May 16, 2021

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Minneapolis Star Tribune

US rail industry defends safety record amid staffing cuts

By JOSH FUNK
  • — Even as railroads are operating longer and longer freight trains that sometimes stretch for miles, the companies have drastically reduced staffing levels, prompting unions to warn that moves meant to increase profits could endanger safety and even result in disasters.
  • CSX officials said most of the key safety measures they track like employee injuries and train accidents have improved since it started using the Precision Scheduled Railroading operating model.
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Portland Oregon | KOIN News

Man behind ‘Keep Portland Weird’ says city not as weird anymore

By Danny Peterson
  • "I think our reputation is tattered in a bit in terms of that 'keep it weird.' And we discovered it's more like keep it isolated and myopic...my interpretation of weird is not what we've been experiencing in Portland the last year," said Eddie B.
  • After talking to a friend and fellow record store owner who lived in Austin, Texas, Currier took a liking to that city's recently adopted motto, "Keep Austin Weird."
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Vanity Fair

Joe Exotic Believes He Has Cancer, Wants a Presidential Pardon

By Jordan Hoffman
  • John Cameron Mitchell is set to play Joe Exotic in an upcoming NBC/Peacock miniseries based on the Tiger King tale, opposite Kate McKinnon as Baskin.
  • Joe Exotic, the subject of Netflix's Tiger King documentary, is calling for help from the federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas, where he is currently serving his 22 year sentence for attempting to contract the killing of his nemesis, Carole Baskin, several violations of the Endangered Species Act, and additional counts of animal cruelty.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal

Israel determined to complete operation against Hamas targets, Netanyahu says

  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday signaled the fourth war between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza would rage into a second week on despite international efforts to broker de-escalation or a cease-fire.
  • The United Nations Security Council was preparing to meet Sunday at the urging of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who blamed the United States and its support for Israel for the council’s lack of action thus far.
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Orange County Register

How Working Wardrobes is helping women out of the ‘she-cession’

By Samantha Gowen
  • Working Wardrobes Chief Program Officer Mary Ann Profeta, left, and CEO and Founder Jerri Rosen, right, in one of the work rooms in their new offices in Santa Ana, a year following a devastating fire, on Thursday, May 13, 2021.
  • Working Wardrobes CEO and Founder Jerri Rosen, left, and Chief Program Officer Mary Ann Profeta, right, stand among the clothing in their new offices in Santa Ana, a year following a devastating fire, on Thursday, May 13, 2021.
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US news | The Guardian

Joe Biden feels political ground shift as Israel-Gaza conflict rages on

By Julian Borger in Washington
  • In his staunch defence of Israel, Joe Biden is sticking to a course set decades ago as a young senator, and has not so far given ground on the issue to the progressive wing of his party or many Jewish Democrats urging a tougher line towards Benjamin Netanyahu.
  • The liberal Jewish American lobby, J Street, has growing influence in the Democratic party, and has urged Biden to do more to stop the bloodshed, and the Israeli policies that have helped drive the conflict.
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Vanity Fair

An Elton John Acceptance Speech Is Embroiled in a Strange Custody Battle

By Jordan Hoffman
  • According to PageSix's insider, Bergen shot footage of Elton and David at their Oscar party, submitted a watermarked version of the clip, and then "went AWOL." A lawsuit on behalf of the producers, MZA Events, claims that he "provided the video in an unusable [watermarked] format out of spite and for the purpose of antagonizing MZA Events because MZA Events was unwilling to accommodate Mr. Bergen’s ‘my way or the highway’ approach to producing the video."
  • According to a report in PageSix, the tape of John and Furnish accepting the award will not be shown during the telecast, because the person who shot it is, in the words of the events company producing the show, "holding the footage hostage."
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Toledo Blade

Bahá’ís, friends look to 1921 in organizing Friday’s Race Amity Festival

With the wounds of the “red summer” race riots still fresh in the national consciousness, American Bahá'ís turned their focus on relationships. What the country needed was friendships that stretched across racial lines, they reasoned in extending invitations to their “Convention for Amity Between the Colored and White Races Based on Heavenly Teachings” in May, 1921. […]Read more >Similar articles >

Alabama News Network

Lawmakers Return to Montgomery Monday for Final Day of 2021 Session

Alabama lawmakers are returning for the final day of the legislative session with a number of large and controversial issues before them. One of the most pressing issues Monday is final approval of the general fund budget. Another bill that could be addressed is a ban on gender-affirming treatments for transgender minors. Lawmakers are weighing a pause in an upcoming requirement for third-graders to pass a reading test before moving to the fourth grade. House leaders said they are doubtful a gambling bill will get a vote as lawmakers face a ticking clock and continued divisions on the matter. (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights […]Read more >Similar articles >
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Orange County Register

How a Southern California dystopia spawned Ben H. Winters’ new supernatural novel

By Stuart Miller
  • Now, out on May 18 from Mulholland Books, Winters has a new novel called “The Quiet Boy”… and it’s about a lawyer named Shenk, a case involving a grievously wounded boy named Wesley Keener and, you guessed it, a supernatural twist.
  • Winters is also known for “The Last Policeman” trilogy (set right before an asteroid destroys life on Earth) and “Underground Airlines” (another alternate reality, this one where there was no Civil War and slavery remains legal in four states), and he was recently included in the anthology “Speculative Los Angeles.”
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New Hampshire | Concord Monitor

