifth-most-populous country.

Mr. Nunes had once been a prominent mainstream journalist as the editor in chief of the country's largest newsweekly, Veja. Seven weeks before he assaulted me, he responded on his radio program to a series of journalistic exposés I have published in The Intercept revealing corruption at the highest levels of the government of President Jair Bolsonaro.

Seemingly out of nowhere, he called on a family court judge to investigate whether I and my husband, David Miranda, a congressman for the Socialism and Liberty Party, are taking proper care of our two adopted children. A judge should investigate, he argued, since we both work.

But that attack on our family did not come out of nowhere. President Bolsonaro has long featured anti-L.G.B.T. animus as a central weapon in his political arsenal and has repeatedly used anti-gay attacks against me. He and his allies have attacked other journalists and activists who oppose him.

During the last six months of The Intercept's reporting on Mr. Bolsonaro's government, the right-wing leader not only repeatedly and publicly threatened me with prison, but also explicitly accused me and my husband of having a sham marriage, and of having adopted Brazilian children as a fraud, in order — he claimed — to enable me to avoid being deported. With that ugly history from the president himself, Mr. Nunes's attack as retaliation for the journalism I've been doing made complete sense.

On the program in which I appeared with Mr. Nunes, I told him on the air that his was an act of cowardice, because he'd never call for a similar investigation for the millions of heterosexual couples with children who both work, including his own bosses and colleagues. He then physically attacked me, and the video of the attack quickly went viral on social media within Brazil and outside of it.. I was not hurt, but the reaction in Brazil to that incident speaks volumes about the imperiled state of press freedoms and democracy here.

While mainstream journalists and political officials from across the ideological spectrum denounced Mr. Nunes's attack, the leading figures of the Bolsonaro movement, including the president's two politician sons and his "guru," Olavo de Carvalho, explicitly cheered it. That the violence against me should be worse the next time — not a slap but a closed-fist punch or worse — was a common theme.

The Bolsonaro movement, like most authoritarian factions, favors intimidation and violence over civic discourse — against their adversaries in general, but especially against journalists they regard as obstacles. Predictably, the climate for journalists since the 2018 presidential election has become far more dangerous than before.

Other journalists have suffered similar attacks. Patrícia Campos Mello, a journalist from the nation's largest newspaper, broke a major story during the 2018 campaign about illegal, unreported financing by Mr. Bolsonaro's rich supporters through WhatsApp messaging campaigns. She then spent months being targeted with credible threats of violence, along with a highly organized and well-financed fake news network spreading horrific lies about her.

In July, one of the nation's most famous and influential journalists, Globo's Miriam Leitão, was forced to cancel a public appearance after being deluged with threats following the president's attacks on her.

That same month, I was invited to speak about our journalistic exposés at a famous literary event in the town of Paraty that typically draws international authors and journalists. Event organizers were so concerned about the number of threats of violence aimed at me that they required me to arrive by a small boat rather than by land.

As we arrived, we had fireworks shot at us horizontally by Mr. Bolsonaro's supporters. Throughout my speech, they continued to shoot fireworks at us, one of which landed in the crowd of 3,000 people and lit a flag on fire. Mr. Bolsonaro's supporters, including Congress members from his party, celebrated that aggression. 

After a Globo investigation last month revealed the Bolsonaro family's links to the 2018 assassination of City Councilwoman Marielle Franco, the president made good on his pledge to cut off public funds to Globo. He's long threatened to do the same to the newspaper Folha, and even promised in the last speech he gave before being elected president that he would usher in a Brazil "without Folha of São Paulo."

When I was called to testify before the Congress in July about The Intercept's reporting, numerous members of Mr. Bolsonaro's party demanded that I be arrested before I left the building. Since we began reporting on The Intercept's explosive Brazil archive, neither I nor my husband has left our house once without a team of armed security guards and an armored vehicle.

Before his 2018 victory, Mr. Bolsonaro spent nearly three decadesas a congressman on the fringes of political life because of his overt support for the brutal military dictatorship that ruled the country until 1985.

Recently, his congressman son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, and Mr. de Carvalho explicitly threatened a return of dictatorship-era decreesin the event that civic disorder necessitates repression — a state of affairs they clearly are eager to provoke so that their real, often explicit goal, the reinstatement of tyranny, can be realized.

