Month: September 2021

Military veterans who carefully dug and sifted through clumps of dirt this month at a Revolutionary War battlefield in New York did more than uncover artifacts fired from muskets and cannons.

The meticulous field work gave the veterans — some dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder and physical injuries — a familiar sense of camaraderie and mission.

So while the archaeological dig at the Saratoga National Historical Park produced evidence from the tide-turning Second Battle of Saratoga, the teamwork behind the finds also benefited the veterans.

“We can all come together, share your battle stories, your deployment stories, and share your love for the history of what you’re digging,” said Bjorn Bruckshaw, of Laconia, New Hampshire, during a break on a recent hazy morning.

Bruckshaw, 38, was part of a three-person crew that spent the morning digging small holes at spots that set off metal detectors, then searching though the damp clumps to uncover … old nails, mostly.

But the self-described Revolutionary War buff was loving it.

Bruckshaw, an Army veteran injured in a roadside bombing in Iraq, is among 15 veterans taking part in the dig through American Veterans Archaeological Recovery, an organization that helps service members transition into the civilian world. While the group deals mostly with vets with disabilities, their focus is on what participants can do in the field instead of any injuries, said AVAR’s Stephen Humphreys.

“In the military you’re trained to be on time for everything,” Bruckshaw said. “So transitioning into the civilian world is a little bit harder for a lot of people. For me, it was a little bit difficult suffering from TBI [traumatic brain injury] and PTSD from my combat injuries. But you have support groups like these.”

National Park Service archaeologist William Griswold said the team is looking for artifacts that shed more light on the Battle of Bemis Heights, or the Second Battle of Saratoga, on Oct. 7, 1777. The American victory over British and German soldiers is credited with persuading France to lend crucial support the fight for independence.

The battle also burnished the heroic resume of future traitor Benedict Arnold, who was wounded in the leg and is memorialized here with a monument to his boot.

While maps and journal accounts from the time describe troop movements during that fateful battle, artifacts can pinpoint movements and provide a reality check.

For instance, historians know the British at Saratoga loaded their cannons with tin canisters packed with iron balls, or “case shot,” that spread out like shotgun blasts. Locations of the buried iron balls found here are being used to deduce more precisely where the cannons fired from.

“It’s a good way to check a lot of these textual sources because in the fog of battle, people often make mistakes or embellish things,” Griswold said.

Field work was first conducted here in 2019, with supervision from the National Park Service’s regional archaeology program. The American Battlefield Trust is a sponsor. Work was interrupted by the pandemic last year, but crews with shovels and metal detectors were back this month and wrapping up this week.

“It’s partially about the chase,” said veteran Megan Lukaszeski. “You never know what you’re going to find. You could dig and you could find nothing, or you could dig and find the most amazing things.”

After retiring from the Air Force, Lukaszeski went to school to study archaeology. The 36-year-old from New York has already taken part in AVAR excavations to recover remains at WWII crash sites in England and Sicily through the group’s partnership with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. She plans to get her master’s degree and pursue archaeology professionally.

For others, the work is more a chance to learn about archaeology while having some fun.

Former Army Col. Tim Madere once hunted for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. This month, the 68-year-old sifted dirt through a screen in a hunt for artifacts and shared laughs with other workers. The Savannah, Georgia-area resident said he has gotten over most of his PTSD, but believes you can never totally get rid of it.

He sees this sort of field work as a good way for people to manage it.

“You hear their stories and then you tell yours so that we kind of get a better appreciation of what all these Americans did to protect the United States,” he said. ”So it’s good to see other people, and they’re doing well.”
…

There’s no more debate or decisions forthcoming. There’s still some anger and disbelief, but also the excitement that comes along with change.

The Cleveland Indians are about to become history.

On Monday, one of the American League’s charter members will play its final home game of 2021, and also its last at Progressive Field as the Indians, the team’s name since 1915, when “Shoeless” Joe Jackson was the starting right fielder on opening day.

Much more than the makeup of a rainout against the Kansas City Royals, the home finale will signify the end of one era and beginning of a new chapter for the team, which will be called the Cleveland Guardians next season.

That’s going to take some time getting used to. The Indians are all Clevelanders have ever known.

“I’m not a betting man,” longtime radio play-by-play broadcaster Tom Hamilton said, pondering what’s ahead. “But I have to guess the over-under on how many times we’ll say Indians is one million.”

After the Oct. 3 season finale in Texas and with no postseason for a team that hasn’t won the World Series since 1948, there will be a transition period before Indians — a named deemed racist by some — is dropped and Guardians appears on new uniforms with logos that were unveiled in July to mixed reviews.

At some point, Guardians merchandise will go on sale and the massive script “Indians” logo crowning the ballpark’s massive left-field scoreboard will be taken down, a moment many Clevelanders could have never imagined possible.

And while the end of Indians has been known for a while, it still seemed to sneak up on some fans.

“It kind of hit us when we came in,” Kathy Wainwright of Elyria, Ohio, said as she and her husband, Mark, grabbed a bite to eat and a couple pregame beers before the Indians hosted the Royals.

Before entering the ballpark, the couple walked to the corner of Ontario Street and Carnegie Avenue to take a photo of the home plate entrance where a lighted “Indians” sign welcomes fans.

“I knew it was the last time I’d get to see it that way,” Mark said.