My Turn: SB 130 deserves due diligence

  • In Pembroke, where I worked from 1989 to 2008, and where I have resided since 2003, we struggle every budget cycle to fund our public schools adequately and also try to keep the tax rate (among the highest in the state) reasonable.
  • Besides my career in education, I have spent six years in the state legislature (four of which were on the House Education Committee), six years as a member of the Pembroke School Board, and currently am a member of the Pembroke Municipal Budget Committee.
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Orange County Register

Blowing through stop signs on a bike

By Larry Wilson
  • … I’m thoroughly sick of cyclists blowing through stop signs and red lights, failing to signal, not wearing helmets, riding three or four abreast on a narrow street, then complaining about how badly they’re treated by motorists.
  • I had mentioned in this 2017 missive that I was in favor of cyclists blowing through stop signs, and that, while I am an infrequent bike rider myself, I have been known to pedal full steam ahead past the red menaces into intersections without a care in the world, much less a guilty conscience.
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Toledo Blade

Toledo Magazine: Blessing of the Bikes lends a spiritual note to the start of the season

For Jeff“Doc” Van Buren, riding is therapy. The roads without end, the solitude and the silence, the wind blowing past his face — it all helps clear his head and burn off his energy.Eventually, though, that wasn’t enough. You can"ride and ride and ride," Van Buren said,but it can never truly fill in for “a higher purpose.” So while he’d first gotten on a motorcycle to “get away from church people,” a church, of sorts, is exactly where his motorcycle took him. […]Read more >Similar articles >
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Des Moines, Iowa | KCCI News

What’s Keeping Workers at Home: Unemployment Pay or Low Wages?

  • THE STRONGEST GROWTH IN APRIL WAS IN THE LEISURE AND HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY THAT STANDS IN CONTRADICTION TO THE IDEA THAT PEOPLE ARE NOT COMING BACK TO WORK BECAUSE OF UI BENEFITS, BECAUSE PEOPLE IN LEISURE AND HOSPITALITY ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE LOW WAGE WORKERS WHO WOULD BE ELIGIBLE FOR A BENEFIT THAT MAY BE HIGHER THAN THEIR REGULAR PAY.
  • SO IF EMPLOYERS IN THAT INDUSTRY NEED MORE WORKERS, IT’S REASONABLE THAT THEY WOULD OFFER HIGHER WAGES TO COMPENSATE THOSE PEOPLE IN PART FOR THE INCREASED RISK THAT THEY FACE IN COMING BACK TO WORK.
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US politics | The Guardian

Biden aides defend controversial Covid mask guidance change

By Richard Luscombe
  • This week’s surprise reversal of mask-wearing guidance for those vaccinated against Covid-19 was a “foundational first step” towards returning the US to normal, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) insisted on Sunday, as the agency continued to draw criticism for the sudden and confusing advice.
  • A growing number of groups and health experts have questioned the new guidance, which reversed the CDC position that even those fully vaccinated should continue to wear masks indoors.
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San Antonio Current

Artistic memorial to Taco Land owner Ram Ayala goes up at San Antonio’s Velvet Taco

By Sanford Nowlin
Ram Ayala, the late owner of Taco Land, received a fitting tribute Saturday with the installation of a memorial mosaic at the site of the storied underground rock club.

Working under a tarp in the rain, visual artist Mig Kokinda and assistant Matt Simpson — both Taco Land regulars — assembled ceramic tiles on the outside wall of the Pearl-area Velvet Taco. […]Read more >Similar articles >
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US news | The Guardian

Why are Palestinians protesting? Because we want to live | Mariam Barghouti

By Mariam Barghouti
  • Over the past decade, much of this burden of protest has been borne by individual Palestinian families facing expulsion or violence at the hands of soldiers and settlers.
  • It reminds me of the day in December 2011, in the village of Nabi Saleh, when an Israeli soldier fired a teargas canister, from close range, directly at the face of 28-year-old Palestinian stone-thrower Mustafa Tamimi, who died as a result of the injury.
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Iowa Capital Dispatch

What American farmers could gain by rejoining the Asia-Pacific trade deal that Trump spurned

By Andrew Muhammad
  • The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership could be the easiest path forward if the U.S. wanted to improve trade relations with Southeast Asia.
  • Rejoining the partnership, renamed the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2018, could signal to the world that the U.S. is back in the global engagement arena.
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Wall Street Journal

BlackRock’s Rieder Learned Value of Moderation From 1980s Bond Blowup

  • He doesn’t expect the pandemic recovery and fiscal stimulus to spur a wave of inflation that ends the long bull market in bonds, but he is also hedging those wagers after learning early in his career that being right isn’t the same thing as making money.
  • BlackRock bond chief Rick Rieder learned long ago that making big bets is the easiest way to end up with outsize losses.
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Denver Post

Don’t miss your chance to see 7 impressionist masterpieces by Monet, Degas and more

By Ray Mark Rinaldi, The Know
  • The exhibit provides an opportunity not only to introduce Thornley to a new audience but also to bring a few examples of actual works by superstar artists to an unlikely venue.
  • If they are not all examples that top museums seek to collect, they are all surely works that explain the reasons Degas, Monet and Pissarro are in the upper tier of Impressionism.
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Denver Post

How a Texas mom left her family to become “Mother God,” leader of Colorado’s Love Has Won cult

By Noelle Phillips
  • That man referred to himself as Father God and told Carlson she was Mother God. Soon, Carlson started talking about spaceships and ascension while she was with him, said Ray, who started investigating Love Has Won last year when her brother left his wife and children to join the cult.
  • Amy Carlson, known as Mother God by dozens who follow her in person and online, had for years predicted she would ascend to a “fifth dimension” to save humanity, but observers who try to dispel the cult’s instruction believe she ultimately became a victim of her own teachings.
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Minneapolis Star Tribune