That is why they want intimidation and violence in lieu of politics and journalism. They need that as the pretext for ushering in the repression they crave.

Fortunately, Brazil's Constitution guarantees press freedoms that are even more robust and specific than those guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. As long as there is a free press, we are able to not just reveal corruption and wrongdoing by the nation's most powerful actors, but also to ensure that history is not rewritten, that the horrors of Brazil's two decades of military regime are not whitewashed or forgotten.

That's precisely why members of the Bolsonaro movement target us: They know that transparency and free discourse are the primary obstacles to returning Brazil back to its darkest days. The more they show their true face, the more resistance they have encountered. The job of journalists, the purpose of a free press, is to ensure that this truth remains clear.

Glenn Greenwald is a journalist based in Brazil and the author of several books, including "No Place to Hide." He is a co-founding editor of The Intercept and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his reports on global surveillance programs.

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3) Hong Kong Election Results Give Democracy Backers Big Win

A surge in voting, especially by young people, allowed democracy advocates to win many more seats on local councils.

By Keith Bradsher, Austin Ramzy and Tiffany May, November 24, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/24/world/asia/hong-kong-election-results.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Democracy supporters celebrating in Hong Kong on Sunday night outside a polling station.Credit...Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

HONG KONG — Pro-democracy candidates buoyed by months of street protests in Hong Kong won a stunning victory in local elections on Sunday, as record numbers voted in a vivid expression of the city's aspirations and its anger with the Chinese government. 

It was a pointed rebuke of Beijing and its allies in Hong Kong, and the turnout — seven in 10 eligible voters — suggested that the public continues to back the democracy movement, even as the protests grow increasingly violent. Young Hong Kongers, a major force behind the demonstrations of the past six months, played a leading role in the voting surge. 

With three million voters casting ballots, pro-democracy candidates captured 389 of 452 elected seats, up from only 124 and far more than they have ever won.. The government's allies held just 58 seats, a remarkable collapse from 300.

To many democracy advocates, Sunday was a turning point.

"There has been a very deep awakening of the Hong Kong people," said Alan Leong, chairman of the Civic Party, one of the largest pro-democracy parties.

The elections were for district councils, one of the lowest elected offices in Hong Kong, and they are typically a subdued affair focused on community issues. The job mostly entails pushing for neighborhood needs like bus stops and traffic lights. 

But this election took on outsize significance, and was viewed as a referendum on the unrest that has created the city's worst political crisis in decades. In a semiautonomous part of China where greater democracy is one of the protesters' biggest demands, it gave residents a rare chance to vote. 

The gains at the ballot box are likely to embolden a democracy movement that has struggled with how to balance peaceful and violent protests to achieve its goals.

They are also likely to deepen the challenges for China's central government, which wants to curb the unrest in Hong Kong. And they might exacerbate Beijing's fears about giving the city's residents even greater say in choosing their government.

The district councils are among the most democratic bodies in Hong Kong. Almost all the seats are directly elected, unlike the legislature, where the proportion is just over half. The territory's chief executive is also not chosen directly by voters, but is instead selected by a committee stacked in favor of Beijing.

The election results will give democracy forces considerably more influence on that committee, which is scheduled to choose a new chief executive in 2022.

The district councils name about a tenth of the group's 1,200 members, and now all of these will flip from pro-Beijing to pro-democracy seats. Democracy advocates already control about a quarter of the seats, while other previously pro-Beijing sectors of the committee are now starting to lean toward democracy, most notably accountants and real estate lawyers.

Mr. Leong, the Civic Party chairman, called on the Chinese Communist Party to change its policies in Hong Kong.

"Unless the C.C.P. is doing something concrete to address the concerns of the Hong Kong people," he said, "I think this movement cannot end.." 

Regina Ip, a cabinet member and the leader of a pro-Beijing political party, said she was surprised to see so many young voters, many of whom tried to confront her with the protesters' demands.

"Normally," she said, "the young people do not come out to vote. But this time, the opposition managed to turn them out."

Ahead of the election, the city's leadership was concerned that the vote would be marred by the chaos of recent months. Some of the most violent clashes yet between protesters and the police took place last week, turning two university campuses into battlegrounds.. 