The team is not planning any ceremony to honor the Indians’ final performance at home. Unfortunately for many Cleveland fans, it’s happening at the same time that the Browns are hosting the Chicago Bears just one mile away at FirstEnergy Stadium.

The Indians’ last home at-bat has been another delicate line to navigate for the club, whose decision to change the name elicited heavy criticism from fans who felt the team caved to a small, vocal minority.

Others thought it was long overdue, and probably should have happened when the team ditched the contentious Chief Wahoo logo a few years back.

The name change became inevitable last year when owner Paul Dolan announced his intention to examine the use of Indians after being moved by the social unrest sweeping America in the wake of the George Floyd murder in Minneapolis.

Cleveland’s steps toward the change don’t really matter at this point. There’s no turning back. It’s happening.

For Sandy Alomar Jr., the end is conflicting.

A six-time All-Star catcher and current first-base coach for Cleveland, Alomar has a personal attachment to Indians, the name he’s worn across his chest for 23 seasons — 11 as a player, 12 as coach.

He respects the team’s decision and understands the rationale behind the change, but that doesn’t make this any easier for him.

“It’s an emotional time for me,” he said. “All I’ve known is being a Cleveland Indian. I’m an Indian forever.”

Alomar was a driving force behind powerful Cleveland teams in the 1990s, when after they moved from their lakefront ballpark, the Indians went from downtrodden to dominant and won five straight division titles.

“Those moments are irreplaceable, so I guess this won’t hit me as hard as it will when I have to wear the new uniform,” said Alomar, who is planning to keep the one he wears in this season’s last game as a souvenir.

“I may not wash that one,” he said. “I’m just going to take it home the way it is.”

Hamilton, who called his first Indians game in 1990, doesn’t know what type of reaction to expect from Cleveland fans on Monday. He thinks the name change will have a bigger impact next season — when the Indians don’t take the field.

“I think it’s going to be a bigger deal on opening day, the home opener,” he said. “The first game isn’t going to be in Kansas City as the Guardians, it’s going to be here. That’s going to be more interesting.”

Before summer faded completely, Don and Julie MacDonald of Fairview Park, Ohio, made one last family trip to the ballpark this week. It was their son Josh’s 10th birthday, and they made sure to grab some new Indians merchandise, at least until the Guardians is available.

As his kids ate pizza slices along a railing in the right-field corner, MacDonald mulled how things might be different going forward and how they may stay the same.

The Indians might have a new name. Their fans aren’t changing.

“It’s going to be hard to not say Indians for a while,” he said. “It’s been so natural for so long and I don’t see Chief Wahoo going away any time soon. There are still so many fans wearing it. The name might be Guardians, but I think people will still say Indians.”
…

In the three months since 62-year-old Navajo rug weaver Ella Mae Begay vanished, the haunting unanswered questions sometimes threaten to overwhelm her niece.

Seraphine Warren has organized searches of the vast Navajo Nation landscape near her aunt’s home in Arizona but is running out of money to pay for gas and food for the volunteers.

“Why is it taking so long? Why aren’t our prayers being answered?” she asks.

Begay is one of thousands of Indigenous women who have disappeared throughout the U.S. Some receive no public attention at all, a disparity that extends to many other people of color.

The disappearance of Gabby Petito, a 22-year-old white woman who went missing in Wyoming last month during a cross-country trip with her boyfriend, has drawn a frenzy of coverage on traditional and social media, bringing new attention to a phenomenon known as “missing white woman syndrome.”

Many families and advocates for missing people of color are glad the attention paid to Petito’s disappearance has helped unearth clues that likely led to the tragic discovery of her body and they mourn with her family. But some also question why the public spotlight so important to finding missing people has left other cases shrouded in uncertainty.

“I would have liked that swift rush, push to find my aunt faster. That’s all I wish for,” said Warren, who lives in Utah, one of several states Petito and boyfriend Brian Laundrie passed through.

Causes are layered

In Wyoming, where Petito was found, just 18% of cases of missing Indigenous women over the past decade had any media coverage, according to a state report released in January.

“Someone goes missing just about every day … from a tribal community,” said Lynnette Grey Bull, who is Hunkpapa Lakota and Northern Arapaho and director of the organization Not Our Native Daughters. More than 700 Indigenous people disappeared in Wyoming between 2011 and 2020, and about 20% of those cases were still unsolved after a month. That’s about double the rate in the white population, the report found.

One factor that helped people connect with Petito’s case was her Instagram profile, where she lived her dream of traveling the country. Other social media users contributed their own clues, including a traveling couple who said they spotted the couple’s white van in their own YouTube footage.

While authorities haven’t confirmed the video led to the discovery, the vast open spaces of the American West can bedevil search parties for years and anything that narrows the search grid is welcome. Public pressure can also ensure authorities prioritize a case.

The opportunity to create a well-curated social media profile, though, isn’t available to everyone, said Leah Salgado, deputy director of IllumiNative, a Native women-led social justice organization.

“So much of who we care about and what we care about is curated in ways that disadvantage people of color and Black and Indigenous people in particular,” she said.

The causes are layered, but implicit bias in favor of both whiteness and conventional beauty standards play in, along with a lack of newsroom diversity and police choices in which cases to pursue, said Carol Liebler, a communications professor at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School.

“What’s communicated is that white lives matter more than people of color,” she said.

One sample of 247 missing teens in New York and California found 34% of white teens’ cases were covered by the media, compared to only 7% of Black teens and 14% of Latino kids, she said.