Republican Arizona election official says Trump “unhinged”

By BOB CHRISTIE
  • Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer on Saturday called a Trump statement accusing the county of deleting an elections database "unhinged" and called on other Republicans to stop the unfounded accusations.
  • PHOENIX — The Republican who now leads the Arizona county elections department targeted by a GOP audit of the 2020 election results is slamming former President Donald Trump and others in his party for their continued falsehoods about how the election was run.
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Toledo Blade

Bilyeu: Biscuit-baking bonanza

When you saw the title of this column, you likely thought I went on a binge baking biscuits— those glorious Southern-style, flaky quick breads that supplement a meal or can even be an integral part of one. (After all, what is sausage gravy and biscuits without the biscuits, right?) […]Read more >Similar articles >
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Vox

“Get the vaccine and enjoy life with no masks”: Kate McKinnon returns as SNL’s Dr. Fauci

By Cameron Peters
  • This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that fully vaccinated people can discard their masks in most circumstances — and Saturday Night Live brought back Kate McKinnon as Anthony Fauci to celebrate, and explain, in its latest cold open.
  • However, SNL ’s “CDC Players” don’t quite end up modeling the behavior they should: In the first scene, Beck Bennett, playing a CDC doctor playing a bar patron, takes off his mask before revealing that he is still unvaccinated.
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Iowa Capital Dispatch

How a plan to boost Kansas-Nebraska tourism got wrapped up in fears of a 30×30 ‘land-grab’

By Jacob Fischler
  • Lawmakers are generally supportive of efforts to bring federal dollars to their states, but U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, said last month he would reserve support for the National Heritage Area plan until it had more local backing.
  • And when President Joe Biden took office in January and signed an executive order directing his administration to come up with a plan to conserve 30% of U.S. land and water by 2030, the scattering of Kansas and Nebraska counties turned into ground zero for pushback to what’s known as the 30×30 plan.
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Orange County Register

Orange County’s LGBTQ Center is turning 50; here’s what’s changed over the years

By Theresa Walker
  • Kathy Yhip served on the board of directors at the LGBTQ Center Orange County in the 1990s and helped broaden the reach of its programs, along with an initiative called the Women’s Health Alliance.
  • Kathy Yhip, holding banner at far right, marches with board members and staff from the Orange County’s LGBTQ Center in in the OC Pride Parade, circa 1994.
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Albany Times Union

School budget votes, elections are Tuesday. Here’s what you need to know

By Rachel Silberstein, Wendy Liberatore, Kenneth C Crowe II, Paul Nelson

School districts across the Capital Region have submitted 2021-2022 budget proposals, most of them non-controversial and keeping the property tax levies within the state's 2 percent cap.

The spending plans, which are supplemented by billions of state aid and federal coronavirus relief dollars intended to reboot the educational systems disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, strive to bring as many students back to school full-time as possible.

On May 18, voters will decide at the ballot box whether to approve or reject the school spending proposals and fill any school board vacancies.

[…]Read more >Similar articles >
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Washington Post

China’s repression of Uyghurs is not only cultural, but also physical, a new report shows

By Editorial Board
  • In a report last year by researcher Adrian Zenz for the Jamestown Foundation, and in a new report this month by Nathan Ruser and James Leibold for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, both based on China’s own government data, a precipitous drop in Uyghur birthrates is evident in areas of southern Xinjiang.
  • This appears to be the result of a drive by China at mass sterilization, coerced birth control and punitive family policies.
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Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Phillips discusses Civil War battles

By Rachel Dickerson
  • Union troops were moving upriver from Baton Rouge to Vicksburg, and the Confederates realized they had to stop the federal forces from occupying the Red River, which was a major supply route.
  • BELLA VISTA -- Dale Phillips of the Bella Vista Civil War Round Table spoke to a large group May 6 night about the battles of Port Hudson and Baton Rouge in 1863.
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New Hampshire | Concord Monitor

Katy Burns: Canceling Cheney — R.I.P., GOP

  • And, given an at times downright illustrious history, you now, today, in this year of 2021, want to stake your future as a serious political party on the likes of Donald Trump, a two-bit chiseler who wouldn’t know (or tell) the truth about anything if it sprang up and bit him?
  • Cheney says aloud, repeatedly, that Donald Trump absolutely and positively, in more ways than one, did not win the 2020 presidential election.
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Washington Post

The plot of ‘The Plot’ — the best thriller of the year — is too good to give away

By Maureen Corrigan
  • Arriving smack in the middle of all this free-floating anxiety of authorship is Jean Hanff Korelitz’s new novel, “The Plot,” a witty nightmare of a thriller about the dangerous consequences of sticky fingers in the literary world.
  • When the story opens, Jacob has just arrived at his temporary office on campus without having read the writing samples his new students have sent to him in advance:
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The Salt Lake Tribune

Letter: A welcoming immigration policy will strengthen America’s well-being

By Raymond A. Hult | The Public Forum
  • A welcoming comprehensive and compassionate immigration policy at our southern border will strengthen, not detract, from our future national well-being.
  • As reported by author Jun Saito (of the Japan Center for Economic Research in the East Asia Forum) one solution is attempting to overcome a historic reluctance by a native Japanese population to welcome immigrant workers of other races to help fill the void.
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New Hampshire | Concord Monitor

Letter: We can’t forget those disabled by COVID-19

  • These so-called COVID-19 “long haulers” report ongoing fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, chronic pain, and exercise intolerance, in addition to cardiac and pulmonary dysfunction.
  • Long haulers who are unable to work as a result of debilitating symptoms worry about their future employment, uncertain access to disability benefits, and lack of available treatments.While our country prepares for a hopeful return to relative normalcy, millions are experiencing new disabilities.
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The Salt Lake Tribune