But the city remained relatively calm on Sunday as voters turned out in droves. Long lines formed at polling centers in the morning, snaking around skyscrapers and past small shops. Riot police officers were deployed near polling stations on Sunday.

David Lee, a retired printer approaching his 90th birthday, was among the earliest voters on Hong Kong Island and said he had come because he wanted democracy.

"This is important," he said. 

Some analysts had predicted that pro-democracy candidates would have difficulty making big gains. Pro-Beijing candidates are much better financed, and the district races have traditionally been won on purely local issues, not big questions like democracy, saidJoseph Cheng, a retired professor at City University of Hong Kong.

But voter turnout soared to 71 percent, far surpassing expectations. Typically in district council elections, it is little more than 40 percent. Four years ago, after the 2014 Umbrella Movement increased public interest in politics, turnout climbed to 47 percent. This year, the number of registered voters hit a record.

On Sunday, several prominent pro-Beijing politicians lost their races, among them Michael Tien, a longtime establishment lawmaker. After his defeat, he said the increase in young voters signaled that they were becoming more politically engaged, adding that the government should listen to them.

In the district of Tuen Mun, about a hundred people celebrated with cheers and champagne the defeat of Junius Ho, a controversial lawmaker many protesters accused of supporting mob attacks against them.

The victory on Sunday eclipsed the pro-democracy camp's last big win in these elections, when they won 198 seats, still short of a majority, following huge protests in 2003. Those demonstrations led the government to scrap a national security bill requested by Beijing that critics said would have endangered civil liberties in Hong Kong.

The government's allies dominated the elections that followed, though. Beijing began investing heavily in grass-roots mobilization efforts, including busing large numbers of older Hong Kong citizens from retirement homes in mainland China to polling places in Hong Kong.

Instead of just focusing on local issues, many pro-democracy candidates ran on the broad themes of the protest movement, especially anger at police brutality, and the intensity of the demonstrations sometimes spilled into the race. Candidates on both sides were attacked while campaigning. 

Mandy Lee, 53, a homemaker who voted at the Kowloon Bay neighborhood, showed up to vote for the pro-Beijing establishment and criticized the protests.

"It's not that I have no sympathy toward young people, but I strongly believe that their efforts are futile," she said. "We are a tiny island; it's only a matter of time before China takes us over and integrates us."

The outcome of the election could further complicate the position of Carrie Lam, Hong Kong's embattled chief executive. Critics say that she has failed to engage with the community over the protests and many have demanded she step down..

On Monday, Mrs. Lam said in a statement that the government respected the results of the election. "Many have pointed out that the results reflect the public's dissatisfaction with the social situation and deep-seated problems," she said, adding that the government would "listen to the views of the public with an open mind and seriously reflect on them.."

In June, Mrs.. Lam set off enormous protests by pushing ahead with a bill that would have allowed the extradition of Hong Kong residents to the opaque judicial system in mainland China. The issue played to deeper worries about Beijing's encroachment on Hong Kong, which has maintained its own political and judicial system since the former British colony was reclaimed by China in 1997.

Mrs. Lam withdrew her proposal after months of protests, but many said she acted too late. The protesters are now demanding additional concessions, including the introduction of universal suffrage and an independent inquiry into police conduct. 

The election results on Sunday will allow them to argue that the public supports them. About 57 percent of voters cast ballots for pro-democracy candidates, while nearly 40 percent voted for Beijing's allies. The remaining 3 percent voted for independents, who won five seats.

Many pro-Beijing political parties receive large donations from the Hong Kong subsidiaries of state-owned enterprises in mainland China, which they use to organize picnics and other campaign events. But the results on Sunday showed the limits of these efforts.

Reporting was contributed by K.K. Rebecca Lai in New York and Jin Wu and Katherine Li in Hong Kong.

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4)  Corruption Inquiry Spreads to U.A.W. Lakeside Resort

A dozen union officials have been charged or convicted in a sprawling federal investigation.

By Neal Boudette, November 25, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/25/business/uaw-resort-investigation.html

Rather than a showplace for the U.A.W., the union's Black Lake resort is a part of the union's financial difficulties.Credit....Neal E. Boudette/The New York Times

ONAWAY, Mich. — The United Auto Workers union is based in Detroit, but its spiritual home lies 250 miles to the north, in a dense and remote forest on the shores of Black Lake.