Friends of Jennifer Caridad, a 24-year-old day care worker of Mexican descent, have taken to social media to draw attention to her case out of Sunnyside, Washington, after it received little notice in August. Just as in Petito’s case, Caridad was last believed to have been with her boyfriend. He was arrested on carjacking and attempted murder charges after shooting at police during a pursuit following her disappearance.

So far, authorities have no answers for Caridad’s parents. Twice a week, Enrique Caridad heads to the police station for any updates on his daughter.

“They tell me they will not rest until she is found,” he said. “I tell them to please let me know her last whereabouts so I can also help find her. But they tell me not to get involved, not to hurt the case.”

Detectives took parental DNA samples and said there were bloodstains in her SUV, but they have yet to say whether it was Caridad’s blood. At the beginning, her parents struggled to understand English-speaking detectives, but after the case was transferred to a smaller police department, they could speak Spanish to one of the investigators.

“Not knowing is what kills us — not knowing if she is alive or if she was hurt by that man,” Caridad said.

David Robinson moved from South Carolina to Arizona temporarily to search for his son, Daniel, who disappeared in June. The 24-year-old Black geologist was last seen at a work site in Buckeye, outside Phoenix. A rancher found his car in a ravine a month later a few miles away. His keys, cellphone, wallet and clothes were also recovered. But no sign of him.

The Petito saga unexpectedly elevated his son’s case as people used the #findgabypetito hashtag on Twitter to draw more attention to cases of missing people of color.

“I was working hard previously trying to get it out nationally for three months straight,” said Robinson, who’s communicated with other families about the coverage disparity.

“This is bigger than I thought. … It isn’t just about my son Daniel. It’s a national problem.”

Public attention vital

Another family whose case was highlighted by that hashtag — Lauren “El” Cho, a missing 30-year-old Korean American from California — said in a Facebook statement they understand the frustrations but cautioned that differences between cases “run deeper than what meets the public eye.”

Asians and Asian Americans definitely face the same issue of news visibility, said Kent Ono, a University of Utah communications professor. The “model minority myth,” that Asians are successful and don’t get into trouble, also contributes to the problem.

“That then makes it very hard for readers and viewers to imagine that Asian and Asian American people have any problems at all, that they can’t take care of by themselves,” he said.

Public attention is vital in all missing-persons cases, especially in the first day or two after a disappearance, said Natalie Wilson, who co-founded the Black and Missing Foundation to help bring more attention to underreported cases. Dispelling racism and stereotypes linking missing people with poverty or crime is key.

“Oftentimes, the families … don’t feel as though their lives are valued,” she said. “We need to change the narrative around our missing to show they are our sisters, brothers, grandparents. They are our neighbors. They are part of our community.”

 
…

As Haitian migrants stepped off a white U.S. Border Patrol van in the Texas border city of Del Rio after learning they’d be allowed to stay in the country for now, a man in a neon yellow vest stood nearby and quietly surveyed them. 

Some carried sleeping babies, and one toddler walked behind her mother wrapped in a silver heat blanket. As they passed by to be processed by a local nonprofit that provides migrants with basic essentials and helps them reach family in the U.S., many smiled — happy to be starting a new leg of their journey after a chaotic spell in a crowded camp near a border bridge that links Del Rio with Ciudad Acuña, Mexico. 

Dave, who didn’t want to share his last name because he feared a backlash for trying to help people who entered the U.S. illegally, didn’t see his friend Ruth in this group. But he wore the bright safety vest so she would be able to spot him in the crowd when she arrived with her husband and 3-year-old daughter. 

“I feel like my friend is worth my time to come down and help,” he told The Associated Press on Friday. 

On Tuesday, Dave set out from his hometown of Toledo, Ohio, and made the nearly 1,300-mile (2,092-kilometer) drive to Del Rio, where up to 15,000 migrants suddenly crossed in from Mexico this month, most of them Haitian and many seeking asylum.

The 64-year-old met Ruth over a decade ago during a Christian mission to Haiti. Over the years, Dave would send Ruth money for a little girl he met in an orphanage whom he’d promised himself he’d support. Ruth always made sure the girl had what she needed. 

Last month, Ruth and her family left South America, where they briefly lived after leaving their impoverished Caribbean homeland, to try to make it to the United States. Dave told her he’d be there when they arrived to drive them to her sister’s house in Ohio. 

“I just see it as an opportunity to serve somebody,” he said. “We have so much.” 

The nonprofit, the Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition, has received dozens of drop-offs from U.S. Border Patrol agents since the sudden influx of migrants to Del Rio became the country’s most pressing immigration challenge. Its director, Tiffany Burrow, said the group processed more than 1,600 Haitian migrants from Monday through when the camp was completely cleared Friday, assisting them with travel and resettlement necessities. 

This is nothing new for Burrow, who has watched Haitian migrants cross into Del Rio in smaller numbers since January. But this recent wave overwhelmed her small group. 

“It’s a different volume. And the eyes of the world are on us this time,” Burrow told the AP. 

As Dave waited Friday for the next bus to arrive, he shimmied a child seat into place in the back seat of his vehicle. It was for Ruth’s toddler and was the first thing he spotted when he stopped at a thrift store on his way out of Toledo. He viewed it as a little sign he was doing the right thing. 

Ruth and her family had spent the past week at the bridge camp and Dave had been communicating with her through WhatsApp. But all communication stopped Thursday around noon, and he said Ruth’s sister in Ohio also hadn’t heard from her. 