Letter: Politicians need to recognize the good tech companies are doing

By Joe Maughan | The Public Forum
Many Utah businesses have suffered greatly during the COVID-19 pandemic. In these times where economic doom was a reality for many businesses like mine, digital tools have been a literal lifeline to help keep them running. The evidence of their benefit has shown to be crystal clear according to a recent study: during the pandemic, digitally advanced businesses retained customers at a rate that was five times better than less digitally advanced businesses, and acquired new customers at a 20 times better rate compared to their nondigitally advanced counterparts. This was crucial in preventing the most disastrous scenario for Utah’s small […]Read more >Similar articles >
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Arkansas Democrat Gazette

I-30 lanes downtown to close next weekend

By ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
  • Monday-Thursday: I-40 eastbound and westbound overnight single-lane closures from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. The closures include the westbound lane closed between North Hills Boulevard on-ramp and the I-30 westbound overpass.
  • Monday-Thursday: I-40 westbound ramp from 8 a.m. to 5 a.m. This includes overnight left-lane closures between the I-40/I-30 split to the I-30 westbound merge.
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The Atlantic

Bump

By Morgan Thomas
  • “That shape says you’re having a girl,” Nana said into her stew, and I was pleased in spite of myself, cupping the bump, rubbing circles into it, doting on it like people do.
  • That evening, as I bathed Nana, hunched over the bump, over the tub, I said, “It’s almost like your great-grandbaby.”
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Arkansas Democrat Gazette

FEMA expected to survey Benton County flood damage

By Mike Jones
  • BENTONVILLE -- Federal Emergency Management Agency staff should be in Benton County later this month to gauge damage from flooding last month, an official said.
  • Moehring's declaration allows the county and affected cities to request assistance from the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management for uninsured public sector damages attributed to the storm and for repair to structures to predisaster conditions, the release stated.
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STAT

Mask mandates might be going away, but don’t ditch yours just yet, scientists caution

By Megan Molteni
  • F ully vaccinated people are exhaling this weekend, ditching masks and easing up on social distancing, per the latest Covid-19 guidance put out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  • Given the incredible efficacy of the vaccines — in particular the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines — and the impact they’re having on bringing down Covid cases, it makes sense to give immunized people something back, he said.
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Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Fort Smith school moves learning to church after tornado

By Thomas Saccente
  • Grand Avenue Baptist Church in Fort Smith became the place for prekindergarten through sixth grade on-site learning for Morrison Elementary School on Wednesday, according to a School District news release.
  • Britney Watson, principal of Morrison, said Thursday the damage makes the third consecutive year the school has experienced a crisis at the end of the academic year.
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Vanity Fair

Keegan-Michael Key Beats Up Muppets, Brings Professionalism Back to SNL

By Karen Valby
  • Lest white people be confused further, Thompson then joined Key onstage so that Kenan and Keegan could self-differentiate in real time: “I’m Kenan with an N, as in Kenan has been on SNL for many, many years.”
  • The cast of Saturday Night Live seemed delighted to have one of their own back on stage with them this week—particularly Kenan Thompson, who was on the verge of low-key breaking throughout most of their sketches together.
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KevinMD.com

A Black physician’s perfectionism

By Frieda Millhouse-Jones, MD
  • This little Black girl walked into an all-white school and took her seat on her first day.
  • I did not have much understanding of racism, stereotypes, or prejudice before I enrolled at this local elementary school, but the atmosphere there made sure that I learned quickly.
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Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Laying The Groundwork: Program aims to foster hip hop in NWA

By Jocelyn Murphy
  • Enter Groundwaves -- a monthly community hip hop open mic and mentorship series birthed at The Music District in Fort Collins, Colo., and now expanding for the first time to Springdale.
  • He and the rest of the audience will give performers feedback in real time, and the following day, those artists can schedule one-on-one meetings with Murs for the mentorship side of the series.
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Chicago Sun-Times

Woman visiting Chicago last seen near Mag Mile

Miranda Ramsey was last seen May 11, 2021, near the Mag Mile. | Chicago police Miranda Ramsey, 35, was last seen Tuesday in the 500 block of North Michigan Avenue, according to a missing person alert from Chicago police. Police are searching for a woman visiting Chicago who was last seen near the city’s Magnificent Mile. Miranda Ramsey, 35, was last seen Tuesday in the 500 block of North Michigan Avenue, according to a missing person alert from Chicago police. She was wearing a brown top, denim pants with a tear in the knee and grey gym shoes, police said. She was also carrying a backpack and rolling suitcase. Ramsey is 5-foot-8 and 160 […]Read more >Similar articles >
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Washington Post

The GOP needs to make a realistic counteroffer to Biden’s infrastructure plan

By Editorial Board
  • At issue is President Biden’s proposal for an eight-year, $2 trillion program that would not only build airports, roads and bridges but also expand green energy and care for the elderly and disabled, paid for, in part, by higher taxes on corporations.
  • The reason to suppose this isn’t kabuki is that Ms. Capito and the other GOP senators in the meeting represent rural states that could really use federal dollars.
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The Atlantic

Our Cynicism About Afghanistan Comes at a Cost

By Elliot Ackerman
  • Ten years ago, if my then-infant daughter had asked me why I was fighting in Afghanistan, that more cynical version of me—the one who arrived exhausted and bloody back at base after that ambush—likely wouldn’t have spoken much about girls going to school.
  • Putting my cynicism behind me allowed me to see Afghanistan and all we tried to accomplish there differently.
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Washington Post