Here, 40 miles from the nearest Starbucks, the U.A.W. owns a spartan retreat known to few people outside the auto industry, though it opened nearly 50 years ago. Covering 1,000 acres, the gated compound includes cabins, lodges, a banquet hall and a recreation center with an Olympic-size swimming pool. An eternal flame marks the hilltop resting place of the ashes of Walter Reuther, who built the U.A.W. into one of the most powerful unions in the country in the 1950s and 1960s..

This tranquil scene was disrupted in August when the F.B.I. raided the compound, seizing documents and records. The raid was the latest chapter in a yearslong Justice Department investigation into corruption at the union that has thrown the U.A.W. into turmoil and embroiled two of Detroit's Big Three automakers — Fiat Chrysler and General Motors. 

The resort was one of a half-dozen locations government agents searched. The raids signaled that investigators were not done with their work, despite having charged or won convictions of a dozen union officials and three Fiat Chrysler executives.

Last week, the U.A.W. president, Gary Jones, resigned as the union's executive board was preparing to remove him for the submission of false expense reports and using union money for personal gain. The U.A.W. said Mr. Jones had concealed the use of more than $1 million in union funds for luxury travel, extravagant dinners and purchases of high-price cigars, golf clubs and apparel for himself, his family and his lieutenants.

What drew federal agents to Black Lake is not clear. But union members and labor experts have criticized the U..A.W.'s unusual decision to build a luxury lakeside cabin at the resort for the exclusive use of Mr. Jones's predecessor as president, Dennis Williams. Federal agents searched the cabin and separately raided a home owned by Mr. Williams in Corona, Calif. The union is reviewing other financial transactions for possible wrongdoing, and now plans to sell the cabin and the land that it sits on in a secluded corner of the retreat, said Brian Rothenberg, a U.A.W. spokesman. 

The decision to sell the cabin was part of a set of reforms instituted by the acting president, Rory Gamble, after he took the helm from Mr. Jones. "Restoring the full faith and trust of our membership and protecting their interests is the top priority," Mr. Rothenberg said.

The U.A.W. provided more modest, rustic cabins within the retreat complex for other previous retired presidents, and the union is considering ending that practice, too.

Union members and supporters say it is particularly disappointing that the resort — formally called the Walter P.. and May Reuther Family Education Center — has been pulled into the investigation. The union uses it as a place for members to study the past and plan for the future in training seminars and conferences.

"Black Lake serves a critical purpose for the union," said Harley Shaiken, a labor relations professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who has attended and taught seminars at the retreat since the 1970s. "It's historically important for the union. It's meant to get people together to debate critical issues. It's a place of thinking and engaging."

When the retreat opened in 1970, it was heralded for its timbered beams and spare Scandinavian design.

Today, rather than a showplace for the U.A.W., Black Lake is a part of the union's financial difficulties. The union spends several million dollars a year to operate it — money that is classified as a loan to the subsidiary that operates Black Lake. In 2018, the accumulated debt amounted to more than $60 million.

Anyone can book a stay there. During a recent overnight stay, I found it dated. Guest rooms feature few of the amenities found in modern hotels, like Wi-Fi and cable TV. Some hallways were marked by musty odors.. But a golf course the U.A.W. built just outside the retreat in 2000, at a cost of $6.7 million, is considered one of the best in Michigan.

At the main gate, I was told only union-made vehicles were allowed on the grounds. I had to park my Volkswagen in a lot outside the perimeter... Some Chevrolets and Fords were parked there, too, because vehicles made in Mexico are not welcome, either.

That week Black Lake was hosting about 150 workers for a weeklong seminar on the history of organized labor and the U.A.W. Any member is welcome to attend such courses. The union covers the cost and offsets the wages workers would have earned that week. Participants said they spent much of the day in lectures — instructors take attendance. One afternoon is set aside for recreation.

When I visited, the large gymnasium with two full-size basketball courts and the pool were empty most of the day. Six pool tables remained untouched in a darkened room.

These days, senior union officials often hold meetings in places like Orlando, Fla., Washington, D.C., and May, N.J. Before becoming the U.A..W. president in 2018, Mr. Jones ran a regional office in Hazelwood, Mo., and held annual conferences in Palm Springs, Calif. Court filings by federal prosecutors and an internal union complaint against Mr.. Jones claim that he and other union officials booked luxury villas for four weeks or more, even though the Palm Springs conferences lasted less than a week.