Still, Dave waited, scrolling through a list of “what ifs.” He wondered aloud if her phone died or if she was in a Border Patrol facility with strict rules about electronic devices. “I’m putting a lot of faith in my phone,” he said, laughing.

Like Dave, Dr. Pierre Moreau made the trip to Del Rio from Miami to help. A Haitian immigrant himself and U.S. Navy veteran, he saw the images unfolding from the camp and booked a flight. 

“That was devastating. My heart was crying,” Moreau said. “And I told my wife I’m coming. And she said go.” 

Moreau didn’t have a plan, just a rental car full of toiletries and supplies he hoped to pass out to any migrants he came across. 

“I’m concerned about my brothers and sisters. And I was concerned with the way they were treated,” he said. 

Dave said he hates how politicized the border issue has become. He considers himself a supporter of former President Donald Trump but said he’s more complicated than a single label.

As he waited in his car, Dave gushed over how hard Ruth had worked as a nurse to get to the United States — a dream she’s held for over a decade. He said he knows she’ll do the same in the U.S. and that all he’s doing is giving her and her small family a leg up. 

“I help them with their first step,” Dave said. “And like a little child, next time you see them, they’ll be running.” 

Every time a Border Patrol bus or van pulled up to the coalition, Dave and his yellow vest would cross the street. He waited as each migrant climbed out, hoping to see Ruth, and he even darted over to one woman, thinking it was her. “That sounded just like Ruth’s voice,” he said. 

As news broke Friday that the camp had been cleared, Dave still held out hope that she’d arrive. But 10 hours after he pulled up, the coalition announced it had received its last busload and that no more migrants would be arriving from the camp. 

This wave, at least for now, was over for Del Rio. But Burrow said there will likely be others. 

“Right now, we’re in a cycle,” she said. “We’re learning to work with it.”

Dave stood up from his folding chair and started walking back to his car. He still hadn’t heard anything from Ruth and he again speculated as to where she and her family might be, including that they could have been sent on a deportation flight back to Haiti. 

He looked defeated but said he didn’t plan to drive back to Ohio until he heard from Ruth — not until he knew his friend was OK. 

“I cringe when I hear the beep that it’s going to be the wrong message,” Dave said. “But I try to keep hoping. I don’t know what else I can do.” 
…

International recognition of the Taliban “at the present juncture is not on the table,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Saturday at the United Nations.

Among the Taliban’s promises are ensuring an inclusive government; respecting human rights, especially for women; and preventing Afghanistan from becoming a haven for terrorists.

But the interim Taliban government, Lavrov said, fails to reflect “the whole gamut of Afghan society — ethno-religious and political forces — so we are engaging in contacts, they are ongoing.”

Russia, the United States, China and Pakistan, he said, are working to hold the Taliban to the promises they made when they seized control of Afghanistan in mid-August. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said the Taliban’s desire for such recognition is the only leverage the world has.

“What’s most important … is to ensure that the promises that they have proclaimed publicly [are] to be kept,” Lavrov added at news conference Saturday afternoon.

Lavrov addressed a wide range of topics, including the Iran nuclear deal and Russian mercenaries in Mali.

On Iran, Lavrov urged a greater effort from the U.S. to rejoin the deal.

“It seems evident they should be more active” in “resolving all issues related” to the accord, Lavrov told reporters, according to Agence France-Presse.

Negotiations stuck

Talks in Vienna among representatives from Iran, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany have stalled, and Iran is no longer in compliance with the nuclear agreement, Lavrov said, “simply because the United State has left it.”

The deal was struck in 2015 and called for Iran to undo most of its nuclear program and allow international monitoring. In exchange, it would receive sanctions relief. Former U.S. President Donald Trump left the deal in 2018, and Iran resumed nuclear activities. U.S. President Joe Biden has said he wants to rejoin the agreement if Iran returns to compliance.

Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, said Friday that the talks would resume “very soon,” but Tehran has not been specific about the timeframe, according to AFP.

On Mali, Lavrov said the country had turned to a private military company to help it combat terrorism, something France and the U.S. oppose. Lavrov said the Russian government had nothing to do with any agreement between Mali and Russia’s Wagner Group.

Earlier Saturday at the General Assembly annual meeting, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said it was crucial that Afghanistan not be used to spread terrorism globally, and he called on world leaders to help minorities in the country, along with women and children.

The Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in August after the U.S. decision to withdraw troops from the country following 20 years of war the U.S and its allies initiated after the al-Qaida terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

No ‘misuse’ of Afghan situation

“It is important to ensure that the land of Afghanistan is not used to spread terrorism and perpetuate terrorist attacks,” Modi said.

“We also have to be alert that no nation should be able to misuse the delicate situation in Afghanistan for their own selfish motives, like a tool,” Modi added in an apparent reference to Pakistan, locked between Afghanistan and India.

Modi’s appeal to protect women in Afghanistan came amid indications the Taliban have been limiting women’s rights since they seized Kabul, despite recent statements that they were willing to ease restrictions on women and girls. Women were largely banned from public life under the Taliban’s previous reign in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.

The prime minister of India, which competes with China for influence in Kashmir and in the Indian Ocean region, also cited the need to shield oceans from “the race for expansion and exclusion.”