Distinguished pol of the week: Finally, we will get the truth about Jan. 6

By Jennifer Rubin
  • Back in February, I argued that the country needed an independent body — styled on the 9/11 commission — to get a definitive account of the events of Jan. 6, understand the scope of the white-supremacist terror and address solutions to protect our democracy.
  • Thompson (D-Miss.) and ranking Republican John Katko (N.Y.), we have a tentative agreement, as they announced in a statement, for “a bipartisan, independent Commission to investigate the January 6 domestic terrorism attack on the United States Capitol and recommend changes to further protect the Capitol, the citadel of our democracy.”
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Arkansas Democrat Gazette

State called on to use surplus on health plan

By Michael R. Wickline
  • The Arkansas Education Association is calling on state officials to use part of the general revenue surplus to address the funding shortfall in the state's health insurance plan for public school employees.
  • The public school employees in the insurance plan are probably going to have to pay higher premiums, and it's possible that the state will provide more funding next year, Hickey said.
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Los Angeles Times

Op-Ed: How doctor culture sinks U.S. healthcare

By Robert Pearl
  • This invisible force — medical culture — wields tremendous influence over patients and physicians, with physical, financial and psychological consequences that range from lifesaving to life-ending.
  • It’s undervalued, even in terms of compensation, although multiple studies show that when healthcare providers place a high value on primary care, they reduce chronic disease by half compared with national averages.
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Minnesota - Twin Cities Pioneer Press

Letters: Show children they are loved, and learn to identify mental-health problems

By Letter Writers
  • Another example of blown out of proportion news: The news that bills making their way through the Wisconsin political process of making it more difficult to vote absentee ballot for people with disabilities show just how facts get thrown out that really don’t have the impact that some are trying to portray.
  • I am not trying to downplay people with disabilities but I am trying to show how information like this is trying to make mountains out of molehills, as the saying goes.
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Los Angeles Times

Second Opinion: “Grand strategy” has a bad rep. To fix it, go beyond hard power and traditional statecraft

By Christopher McKnight Nichols and David Greenberg
  • Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, wrote about finding the right inward-outward balance last fall: American world leadership should ideally reflect “a deeper understanding of domestic economic and social issues and their complex interaction with foreign policy decisions.”
  • More charitably understood, though, constructing a grand strategy is a way for policymakers to think analytically, with an eye toward long-term goals, about how nations and peoples should engage with one another.
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Books | The Guardian

Featherweight by Mick Kitson review – a punchy historical yarn

By Holly Williams

The rollicking story of a female bareknuckle boxer in Victorian England makes creative use of the novelist’s family history

Mick Kitson’s second novel, following 2018’s Sal, is practically the definition of a ripping yarn: a plucky young “Romi” girl, Annie, is bought by the Tipton Slasher, a bareknuckle boxer, with the winnings from his final fight. He raises her like a daughter and she follows his footsteps into the ring. The sight of a woman fighting “fisty” in Victorian England draws eager crowds and brings our heroine fame, fortune and an Adonis-like prizefighter of a husband. But these illegal fights lead Annie into peril, too, as she encounters vicious opponents, enraged lawmakers and nasty toffs who want her for their private entertainment

Kitson drew on his family’s myths – Annie and the Slasher are based on his ancestors – although he cheerfully admits the stories his grandmother told about them were notoriously unreliable. No matter: this is historical fiction rich in fun rather than meticulous fact, Kitson’s imagination allowed to roam and play.

Continue reading […]Read more >Similar articles >
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Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Washington news in brief

By Frank E. Lockwood
  • "From expanding trail access to aiding Native American tribes, these bills might not get national attention but they have a huge impact to communities in these members' districts.
  • "The United States engaging in active negotiations with Iran and potentially providing billions of dollars in sanctions relief will no doubt contribute to Iran's support of Hamas and other terrorist organizations who attack Americans and our allies.
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The Atlantic

The War on Trans Kids Is Totally Unconstitutional

By Ronald J. Krotoszynski, Jr.
  • Indeed, a court considering the constitutionality of the SAFE Act need not even decide whether transgender children as a class constitute a “ discrete and insular minority ” that requires more vigorous constitutional review under the equal-protection clause, because the law is self-evidently irrational, as it lacks any plausible scientific or medical basis and rests on obvious prejudice.
  • This is the essence of irrational discrimination, a fact not lost on Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson, who in vetoing the law called the SAFE Act a “vast government overreach” that constitutes unjustified “legislative interference with physicians and parents as they deal with some of the most complex and sensitive matters involving young people.”
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Minnesota - Twin Cities Pioneer Press

Chroma Zone Festival will bring more murals to St. Paul — and painting starts this week

By Kathy Berdan
  • Festivities include live pottery-throwing demonstrations and mug sale at Deneen Pottery, which has a studio/workshop in the area; live painting demos by Sprayfinger graffiti students; live performances; and open house and tenant showcase at the nearby Wycliff, an industrial creative space for small businesses; self-directed CEZ mural tours, featuring 10 murals within walking distance; food and beer at nearby Urban Growler and Bang Brewing taprooms; chalk art; and food trucks.
  • May 22 is an open street kickoff celebration at Bradford Street and Endicott Street, with a chance to see the “Bang It” work in progress, as well as other murals in the area.
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New Yorker

Sunday Reading: Searching for Love

By The New Yorker
  • In “The Love Business,” Evan Osnos profiles Gong Haiyan, the influential founder of China’s largest Internet matchmaking service.
  • Taken together, these pieces highlight the foibles, the strengths, and, yes, even the humor of our search for love in increasingly challenging times.
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Los Angeles Times