In raids at Mr. Jones's home and elsewhere, agents seized thousands of dollars in cash, hundreds of bottles of high-price liquor, hundreds of golf shirts, multiple sets of golf clubs and large quantities of cigars that had been billed to union accounts, according to court filings. One dinner described by prosecutors ran up a bill of $6,599.87 that included $1,760 for four bottles of Louis Roederer Cristal Champagne.

A lawyer for Mr. Jones, J. Bruce Maffeo, said the suggestion that the conference expenses had been concealed "is without any basis in fact." Spending for the conferences in Palm Springs was "laid out in sufficient detail to the U.A..W. accounting department over a period of years."

A close associate of Mr. Jones who helped organize the conferences in Palm Springs and has been charged by federal prosecutors, Vance Pearson, resigned from the U.A.W. on Sunday. The union had been taking steps to remove him from his post as a regional director.

Back at the union's Black Lake resort, the stone and glass cabin for Mr. Williams, the former president, is in a fenced-off area more than a mile from the main complex. But it is accessible from the lake. Wading in to its shoreline, I found the home with picture windows facing the lake. According to the county planning office, the 1,885-square-foot residence has cherry cabinets, granite countertops, three-and-a-half baths and a stone patio.

Mr. Reuther hoped the union would train future generations of leaders in the contemplative setting far from the toil of assembly lines. At one time, it had a day care center — Mr. Reuther imagined workers' families joining them on their retreats.

He also hoped it would be a place where the U.A.W. could use its power to solve societal problems. The first event held at Black Lake was a conference on the environment that the union organized with the United Nations in the summer of 1970.

Such was the U.A.W.'s reach that it could attract foreign government officials to Northern Michigan. But Mr. Reuther didn't attend the event. He died in a plane crash while traveling to Black Lake a few months earlier. 

Shortly after the resort opened, the union waged a bitter strike against G.M., and it eventually prevailed, coming away with significant wage increases. The strike was tough on the union, which depleted its strike fund and went into debt, even mortgaging Black Lake to the Teamsters for a time.

By the 1980s, the Big Three auto companies and the union were in a slow decline. Today, the U.A.W.'s membership has fallen to about 400,000, from as many as 1.5 million when Mr. Reuther ran it. But it still remains a potent force, recently winning higher wages and bonuses for G.M. workers after a 40-day strike.

Around the time G.M. and Chrysler were in bankruptcy in 2009, the U.A.W. tried sell the resort, which was viewed as a luxury when thousands of workers were losing their jobs. But the union couldn't find a buyer.

That's good news, said JoAn Matney, a retired autoworker from Toledo. "It's empowering and fun to go there," she said. "I definitely think they should keep it."

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5) They Spent 36 Years Behind Bars for Murder. Someone Else Did It.

Three men were imprisoned as teenagers for the shooting of a middle school student over his jacket. That was 1983. Now prosecutors say they didn't do it.

By Timothy Williams, November 25, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/baltimore-men-exonerated-murder.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage

Alfred Chestnut hugged his mother after being freed from prison in Baltimore on Monday.Credit...Todd Kimmelman/Miap, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The three teenagers were arrested on Thanksgiving Day, 1983, and deemed the perpetrators of a brazen crime: They had shot and killed a 14-year-old boy as he walked down the hallway of his junior high school to lunch. They wanted the boy's jacket, a popular Georgetown Starter style, the authorities said, and that motive — chilling and petty — drew outrage in Baltimore, where a jury soon convicted the teenagers of murder and sent them away for life. 

Thirty-six years later, prosecutors announced that the convictions had been in error. Another teenager, the prosecutors now acknowledge, had been the real killer.

On Monday, three men — now graying and in their 50s — walked out of prison, freed after spending all of their adult lives behind bars. Alfred Chestnut, Ransom Watkins and Andrew Stewart appeared relieved but also perplexed as they emerged to tell a cluster of waiting news cameras about their years in prison, waging what often seemed like a hopeless fight to prove their innocence in the long-ago murder that they had always insisted they did not commit.