Other speakers Saturday at the assembly included leaders from Ethiopia, Mali and Haiti.
…

Kelli Normoyle was nervous as she arrived at the Coast Guard Academy campus in Connecticut in 2008. She had come out as a lesbian to a few friends near the end of high school, but she faced a military environment where “don’t ask, don’t tell” was still the policy prohibiting gay people from serving openly.

She kept quiet about her sexuality for her freshman year, fearing expulsion and the ruin of her not-yet-begun career. She started testing the waters her second year.

“OK, maybe this is somebody that I can trust, maybe this is somebody that identifies the way I do,” said Normoyle, now a lieutenant on the cutter Sanibel, based in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. “But then you always have that moment that was that kind of leap of faith.”

Marking the 10th anniversary this week of the end of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” a new generation of military academy students say that their campuses are now tolerant, welcoming and inclusive for the most part — but that more work needs to be done.

Homophobic or ignorant comments still arise occasionally. Many transgender students still do not feel comfortable coming out. And advocates say the military needs to do more to include people with HIV, as well as nonbinary and intersex people.

Normoyle, 32, of Mount Laurel, New Jersey, and fellow cadet Chip Hall led the formation of the Coast Guard Academy’s Spectrum Diversity Council, the first advocacy group for LGBTQ students at a U.S. military academy, a few months after “don’t ask, don’t tell” ended on Sept. 20, 2011. Similar groups later formed at the other four service academies.

Gays and lesbians were banned in the military until the 1993 approval of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” which allowed them to serve only if they did not openly acknowledge their sexual orientation. Rather than helping, advocates say, the policy actually created more problems. In its entire history, the military dismissed more than 100,000 service members based on their sexual or gender identities — 14,000 of them during “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Repeal of the law was approved by Congress and President Barack Obama in late 2010 and took effect nine months later, allowing lesbian, gay and bisexual people to serve openly.

At the Air Force Academy in Colorado, second-year cadet Marissa Howard, who came out as a lesbian a few years ago, said she admires LGBTQ service members who struggled under the former policy.

“I commend them,” said Howard, of San Antonio, a member of the academy’s Spectrum group. “I feel very included in the environment, and it’s just a good place to feel like my identity is seen and I don’t have to hide who I am here.”

Some fellow cadets, however, don’t support their LGBTQ classmates, she said. Once, during an online class, someone called her “weird” for being gay, perhaps thinking they were muted, she said.

The Coast Guard Academy in New London was the only U.S. military academy to hold a public event Monday to mark the 10th anniversary. About 100 people attended a dinner that included a viewing of a documentary on “don’t ask, don’t tell,” followed by a discussion.

For many cadets, it is difficult to imagine what it was like because their generation has been more accepting, said K.C. Commins, a bisexual Coast Guard Academy senior from Altoona, Iowa, and current Spectrum Diversity Council president.

“There are so many of us now. It’s hard to ignore that we’re here and … it is the new normal,” said Commins.

Rear Adm. William G. Kelly, the Coast Guard Academy’s superintendent, told the crowd Monday that officials have worked hard on LGBTQ inclusion and are developing a campus policy for transgender students.

Transgender people were allowed to serve openly in the military beginning in 2016, but the Trump administration largely banned them in 2019. Although President Joe Biden overturned the ban earlier this year, formal policies are still being drafted at some locations.

At the U.S. Naval Academy, sexual orientation is mostly a nonissue, said Andre Rascoe, a senior midshipman who is gay.

“In my experience, you always have the one or two people who kind of feel uncomfortable either rooming with or being on, like, a sports team with someone who’s in the queer community, but they are anomalies,” he said.

After students graduate, they will face a military environment where sexual assault and harassment continue to be pervasive and where lesbian, gay and bisexual service members are disproportionately victimized, according to an independent review commission’s report submitted to Biden in June.

In its latest annual report on sexual assaults and harassment at West Point and the Air Force and Naval academies, the Defense Department said 129 sexual assaults were reported during the 2019-20 school year, down from 149 the year before. Twelve complaints of sexual harassment were received, down from 17 the previous year.

“Obviously there’s a lot more room to grow,” said Jennifer Dane, chief executive and director of the Modern Military Association of America, an LGBTQ advocacy group.

Dane, who served in the Air Force from 2010 to 2016, said the Air Force began investigating her sexuality during her first year but dropped the probe after “don’t ask, don’t tell” was repealed.

“When it was repealed … I was finally able to be my authentic self, and it was very empowering,” she said.

 
…

An Oregon school board has banned educators from displaying Black Lives Matter and gay pride symbols, prompting a torrent of recriminations and threats to boycott the town and its businesses.

Newberg, a town of 25,000 residents 40 kilometers southwest of Portland in Oregon’s wine country, has become an unlikely focal point of a battle between the left and right across the nation over schooling.

The City Council has condemned the action by the Newberg School Board. So did members of color of the Oregon Legislature and House and Senate Democrats. The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon is threatening to sue. The Oregon State Board of Education called on the school board to reverse course, saying student identities should be welcomed and affirmed.

But the four conservative members of the seven-member board are digging in their heels. Member Brian Shannon, who proposed the ban, said lawmakers from Portland should keep out of the school district’s business and instead focus on Portland, where homelessness is an issue.

Opponents say the board has emboldened racists. On Sept. 17, a special education staffer at a Newberg elementary school showed up for work in blackface, saying she was portraying anti-segregation icon Rosa Parks in order to protest a statewide vaccine mandate for educators. She was immediately placed on administrative leave.