Op-Ed: Why meat and dairy corporations are the Achilles’ heel of Biden’s climate plan

By Viveca Morris
  • For example, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack — who made nearly $1 million a year as a dairy industry lobbyist before joining Biden’s Cabinet — has promoted using public dollars to subsidize the deployment of biogas technologies that capture methane from factory farm manure lagoons and convert it into energy.
  • And the methane-capture technologies do not address the majority of industrial livestock farming emissions, which come from the soils used for grazing and growing animal feed crops, and from the digestive process of cows and other ruminants.
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Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Defrauded students still waiting for Biden to help

By The Washington Post
  • "I'm shocked that more than 100 days in we're still in an active appeal on something that is so opposed to what the Biden administration claims it's about," said Toby Merrill, director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending, a group representing borrowers in multiple Trump-era cases, including the class-action lawsuit in which Kulka is involved.
  • The Biden administration continues to defend lawsuits against the Education Department over Trump-era policies on student loans and career training regulation.
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Minnesota - Twin Cities Pioneer Press

Scott, Mclemore: How to change an American medical system that harms Black maternal health

By Karen A. Scott and Monica R. Mclemore
  • The dire statistics showing premature death and severe morbidity experienced by Black people are proof that the current systems that provide health services, education, research and policy are not working and need to be remade.
  • The legislation includes 12 bills that provide funding to address perinatal mental health, workforce initiatives for healthcare provider education and training, research dollars for better data, and support for state-based maternal mortality review committees that examine every case to determine the root causes and potential places where interventions could have prevented death.
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Arkansas Democrat Gazette

One seat contested in school election

By Cynthia Howell
  • Tuesday's election for the Jacksonville/North Pulaski School Board features a contested race between newcomers Theresa McClendon and Laura Walker, and uncontested runs for two other seats on the seven-member board.
  • Martin said she is pleased with the selection of new administrators for what will be the sixth year of operations for the system that separated in 2016 from the Pulaski County Special School District.
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Boston Herald

Farmers markets offer fresh taste of Massachusetts

By Moira McCarthy
  • After a year of tight restrictions, farmers markets across the state are readying to open for the summer season with all the colors, flavors and fresh vibes that turn shopping into a fun little getaway.
  • “If social media is any indication, customers are crazy excited,” said Dave Purpura, market manager at the Plymouth Farmers Market ( plymouthfarmersmarket.org ), which reopens at Plimoth Patuxet Museums May 20 and will be open each Thursday from 2:30 to 6 p.m. for the foreseeable future.
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US news | The Guardian

‘A slap in the face’: California Uber and Lyft drivers criticize pay cuts under Prop 22

By Michael Sainato
  • Though the multiplier option and features for drivers to turn down unwanted rides has largely been revoked, Bolainez argued passenger fees were increased by Uber and Lyft despite claims from app companies ahead of Prop 22 that such fees wouldn’t be increased, and that drivers aren’t being fairly paid proportions of fee increases.
  • Alvaro Bolainez, a driver for Uber and Lyft in the Los Angeles area, said the airport mileage rate for Uber was reduced from 65 cents a mile to 32 cents a mile, and that Uber removed the multiplier option for drivers to set their own prices for rides.
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US news | The Guardian

How did it happen that Israel’s Jews and Arabs rose up against each other? | Dahlia Scheindlin

By Dahlia Scheindlin
  • But Israelis were more stunned – and horrified – to see towns inside the country erupt into violence between Jewish and Palestinian citizens.
  • When an Arab man in Lod was shot dead by Jews on Tuesday after the rocket attacks had begun, demonstrations gave way to riots targeting people, synagogues and even a theatre and a restaurant in the northern city of Acre that had symbolised coexistence.
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Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Arkansas Achievers

  • Students in grades prekindergarten to fourth were asked to create posters, while students in fifth- through 12th-grades could choose to either submit typed essays or create digital videos on this year's contest theme "My Life, Powered By Conway Corp." Arushi Huq, a second-grader at Ellen Smith Elementary, won first place in the poster contest.
  • Civilian and military achievements are accepted.
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Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Education notebook

By Cynthia Howell
  • The Arkansas Board of Education last week classified the 617-student Lee County School District as needing Level 5/intensive support, which is the highest level of state support possible under the state's accountability program.
  • The Level 5/intensive support classification is the result of low student achievement, high teacher and administrative turnover, and the need for stronger instruction and a fully implemented curriculum, Stacy Smith, deputy education commissioner, told the state Education Board.
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Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Street to be named after ex-official at college

By Doug Thompson
  • The college had wanted to name the street Jim Lay Boulevard, but the city objected to using both a first and last name, said Lucas Pointer of Bentonville, chairman of the board's Land Use Subcommittee.
  • The new street will run east and west, starting off of S.E. Eagle Way just south of that street's intersection with S.E. NWACC Boulevard, according to plans presented at the meeting.
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Books | The Guardian

Journalist Patrick Radden Keefe: ‘I’ve always been interested in secrecy’

By Tim Lewis
  • The American journalist and author on his history of the Sacklers, the family at the centre of the US opioids controversy, and a special night with the Scorpions in Ukraine
  • His new book, Empire of Pain, is a history of the Sackler family, a dynasty long known for cultural philanthropy, some of which has been funded since the 1990s with profits from their company Purdue Pharma and by the production of the highly addictive painkiller OxyContin.
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Philadelphia Inquirer

Splish splash

  • I happened to have the TV on, and I heard a reporter say that a huge piece of space junk was going to be landing on Earth over the weekend, but nobody knew where, and it would kill a lot of people if it fell on land.
  • Did you hear the news story last weekend about the space junk that was going to hit the Earth?
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The Colorado Sun

