Month: November 2021

Canadians Ian and Heather Stewart are savoring the idea of leaving behind this winter’s subzero temperatures when the U.S. reopens its borders to nonessential land travel next week and they launch a long-delayed drive to their seasonal home in Fort Myers, Florida.  

Restrictions imposed by both countries during the coronavirus pandemic and their own concerns kept the retired couple and millions of other Canadians from driving south to warmer climes like Florida, Arizona and Mexico during last year’s freezing winter months.  

Now, the Biden administration’s decision to allow vaccinated people to enter the U.S. by land for any reason starting Nov. 8 has many Canadians packing up their campers and making reservations at their favorite vacation condominiums and mobile home parks. Some are already in the U.S., arriving on flights that never stopped and have required just a negative COVID-19 test.  

But many have waited to drive, preferring the convenience of having a vehicle to get around in with rental cars scarce and expensive.  

Vacasa, a management company for over 30,000 vacation homes in North America, Belize and Costa Rica, said it saw a major rise in traffic on its online platform after the new rules were announced. Canadian users’ views at rentals in snowbird-popular destinations jumped by 120%. 

The Stewarts will board their SUV with two dogs and a cat Nov. 10 for the four-day trek from Ottawa, Ontario, to spend six months on Florida’s Gulf Coast. 

“We love it there,” said Ian Stewart, 81, a retired air traffic controller with the Royal Canadian Air Force. “There’s such a nice feel with the good weather that lets you get out and walk and talk to your neighbors. And you don’t have to worry about slipping on the ice and breaking your bones!” 

Like the Stewarts, many Canadian snowbirds stay at mobile home parks and luxury RV resorts — with swimming pools, pickleball and sometimes golf courses — for people 55 and over. The Stewarts have owned a manufactured home at their Florida park since 2007. 

Arizona is also popular for its mild winters.  

The Arizona Office of Tourism expects an immediate economic impact in a state where people from Canada and Mexico traditionally make up the largest number of overnight visitors, said Becky Blaine, the office’s deputy director.  

“The phones have been ringing off the hook since they announced the border will be reopened,” said Kate Ebert, manager of the Sundance 1 RV Resort in Casa Grande, halfway between Phoenix and Tucson.

Renée Louzon-Benn, executive director of the Greater Casa Grande Chamber of Commerce, said the desert community last year felt the absence of visitors from Canada and U.S. Midwestern states like Wisconsin and Michigan, with far fewer people spending money locally. Casa Grande Mayor Craig McFarland said the city of about 62,000 people usually swells by another 25,000 each winter.  

Wendy Caban of Lake Country, British Columbia, is thrilled she and her husband, Geoffrey, can soon drive to their resort home in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa.  

“I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of friends that we made over the last dozen years,” Wendy Caban said. “I’m looking forward to the warmth.” 

But the couple, both 73, are still mulling when to leave. 

“I think it’s going to be insane on Nov. 8,” Caban said. “So, we’ll wait a few days and monitor the lineups and the weather.” 

Arizona’s Office of Tourism says close to 1 million Canadian tourists accounted for $1 billion in spending in 2019. That plunged to 257,000 Canadians who spent $325 million last year.  

R. Glenn Williamson, Canada’s Arizona honorary consul and founder and CEO of the Canada Arizona Business Council, said the numbers for tourists don’t consider longer term stays by part-time resident Canadians who spend months at a time in homes they own in Arizona — as many as 200,000 additional people spending another $1.5 billion locally each year. 

With some 500 Canadian companies operating in Arizona, a new wave of younger, wealthier Canadian snowbirds work part-time in the state, where they buy upscale homes and play golf, among Canada’s most popular sports, Williamson said.  

Barbara and Brian Fox of Toronto, both in their 60s, plan to keep working for their strategic communications firm when they return to the Naples area on Florida’s Gulf Coast in March and April.  

It will be the longest Florida stay so far for the couple, who have canceled at least five planned trips south during the course of the pandemic over restrictions and concerns about possible infection. 

Plenty of retirees are planning to head south again as well.  

They include Wilf and Lynne Burnett, who haven’t made annual trek south from their hometown in Vancouver, British Columbia, to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, since the coronavirus emerged. They typically tow a 15-foot (4.5-meter) boat so they can fish and visit restaurants with docks on the bay. 