The same week, word emerged that some Newberg students had participated in a Snapchat group in which participants pretended to buy and sell Black fellow students. Newberg Public Schools Superintendent Joe Morelock said there will be an investigation and disciplinary action meted out.

Underscoring how deeply the board’s action has cut, raw emotion was on display during a virtual public hearing of the board Wednesday night. Some speakers said the board’s action is harmful. Others said the signs have no place in schools, saying they’re political.

Local resident Peggy Kilburg said they should be banned from schools, as well as signs supporting any political position, like National Rifle Association posters.

Robert Till, who is gay and a sophomore at Newberg High School, said he is embarrassed to live in Newberg. He cited an estimate from the Trevor Project, a group that aims to end suicide among LGBTQ young people, that at least one LGBTQ person between the ages of 13–24 attempts suicide every 45 seconds in the U.S.

“A simple pride or BLM flag in a classroom shows the love and acceptance that we need,” Till said, his voice shaking with anger. “Pride flags can literally save someone’s life, and you’re just going to take that away?”

School board chairman Dave Brown, who voted for the sign ban, declared in an earlier Zoom meeting that “I’m not a racist.”

“I work with and will always accept those around me no matter what,” Brown said, an American flag pinned behind him. “I don’t care if they’re gay. I don’t care if they’re white or brown or Black. I work with everybody.”

Shannon defended the ban, which hasn’t been imposed yet.

“I don’t think any of us can deny the fact that these symbols are divisive,” Shannon said. “They’ve divided our community and gotten our attention away from where it needs to be, just teaching the basic fundamentals of education.”

Opponents of the ban say it is the board that is being divisive and distracting from the challenges as educators begin in-person instruction with safety protocols after a year of remote teaching because of COVID-19.

“It has been difficult to see a community divided. You can see the anguish on both sides. It makes being an educator harder than it already was,” said a faculty member at Newberg High School.

Speaking on condition she not be named for fear of being harassed online, she said more students than ever are displaying gay pride and Black Lives Matter symbols on lockers, water bottles and laptops since the board took its vote in August. The ban does not apply to students.

Alexis Small, a 15-year-old high school junior who is Black, believes the members who endorsed the ban simply don’t approve of people who aren’t like them.

“The message that I feel is hate,” Small said in a telephone interview. “I mean, I can’t say that this decision was made out of love or made out of what’s best for people. I genuinely think that they did this out of hate.”

In June 2020 — as Black Lives Matter protests roiled the nation after the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis — the board took a completely different stance, condemning racism and committing to being an anti-racist school district. But conservatives gained a majority in school board elections last May amid a light turnout, and everything changed.

Tai Harden-Moore, a Black candidate who lost, recalls a nasty election. Comments on social media supporting her opponent called Harden-Moore un-American and claimed she hated whites, she said. Her campaign signs were ripped from the ground or left in place — with tree branches placed on top.

“My sign, I’ve got my face on it, and so for them to put the branches on it, it was like this weird link to lynching for me,” Harden-Moore said.

Harden-Moore has joined a group called Newberg Equity in Education, which is advocating for inclusion and equity in Newberg schools.

The Chehalem Valley Chamber of Commerce told the school board that it has received numerous phone calls and emails from people saying they will boycott Newberg, the valley’s main town.

“As business leaders and owners, we are very concerned about the impact this has on our businesses and on the reputation of our community,” the chamber said, the Newberg Graphic newspaper reported.

Newberg Mayor Rick Rogers told the four conservative board members their actions can hurt the town, which features a dozen wine tasting rooms and a university founded by Quakers.

“While you may believe your actions only affect the school district, please know in truth your actions impact us all. To thrive, Newberg must be welcoming to all,” he wrote. 

 
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Showstoppers! – a bright and colorful exhibit of Broadway theatre has opened in New York City. Vladimir Lenski visited the exhibit which displays designs that are always in sight but seldom get the spotlight. Anna Rice narrates his story.
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U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday hosted the leaders of India, Japan and Australia for a meeting of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or the Quad, part of his foreign policy push to focus on the Indo-Pacific region and counter a rising China. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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A Republican-backed review of the 2020 presidential election in Arizona’s largest county ended Friday without producing proof to support former President Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election.

After six months of searching for evidence of fraud, the firm hired by Republican lawmakers issued a report that experts described as riddled with errors, bias and flawed methodology. Still, even that partisan review came up with a vote tally that would not have altered the outcome, finding that Biden won by 360 more votes than the official results certified last year.

The finding was an embarrassing end to a widely criticized, and at times bizarre, quest to prove allegations that election officials and courts have rejected. It has no bearing on the final, certified results. Previous reviews by nonpartisan professionals that followed state law found no significant problem with the vote count in Maricopa County, home to Phoenix.

Still, for many critics, the conclusions reached by the firm Cyber Ninjas and presented at a hearing Friday underscored the dangerous futility of the exercise, which has helped fuel skepticism about the validity of the 2020 election and spawned copycat audits nationwide.

“We haven’t learned anything new,” said Matt Masterson, a top U.S. election security official in the Trump administration. “What we have learned from all this is that the Ninjas were paid millions of dollars, politicians raised millions of dollars and Americans’ trust in democracy is lower.”

‘They are trying to scare people’

Other critics said the true purpose of the audit may have already succeeded. It spread complex allegations about ballot irregularities and software issues, fueling doubts about elections, said Adrian Fontes, a Democrat who oversaw the Maricopa County election office last year.