Sen. Winter, Rep. Gray: It’s time for Congress to catch up to Colorado on paid family leave

By Sen. Faith Winter
  • On election day 2020, Colorado voters overwhelmingly approved a groundbreaking proposal to implement a paid family and medical leave program in our state – finally granting residents this essential benefit and ultimately paving the way for a nationwide shift.
  • Now, six months later, President Joe Biden has proposed the American Families Plan, which would not only nationalize a comprehensive paid family leave program much like Colorado’s but also make once-in-a-generation investments in pre-kindergarten and post-secondary education as well as extend substantial tax cuts for parents and workers.
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Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Southeast Arkansas College names ’21 grads

By Special to The Commercial
  • Ashmore, Susan Grace Bishop, Latarshur Maire Buckley, Christopher Michel Lee Calvert, Kyisha Renee Donaldson, Stephanie Nicole Parker Ford, Sunshine Marie Formby, Jarneshia Densha Gaines, Jonathan Lee Goins, Sr, Marqui Deshaun Green, William Luke Hankins, Shalonda M Hickman, Alani Hills, Kevin Rene Johnson, Lakendrah J.
  • Ashmore, Montrell Nashon Alexander, Tangrlia Lashun Ashley, Susan Grace Bishop, Lori Ann Bonnettey, Latarshur Marie Buckley, Christopher Michel Lee Calvert, Asia Elise Carter, Shelby Lynn Davison, Kyisha Renee Donaldson, Kadrian LaConnia Fletcher, Richard N.
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The Colorado Sun

Carman: No child care, no kids. And don’t call me baby. Got it?

By Diane Carman
  • The American Families Plan (courtesy of Biden, a guy who knows from harsh personal experience what it’s like to be a single parent in need of child care) calls for support for universal pre-school, but unfortunately only for 3- and 4-year-olds.
  • The state ranks seventh nationally for most expensive child care, with average rates looking an awful lot like the cost of sending a kid to college.
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Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Burglaries

By Amy Buckholtz, Joy Jackson, Justin Cunningham, Tonya Lee
The following burglaries are from reports collected from the Little Rock and North Little Rock police departments. The names listed are of people who reported a burglary and the dates are when the crime is believed to have taken place. Cammack Village data are not included. […]Read more >Similar articles >
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Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Health care notebook

By Kat Stromquist
  • Sara Lee Frozen Bakery has voluntarily recalled several pie products because they may contain peanuts, which can cause severe reactions in people with peanut allergies, a news release said.
  • Arkansas has one of the nation's highest rates of chronic kidney disease, for which a transplant is the best treatment, according to public health experts.
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Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Other days

By The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
  • • Attorneys for the Little Rock and Pulaski County Special school districts said Wednesday they will use two national experts' testimony to bolster their efforts to end the county's 13-year-old school desegregation lawsuit.
  • • Central Arkansas Transit Authority does well getting the workers it reaches to their jobs, but fails to provide that same accessibility for most Little Rock-area residents, a new national study reported.
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Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Environmental notebook

By Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
  • When land was originally acquired for Beaver Lake in the 1950s, the government's plan was to purchase property around the inundation area up to 1,128 feet above sea level, but funding and resources limited the effort, according to a May 3 news release by the Corps.
  • Two communities in the state were awarded $300,000 federal grants as part of a nationwide effort to assess and clean up contaminated or abandoned "brownfields" -- industrial and commercial properties that contain hazardous substances, pollutants or contaminants.
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Books | The Guardian

The Nightingale by Sam Lee review – a love letter to the songbird

By Alex Preston

The folk singer offers a lyrical homage to the endangered migrant bird whose uniquely beautiful song he has been communing with up close for years

A few years ago, a group of friends and I followed Barbara Dickson, the Scottish pop star turned folk singer, into a wood deep in the green heart of Kent. We were there as part of Singing With Nightingales, an immersive experience run by another folk singer, Sam Lee. It was night and we had no torches. We came to a small clearing where we sat, silent, until from far off, then closer, and then so close that the sound seemed to be the voice of the very trees around us, a nightingale sang. After listening to its otherworldly carolling for a while, Lee and Dickson took turns singing back to the nightingale, old shanties and folk songs, praising the beauty of its voice, recognising the importance of its role in that bright space where culture and nature meet.

Now Lee, a tousle-haired former Mercury prize nominee (for his 2012 debut album, Ground of Its Own), has turned from song to prose with The Nightingale: Notes on a Songbird, a beautiful, lyrical, heartfelt book about the songbird. Part nature writing, part memoir, part miscellany, every page of this book benefits from the incredible intimacy that Lee has built up with the bird over the years of his “undoubtedly romantic and whimsical” pilgrimages to listen to, and sing back to, nightingales.

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Maine - Portland Press Herald

Even when the vaccine travels to them, many Mainers won’t take it

By Eric Russell
  • TURNER — State health officials set up a mobile vaccination clinic in this Androscoggin County town this month as part of a broader effort to reach communities whose populations have been less than eager to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
  • “I don’t know if it’s any one thing, but it could be there just haven’t been enough opportunities,” Morin said when asked why he thought the vaccination rate is lower in his part of the state.
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US news | The Guardian

Who’s to blame for reigniting the Israel-Palestine conflict? Take your pick from Iranian plots to US weakness

By Simon Tisdall
  • “Through illusions, incitement, a captive media, brutal policing and discriminatory laws, Netanyahu has repressed Israel’s Palestinian citizens, preparing the ground for violent conflict,” Fishman’s opinion piece declared .
  • “The massive rocket fire launched on 11 May, an unprecedented series of barrages … appear to be part of an Iranian-inspired plan,” Frantzman wrote in the Jerusalem Post.
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Bloomberg View