"I've been always dreaming of this," said Mr. Chestnut, who was flanked by his mother and his fiancée. "All my friends in prison know that I've always been talking about this, dreaming about this all of the time. Even when I was a kid, you know? 'Why is this happening to me?'"

From left, Alfred Chestnut, Andrew Stewart and Ransom Watkins.Credit...Todd Kimmelman/Miap, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

As part of a series of recent examinations of old, questionable cases, a unit of the Baltimore prosecutor's office found numerous errors in the investigation of the school shooting case. The new review concluded that a different student, now deceased, actually shot DeWitt Duckett, the junior high school student who was killed as he walked through Harlem Park Junior High School in Baltimore. 

On Monday, Charles Peters, a Baltimore circuit court judge, accepted the state's attorney's request to exonerate the three men.

"My heart breaks for all three of these men, who must now reconcile that we live in a world that could take 36 years away from innocent men," said Marilyn Mosby, the state's attorney, who took over the prosecutor's office in 2015, decades after the original trial. "Today isn't a victory. Today it's a tragedy that these men had 36 years of their lives stolen."

Around the country, it has become increasingly common for prosecutors' offices to assign investigators to re-examine convictions when evidence suggests an error might have been made.

From San Francisco to Brooklyn, prosecutors now have teams of specialized investigators who sift through old evidence. Dozens of people have been freed every year because of findings of significant errors or evidence of police or prosecutorial misconduct. In Baltimore, Ms. Mosby's office has cleared six other people of serious crimes since she took over.

The case of the three men released on Monday stood out for the length of time the men had served, and the ages at which they had been sent to prison: They spent more than twice as long behind bars as they had growing up at home. They had all along insisted that they were innocent, and they told people that every chance they got. Even when they had chances of parole, years into their sentences, they had been unable to get it because they were unwilling to admit to the killing. 

Ms. Mosby's office said that the case against the three men was plagued with misconduct, including lies told by Jonathan Shoup, the state's attorney at the time, that unfairly tipped the case in prosecutors' favor. Mr. Shoup died in 2016.

The three men, who were then 16-year-old high school students, had ditched classes on Nov. 18, 1983, and had been at the junior high visiting friends until a security guard kicked them off campus.

About 30 minutes later, DeWitt, the junior high student, was walking to lunch with friends when someone demanded his jacket. After a struggle, he was shot with a .22-caliber handgun in the neck and collapsed. He died two hours later.

The school shooting drew close attention at the time, and police officers had been under immense pressure to swiftly solve the case, prosecutors said. 

Among failings of the earlier investigation, Ms. Mosby's office said, were denials by Mr. Shoup that his office possessed evidence that might cast doubt on the guilt of the three. Yet multiple witnesses at the time, Ms.. Mosby's office said, had actually identified a different person, Michael Willis, then 18, as the gunman.

Mr. Willis died in a shooting in 2002. 

The new evidence was only revealed after Mr. Chestnut, now 52, submitted a public records request in 2018 and was eventually granted access to the court file that had been sealed by the trial judge. 

The file also showed that four juvenile witnesses, who told the court that Mr. Chestnut and the others had been involved in the shooting, had actually failed multiple times to identify them in photo arrays before the trial.

The witnesses, who were junior high school students, have since recanted, according to the court documents. They told investigators that they had been coached and pressured by police officers, who met with them a number of times without their parents present..

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6) FEMA’s Hurricane Aid to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands Has Stalled

Two years after Hurricanes Maria and Irma, records show the agency’s work on long-term recovery on the islands is crawling compared with some states on the mainland.

By Mark Walker and Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Photo by Christopher Gregory, November 27, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/27/us/politics/fema-hurricane-aid-puerto-rico-virgin-islands.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

The Public Works Department’s workshop in Yabucoa, P.R., last month. Much of the town was destroyed by Hurricane Maria.

ST. CROIX, U.S. Virgin Islands — More than two years after back-to-back hurricanes ravaged this tropical island, medical workers are still treating gunshot wounds in hallways and kidney failure in a trailer. They ignore their own inflamed rashes that they say are caused by the mold that has shut down an entire hospital floor below a still-porous roof.

At least they have a hospital. The lone medical center on Vieques, an idyllic island that is part of Puerto Rico, was severely damaged by Hurricanes Maria and Irma, then abandoned to wandering roosters and grazing horses. Ailing people wait at the ferry dock to catch a boat to the mainland. 