“They are trying to scare people into doubting the system is actually working,” he said. “That is their motive. They want to destroy public confidence in our systems.”

The review was authorized by the Republican-controlled state Senate, which subpoenaed the election records from Maricopa County and selected the inexperienced, pro-Trump auditors. On Friday, Senate President Karen Fann sent a letter to Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich, urging him to investigate issues the report flagged. However, she noted the review found the official count matched the ballots.

“This is the most important and encouraging finding of the audit,” Fann wrote.

Trump issued statements Friday falsely claiming the results demonstrated “fraud.”

Despite being widely pilloried, the Arizona review has become a model that Trump supporters are pushing to replicate in other swing states where Biden won. Pennsylvania’s Democratic attorney general sued Thursday to block a GOP-issued subpoena for a wide array of election materials. In Wisconsin, a retired conservative state Supreme Court justice is leading a Republican-ordered investigation into the 2020 election, and this week threatened to subpoena election officials who don’t comply.

None of the reviews can change Biden’s victory, which was certified by officials in each of the swing states he won and by Congress on Jan. 6 — after Trump’s supporters, fueled by the same false charges that generated the audits, stormed the U.S. Capitol to try to prevent certification of his loss.

The Arizona report claims a number of shortcomings in election procedures and suggests the final tally still could not be relied upon. Several claims were challenged by election experts, while members of the Republican-led county Board of Supervisors, which oversees elections, disputed claims on Twitter.

“Unfortunately, the report is also littered with errors & faulty conclusions about how Maricopa County conducted the 2020 General Election,” county officials tweeted.

Election officials say that’s because the review team is biased, ignored the detailed vote-counting procedures in Arizona law and had no experience in the complex field of election audits.

‘The Senate’s contractors don’t understand election processes’

Two of the report’s recommendations stood out because they showed its authors misunderstood election procedures — that there should be paper ballot backups and that voting machines should not be connected to the internet. All Maricopa ballots are already paper, with machines only used to tabulate the votes, and those tabulators are not connected to the internet.

The review also checked the names of voters against a commercial database, finding 23,344 reported moving before ballots went out in October. While the review suggests something improper, election officials note that voters like college students, those who own vacation homes or military members can move to temporary locations while still legally voting at the address where they are registered.

“A competent reviewer of an election would not make a claim like that,” said Trey Grayson, a former Republican secretary of state in Kentucky.

The election review was run by Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan, whose firm has never conducted an election audit before. Logan previously worked with attorneys and Trump supporters trying to overturn the 2020 election and appeared in a film questioning the results of the contest while the ballot review was ongoing.

Logan and others involved with the review presented their findings to two Arizona senators Friday. It kicked off with Shiva Ayyadurai, a COVID-19 vaccine skeptic who claims to have invented email, presenting an analysis relying on “pattern recognition” that flagged purported anomalies in the way mail ballots were processed at the end of the election.

Maricopa County tweeted that the pattern was simply the election office following state law.

“‘Anomaly’ seems to be another way of saying the Senate’s contractors don’t understand election processes,” the county posted during the testimony.

Logan followed up by acknowledging “the ballots that were provided for us to count … very accurately correlated with the official canvass.” He then continued to flag statistical discrepancies — including the voters who moved — that he said merited further investigation.

The review has a history of exploring outlandish conspiracy theories, dedicating time to checking for bamboo fibers on ballots to see if they were secretly shipped in from Asia. It’s also served as a content-generation machine for Trump’s effort to sow skepticism about his loss, pumping out misleading and out-of-context information that the former president circulates long after it’s been debunked.

In July, for example, Logan laid out a series of claims stemming from his misunderstanding of the election data he was analyzing, including that 74,000 mail ballots were recorded as received but not sent. Trump repeatedly amplified the claims.Logan had compared two databases that track different things.

Arizona’s Senate agreed to spend $150,000 on the review, plus security and facility costs. That pales in comparison to the nearly $5.7 million contributed as of late July by Trump allies.

Maricopa County’s official vote count was conducted in front of bipartisan observers, as were legally required audits meant to ensure voting machines work properly. A partial hand-count spot check found a perfect match.

Two extra post-election reviews by federally certified election experts also found no evidence that voting machines switched votes or were connected to the internet. The county Board of Supervisors commissioned the extraordinary reviews in an effort to prove to Trump backers that there were no problems. 
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Pacific Gas & Electric was charged Friday with involuntary manslaughter and other crimes after its equipment sparked a Northern California wildfire that killed four people and destroyed hundreds of homes last year, prosecutors said.

It is the latest legal action against the nation’s largest utility, which pleaded guilty last year to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter in a 2018 blaze ignited by its long-neglected electrical grid. That fire, which nearly destroyed the town of Paradise, became the deadliest U.S. wildfire in a century. 

Shasta County District Attorney Stephanie Bridgett announced the 31 charges, including 11 felonies, against PG&E, saying that it failed to perform its legal duties and its “failure was reckless and criminally negligent, and it resulted in the death of four people.” 

If the utility is convicted of involuntary manslaughter, the punishment will be a fine for each person killed in the Zogg Fire last year near the city of Redding. A corporation “can’t go to jail, so we’re talking fines, fees, the ability for the court to order remedial and corrective measures,” Bridgett said. 