Meritocracy, Not Democracy, Is the Golden Ticket to Growth

By Adrian Wooldridge
  • Smith School of Business and Luigi Zingales of the Booth School have constructed a measure of countries’ levels of meritocracy based on data from the World Economic Forum’s survey of expert opinion on who holds senior management positions.
  • The surest sign that a country will be economically successful is not the health of its democracy, as some liberals like to think, or the leanness of its government, as some free-marketers imagine, but its commitment to meritocracy.
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Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Wearers of bow ties yearn to stand out in a crowd

By Lois Fenton
  • Being in the world of finance at a large broker-dealer, I started wearing bow ties as a differentiator from my charcoal suit/four-in-hand tie-wearing colleagues -- a happy side effect being an English client who always tells me I look "very smart." It's always nice to get that kind of validation.
  • In either case, it's apparent you have seen how much fun it can be to be recognized as "a guy who knows how to dress." There are so many different ways to achieve this; one of the easiest is to be a bow tie wearer.
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Maine - Portland Press Herald

Can lab-grown lobster compete with Maine’s most lucrative catch?

By Hannah LaClaire
  • Cell-cultured products can offer additional ingredient functionality for crustaceans, like lobster, which haven’t been domesticated for food production as beef, chicken or shrimp have, Pattison said.
  • Cultured Decadence says its product, grown from live cells, will be indistinguishable in form and function from wild-caught lobster, only without the shell.
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Maine - Portland Press Herald

Maine wedding industry on track for recovery as restrictions ease

By Peter McGuire
  • “In Maine, the tourism industry is worth $6 billion every year, and weddings make up $1 billion – it is not a small footprint we have,” said Reuben Bell, owner of Blue Elephant caterers in Saco.
  • However, huge losses last year, months of planning disruptions from shifting health and safety rules, postponements and cancellations mean it could be years before wedding businesses recover to pre-pandemic levels.
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Maine - Portland Press Herald

Two groups – one conservative, the other liberal – walked into a Zoom class …

By Bill Nemitz
  • From the start, it was an audacious idea: Take a dozen or so liberals from Maine and a dozen or so conservatives from Mississippi, combine them all into an eight-week Zoom course on politics, core beliefs and everything in between, and see what happens.
  • Looking back on the first political course he’s ever taken through OLLI, Gauthier said he often felt, as a member of the conservative minority, that “if I didn’t say something, nobody would.”
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Bloomberg View

Skewed History Is Becoming a Global Superweapon

By Max Hastings
  • Moscow’s narrative is rooted in claims that Americans, the British and others allies fail to give adequate recognition to the dominant Soviet role in World War II; malign Josef Stalin, the Soviet Union’s great leader; libel the Red Army by asserting — for instance — that its men raped hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of German women in 1945.
  • Putin, too, despite overwhelming testimony, may sincerely believe it to be a myth that Russian soldiers raped their way across Europe in the last months of what Russians call the Great Patriotic War. He claims that the 1939 Nazi-Soviet pact was a legitimate response to Western appeasement of Hitler.
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Books | The Guardian

Why Solange Matters by Stephanie Phillips review – celebration of a free spirit

By Caleb Azumah Nelson

The author and punk musician draws parallels between her own life and that of the genre-blurring sister of Beyoncé in this hymn to black individualism

The cover image of Why Solange Matters, the first book in Faber’s new Music Matters series charting the story of groundbreaking musicians (Marianne Faithfull and Karen Carpenter to follow), shows the singer washed in red light, her arms loose by her side, gazing towards the audience, or at someone she recognises. In that moment she is bordering on heavenly. Though the photograph was taken five years ago, around the time of Solange’s A Seat at the Table album, for me it conjures a lyric from Down With the Clique on her 2019 LP When I Get Home:

We were rollin’ up the street
Chasing the divine, oh

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Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Nancy Clowes Leonhardt

By Kimberly Dishongh
  • Mental health issues and learning disabilities are common denominators in the lives of many of the people who seek services through the Adult Learning Alliance of Arkansas, Leonhardt says.
  • Nancy Leonhardt has not always had everything she needed, but both working and volunteering for nonprofit organizations is her way of helping to make sure other people do.
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Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Give stuff, get stuff for free

By Karen Martin
  • A friend recently told me about a community-based Facebook group that welcomes members to give and receive goods and services without exchanging money.
  • According to a recent story in The Washington Post, Liesl Clark and Rebecca Rockefeller started the first Buy Nothing group on Facebook in 2013 because they were disturbed with the appearance of plastics washing up on the shore near their homes on Bainbridge Island just outside Seattle.
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Bloomberg View

Where Is the Economic Case for Scottish Independence?

By Martin Ivens
  • Getting a touch ahead of events, the New York Times noted last week that the recent electoral victories of the Scottish National Party could lead to “the biggest blow to a British prime minister since Lord North lost the colonies in America.”
  • Sturgeon will plug away at issues that put Edinburgh at odds with London, and when the time is right, she’ll put a referendum bill before the Scottish parliament at Holyrood and dare Johnson to veto it.
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Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Biden’s plans a bit puzzling to economists

By Bloomberg
  • While these could pull millions of Americans out of poverty and provide parents with new work opportunities, measuring those social benefits in traditional aggregate data like gross domestic product may be more challenging to economists than looking at direct spending on things like roads and bridges.
  • Expanding home health care for the elderly and child care for the youngest would help more women enter the workforce, but the GDP impact can be hard to measure, said Bloomberg economist Yelena Shulyatyeva.
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