Two years on, “we are in the same situation as we were in the days after the hurricane,” said Rafael Surillo Ruiz, the mayor of Yabucoa, on Puerto Rico’s hard-hit eastern edge.

An examination of Federal Emergency Management Agency dataand records demonstrates the degree to which the recovery from Hurricanes Maria and Irma on America’s Caribbean islands has been stalled compared with some of the most disaster-prone states on the mainland, leaving the islands’ critical infrastructure in squalor and limbo. FEMA officials say 190 long-term recovery projects have been funded in Puerto Rico — out of more than 9,000 requests. On the United States Virgin Islands, about 218 projects had funding — out of more than 1,500 requests and still counting.

In contrast, about 3,700 large and small permanent work projects had obligated funding in Texas, two years after Hurricane Harvey hit the Gulf Coast in August 2017. More than 3,700 such projects had been funded over that time in Florida.

That disparity underscored how a federal government in Washington has treated citizens on the mainland, with voting representatives in Congress and a say in presidential contests, compared with citizens on the islands. Further complicating the recovery are issues of corruption, often amplified by President Trump and, islanders say, questions of race. 

“At the end of the day, we’re talking about the life and the well-being of human beings,” said Dyma Williams, the acting chief executive at the Gov. Juan F. Luis Hospital on St. Croix. “I hate to make the distinction about American versus not American, but at the end of the day, we’re not being treated the same way as other Americans are being treated.”

Jeffrey Byard, the associate administrator for the Office of Response and Recovery at FEMA, said the agency had never seen recovery efforts like those from the natural disasters of 2017, which included Hurricanes Harvey, Maria and Irma, as well as wildfires in California. 

“Comparing disasters misleads the American people,” he said. “Each event has a unique set of circumstances, and numbers alone cannot and do not provide a complete picture of what is needed to help communities recover.”

FEMA, through its public assistance program, helps communities recover from major disasters by assisting with debris removal, lifesaving emergency protective measures and public infrastructure reconstruction. Debris removal and protective measures are classified as emergency work. The “permanent work” of public infrastructure repair is what guarantees long-term recovery.

And that permanent work is in little evidence on St. Croix and in Puerto Rico.

“When you’re living on an island and you don’t have a voice on decisions that are made, that tends to happen to you,” said Yves Abraham, the principal of St. Croix’s hard-hit Central High School. “Who do you gripe to? All we can do is sit and wait.”

FEMA officials say much of the problem lies with the system that Washington uses to pay for recovery assistance. Local governments or charities usually front the money to at least begin construction and then are reimbursed by FEMA. But the islands have seen a sluggish economic recovery after the hurricanes.

“Because of the fiscal challenges and their situation financially, they don’t have the funding or access to loans,” said Chris Currie, the director of the Government Accountability Office team that studies disaster relief. “So they are completely reliant on FEMA.” 

Hopes were raised recently at the Juan F. Luis Hospital with the appearance of a row of trailers where the community could be treated until a replacement hospital is built. But Adrienne Williams-Octalien, the director of the local disaster recovery office on St. Croix, said the island did not have the upfront funds to start retrofitting the trailers, and help from FEMA had been delayed by a tussle over how much of the costs the federal agency would cover. That has pushed the completion date of even the temporary structure to the spring of 2020 — near the start of the next hurricane season. 

“Most municipalities and agencies, which is what we are focusing on right now, don’t have the money to start the work,” said Ottmar J. Chavez, the executive director of Puerto Rico’s Central Office for Recovery, Reconstruction and Resiliency.

Almost from the beginning, relief funds have been caught in Trump-era politics, with freighted charges coming from Democrats and the White House. 

“From Day 1, right after Maria hit Puerto Rico, there has been a different standard for how the administration responded to Harvey and Irma,” said Representative Nydia M. Velázquez, Democrat of New York and the first Puerto Rican woman elected to the House. She grew emotional as she described her trip to Vieques this month; her own sister had no power for 13 months.

The mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulín Cruz, who personally clashed with the president, said she had searched for the answer for why the recovery effort in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands had been so slow and could come up with only one: Those places were treated with no sense of urgency because the victims were people of color.

“You can kill people with a gun or you can kill them with neglect,” Ms. Cruz said.