“One of our primary functions here is to hold them responsible and let the surviving families know that their loved one did not die in vain,” she added. 

PG&E CEO Patti Poppe said failing to prevent the fire was not a crime. 

“This was a tragedy, four people died,” Poppe said in a statement. “And my coworkers are working so hard to prevent fires and the catastrophic losses that come with them. They have dedicated their careers to it, criminalizing their judgment is not right.”

The wind-whipped Zogg Fire began on September 27, 2020, and raged through rugged terrain and small communities west of Redding, killing four people, burning about 200 homes and blackening about 225 square kilometers of land. Three of the victims died as they tried to outrun the blaze and were found inside or near their vehicles. A fourth victim died at a hospital.

In March, state fire investigators concluded that the blaze was sparked by a gray pine tree that fell onto a PG&E transmission line. Shasta and Tehama counties have sued the utility on allegations of negligence, saying PG&E had failed to remove the tree even though it had been marked for removal two years earlier. The utility says the tree was subsequently cleared to stay. 

The district attorney determined that the company was criminally liable for the fire. The charges Friday include enhancements for injury to a 29-year-old firefighter who was hit by a falling tree that fractured his spine, paralyzing him from the chest down. They also include felony arson counts linked to several fires started by the utility’s equipment in Shasta County over the last year, Bridgett said.

Aging equipment

PG&E, which has an estimated 16 million customers in central and Northern California, filed for bankruptcy protection in 2019 after its aging equipment was blamed for a series of fires, including the 2018 Camp Fire that killed 85 people and destroyed 10,000 homes in Paradise and neighboring communities.

Company officials have acknowledged that PG&E hasn’t lived up to expectations in the past but said changes in leadership and elsewhere ensure it’s on the right track and will do better. They have listed a wide range of improvements that include using more advanced technology to avoid setting wildfires and help detect them quicker.

PG&E also remains on criminal probation for a 2010 pipeline explosion in the San Francisco Bay Area city of San Bruno that killed eight people, giving a federal judge oversight of the company. The judge and California power regulators have rebuked PG&E for breaking promises to reduce the dangers posed by trees near its power lines.

The company has acknowledged that its equipment may have played a role in sparking this summer’s Dixie Fire, which has burned nearly 400,000 hectares and is now the second-largest wildfire in state history.

PG&E emerged from bankruptcy last summer and negotiated a $13.5 billion settlement with some wildfire victims. But it still faces both civil and criminal actions, including charges from the Sonoma County district attorney’s office over the 2019 Kincade Fire, which forced nearly 200,000 people to evacuate.

In the meantime, most of the roughly 70,000 victims who have filed claims for the devastation caused by PG&E’s past misdeeds still are awaiting payment from a trust created during the bankruptcy. The trust, which is run independently of PG&E, is facing a nearly $2 billion shortfall because half its funding came in company stock. 
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is defending President Joe Biden’s foreign policy record as the administration faces pressure over its handling of Haitian migrants on the U.S. border, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and a nuclear submarine deal with Australia that angered France. VOA’s senior diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine has more. 

Produced by: Kim Weeks
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U.S. authorities continue to deport Haitian migrants who have arrived by the thousands at the U.S.-Mexico border and are camping out under the International Bridge in Del Rio, Texas.Migrants from other countries also face deportation. For VOA, Alejandro Saldivar filed this report from Del Rio, narrated by Cristina Caicedo Smits.

Camera: Cesar Contreras 

 
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A top executive of Chinese communications giant Huawei Technologies has resolved criminal charges against her as part of a deal with the U.S. Justice Department that could pave the way for her to return to China. 

The deal with Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer and the daughter of the company’s founder, was disclosed in federal court in Brooklyn on Friday. It calls for the Justice Department to dismiss the case next December, or four years after her arrest, if she complies with certain conditions. 

The deal, known as a deferred prosecution agreement, resolves a yearslong legal and geopolitical tussle that involved not only the U.S. and China but also Canada, where Meng has remained since her arrest there in December 2018. Meng appeared via videoconference at Friday’s hearing. 

The deal was reached as President Joe Biden and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping have sought to minimize signs of public tension, even as the world’s two dominant economies are at odds on issues as diverse as cybersecurity, climate change, human rights, and trade and tariffs. 

A spokesperson for Huawei declined to comment, and a spokesman for the Justice Department in Washington did not respond to an email seeking comment. 

Charges unsealed in 2019

Under then-President Donald Trump, the Justice Department unsealed criminal charges in 2019, just before a crucial two-day round of trade talks between the U.S. and China, that accused Huawei of stealing trade secrets. The charges also alleged that Meng had committed fraud by misleading banks about the company’s business dealings in Iran. 

The indictment accuses Huawei of using a Hong Kong shell company called Skycom to sell equipment to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions. 

Meng fought the Justice Department’s extradition request, and her lawyers called the case against her flawed. Last month, a Canadian judge didn’t rule on whether Meng should be extradited to the U.S. after a Canadian Justice Department lawyer wrapped up his case saying there was enough evidence to show she was dishonest and deserved to stand trial in the U.S. 

Huawei is the biggest global supplier of network gear for phone and internet companies, and some analysts say Chinese companies have flouted international rules and norms amid allegations of technology theft. The company represents China’s progress in becoming a technological power and has been a subject of U.S. security and law enforcement concerns. 

It has repeatedly denied the U.S. government’s allegations and the security concerns about its products. 
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