Some officials on the islands conceded that they bore some responsibility; they have struggled to retain local staff and have had difficulty with the paperwork needed to assess hurricane damage.

Mr. Byard referred to what he called Puerto Rico’s “history of fiscal mismanagement of U.S. taxpayer dollars.” 

Mr. Trump has complained often about waste and fraud, especially in Puerto Rico, where the governor, Ricardo A. Rosselló, resigned in July amid a popular uprising driven by decades of mismanagement. 

In truth, misuse of FEMA disaster relief is as old as the agency itself. After Hurricane Katrina, a Texas hotel owner was charged with submitting $232,000 in bills for phantom victims. Officials ordered mobile homes worth nearly half a billion dollars that were never used, and renovations for a shelter at a former Alabama Army base cost $416,000 per evacuee.

In their criticism of Puerto Rico, White House aides pointed to 375 public corruption convictions between 2008 and 2017, but that figure was driven largely by a federal investigation into its police force in 2011. During the same time frame, Texas had almost 1,000 public corruption convictions.

James Lee Witt, who led FEMA from 1993 through 2001, noted that in September 1995, Hurricane Marilyn struck St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, damaged or destroyed most of the homes, closed the island’s hospital and cut off most communication. FEMA completed what he considered a smooth and fast recovery

Now, he said, he knows of contractors in the Caribbean who are not being paid and have suspended operations until they are. Others have yet to start.

Congress recognized the slow pace of recovery in Puerto Rico and on the Virgin Islands when it allowed FEMA to waive certain requirements for reconstruction of infrastructure on the islands, including the rebuilding of hospitals and schools. The federal agency no longer needed to consider the condition of the facilities before the disasters in order to rebuild them. 

FEMA made another significant concession for Puerto Rico. For some projects in the past, the agency has used “alternative procedures” that allowed a local government and FEMA to negotiate the overall cost of a rebuilding effort; FEMA would then front the money in a flat-fee contract rather than reimburse the local government later. As Puerto Rico’s recovery stalled, FEMA decided to use that method to finance virtually all of the infrastructure rebuilding projects.

But those concessions have not cut through the distrust. Puerto Rico says FEMA is lowballing its rebuilding estimates, while FEMA accuses Puerto Rico of exaggerating costs. Because they cannot agree on project-by-project recovery costs, work cannot begin.

So far, FEMA and other agencies have disbursed about $14 billion in aid to Puerto Rico, out of an estimated $91 billion that will be needed over the next two decades, Mr. Chavez said. Most of that money went toward debris removal, emergency home repairs and restoring power, which took almost a year.

Teachers at the Hope School, a special-needs public school in San Juan, were able to raise $60,000 for air-conditioners for the stricken building. They are still waiting for FEMA to reimburse them, the head of the school said. The Berwind Intermediate School in San Juan has been abandoned because of mold and water damage, its students shipped to an overcrowded school nearby. 

“We have been able to deal with it, but it is uncomfortable,” said Manuel Echavarria, an English teacher who worked at Berwind for 13 years. 

On Vieques, Ismael Guadalupe Ortiz, 75, has struggled to get treatment for his chronic kidney issues. The ferry to the main island is unreliable and overrun with tourists who get first dibs.

“Most of the people of Vieques don’t take care of their health because they have problems with the transportation,” Mr. Guadalupe Ortiz said.

Mr. Surillo, the Yabucoa mayor, estimated that residents in his city had abandoned 200 to 300 homes while waiting for help from FEMA. About 50 other houses are occupied, with blue tarps to keep out the rain. About 85 bridges need repairs.

“We received a little bit of money for single debris pickup, but when it comes to permanent work, not a penny,” he said.

The recovery efforts are more visible in the schools of the Virgin Islands, but they are far from where residents thought they would be two years ago. Children on St. Croix attend classes in trailers that from the inside are hard to differentiate from a typical classroom. But school gyms and music halls — some with collapsed roofs, others festering with mold — remain closed.

Students at St. Croix Central High School have complained of skin rashes from the mold, said Mr. Abraham, the school’s principal. Teachers have threatened legal action over their unsanitary work conditions.

He doubted that they would still be forced to work in those conditions if they were on the mainland.

Emily Cochrane contributed reporting from Washington. Kitty Bennett contributed research.

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