Now that land border restrictions are being eliminated, the Burnetts have a three-month reservation at a Puerto Vallarta condominium starting Jan. 6. 

“We’ll keep an eye on the virus and if things continue to improve, we’ll go,” Wilf Burnett said. 

Those who decide to travel at the last minute will likely find it hard to book a condominium, RV park or campground. 

Amid concern restrictions might keep changing, some snowbirds are making reservations for earlier in the season than usual, starting from November through early next year, said Bruce Hoban, co-founder of the 2,000-member Vacation Rental Owners and Neighbors of Palm Springs. Hoban said peak visitor times for snowbirds, who comprise about 15% of vacation rentals, are generally between February and April.  

Those who come can also expect prices as much as 20% to 30% higher because of increased demand, he said.  

Bobby Cornwell, executive director of the Florida and Alabama RV Parks & Campground Association, said many sites in those states were booked solid from January through March even before the new travel rules were announced. That’s because Americans have embraced RV travel during the pandemic, filling spots Canadian campers normally would.  

Still, it’s “wonderful news” Canadians can return, Cornwell said.  

“We encourage all snowbirds to plan to come to Florida and make your reservations as soon as possible,” he said. 
…

The Pentagon on Monday said it has temporarily removed from its visual information website tens of thousands of photo and video images of Afghans who supported the U.S. war effort and were deemed vulnerable to Taliban retaliation. 

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said that starting in August during the U.S.-led evacuation, all imagery was removed that shows the faces or other identifiable features of vulnerable Afghans. He said the images will be returned to the public domain when it is deemed safe. 

Kirby said 124,000 photos and 17,000 videos were removed and archived on the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service. 

“It was a mammoth undertaking and took us a long time — almost two months,” Kirby said, adding that it is not yet completed. “We did it out of an abundance of caution, out of respect for the obligation that we have to these individuals and to their families, and at the right time when it’s appropriate, we will absolutely republish those images.” 

Kirby said his decision was in line with a concern throughout the U.S. government that the Taliban, who rapidly defeated the Afghan security forces last summer and took control of Kabul on August 15, would seek to retaliate against Afghans who had helped the United States during its 20-year war effort. 

“Those concerns were valid, and we make no apology whatsoever for making this decision. I still believe it was the right thing to do,” he added. “Nothing’s been deleted from the record. It’s simply being archived until we believe it’s the appropriate time to put them back up.” 
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Senator Joe Manchin wavered Monday on his support for President Joe Biden’s sweeping $1.75 trillion domestic policy proposal, saying instead it’s “time to vote” on a slimmer $1 trillion infrastructure package that has stalled amid talks. 

The West Virginia Democrat’s announcement comes as Democrats want a signal from Manchin that he will support Biden’s big package. He’s one of two key holdout senators whose votes are needed to secure the deal and push it toward passage.

Instead, Manchin rebuffed progressive Democrats, urging them to quit holding “hostage” the smaller public works bill as negotiations continue on the broader package.

“Enough is enough,” Manchin said at a hastily called press conference at the Capitol. 

Manchin said he’s open to voting for a final bill reflecting Biden’s big package “that moves our country forward.” But he said he’s “equally open to voting against” the final product as he assesses the sweeping social services and climate change bill. 

Democrats have been working frantically to finish up Biden’s signature domestic package after months of negotiations, racing toward a first round of House votes possible later this week.

The White House swiftly responded that it remains confident Manchin will support Biden’s plan, and congressional leaders indicated votes were on track as planned. 

“Senator Manchin says he is prepared to support a Build Back Better plan that combats inflation, is fiscally responsible, and will create jobs,” said press secretary Jen Psaki in a statement. “As a result, we remain confident that the plan will gain Senator Manchin’s support.” 

The stakes are high with Biden overseas at a global climate change summit and his party fighting in two key governors’ races this week — in Virginia and New Jersey — that are seen as bellwethers in the political mood of the electorate. 

With Republicans staunchly opposed and no votes to spare, Democrats have been trying to unite progressive and centrist lawmakers around Biden’s big vision.

Progressives have been refusing to vote on the smaller public works bill, using it as leverage as they try to win commitments from Manchin and Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, the other key holdout, for Biden’s broader bill. 

Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal, leader of the progressive caucus, indicated her group is ready to push ahead and pass both bills this week in the House. She said she trusts that Biden will have the support needed for eventual Senate passage. 

“I would urge everybody to keep tempers down,” Jayapal said on CNN. “We are preparing to pass through the House both bills in the president’s agenda.” 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer both echoed the White House, suggesting the bills are on track. 

Manchin, though, in a direct response to the progressives’ tactic, said “holding this bill hostage won’t work to get my support” for the broader one. He said he will “not support a bill that is this consequential without thoroughly understanding the impact” it has on the economy and federal debt. 

Manchin’s priority has long been the smaller public works bill of roads, highways and broadband projects that had already been approved by the Senate but is being stalled by House progressives as the broader negotiations are underway.

“This is not how the United States Congress should operate,” Manchin said. “It’s time our elected leaders in Washington stop playing games.” 

Biden’s top domestic priorities have been a battlefield between progressive and moderate Democrats for months, and it was unclear if this week’s timetable for initial House votes could be met. 

The $1.75 trillion package is sweeping in its reach and would provide large numbers of Americans with assistance to pay for health care, education, raising children and caring for elderly people in their homes. It also would provide some $555 billion in tax breaks encouraging cleaner energy and electrified vehicles, the nation’s largest commitment to tackling climate change. 

Much of its costs would be covered with higher taxes on people earning over $10 million annually and large corporations, which would now face a 15% minimum tax in efforts to stop big business from claiming so many deductions they end up paying zero in taxes. 

Over the weekend, Democrats made significant progress toward adding provisions curbing prescription drug prices to the massive package, two congressional aides said Sunday. They requested anonymity to discuss the ongoing negotiations. 

According to a senior Democratic aide, one proposal under discussion would let Medicare negotiate lower prices with pharmaceutical companies for many of their products. Excluded would be drugs for which the Food and Drug Administration has granted initial protection against competition, periods that vary but last several years. 

There would be a cap on seniors’ out-of-pocket drug costs under Medicare Part D, the program’s outpatient prescription drug benefit, said the senior aide, who did not provide a figure. And pharmaceutical makers would have to pay a rebate if their prices rise above certain markers. 

Talks were continuing and no final agreement had been reached. But the movement raised hopes that the party’s 10-year, $1.75 trillion measure would address the longtime Democratic campaign promise to lower pharmaceutical costs, though more modestly than some wanted. 
…

The U.S. Supreme Court heard challenges Monday to a Texas law that imposes a near total ban on abortion after six weeks. 

The Republican-backed Texas law bars abortions once cardiac activity has been detected in an embryo, which typically happens at six weeks – a point when some women are not yet aware they are pregnant.

The law also allows members of the public to sue people who may have facilitated an abortion after six weeks, taking enforcement out of the hands of state officials. 

The justices heard separate challenges to the law from President Joe Biden’s administration and from abortion providers. 

In their questioning of lawyers appearing before the court Monday, the justices suggested the law’s atypical enforcement structure could be problematic. 

Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked whether defendants who are sued under the law could ever get a “full airing” of the constitutional claims on the right to an abortion. The law allows defendants to bring up such claims only after they have been sued. 

Barrett was one of five conservative justices who allowed the Texas law to take effect while legal challenges to it played out in court.

Brett Kavanaugh, another of the justices who let the law take effect, also raised potential problems with its unusual structure. He said the law “exploited” a “loophole” in court precedent in how it is enforced with lawsuits. He raised the possibility that the court could “close that loophole.” 

Liberal Justice Elena Kagan said the law was written by “some geniuses” to evade legal principles. 

In the cases brought before the Supreme Court Monday, the justices are not directly considering the constitutionality of the right to an abortion.

Abortion rights, however, were part of arguments made to the court by lawyers challenging the Texas law.

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said the Texas law “clearly violates” Supreme Court precedents, referring to Roe v. Wade, the decades-old ruling that gives women the right to an abortion in most circumstances. The 1973 Supreme Court decision recognizes a constitutional right to an abortion before a fetus is viable, typically around 24 weeks of pregnancy.

The high court is being closely watched on issues of abortion after it allowed the restrictive Texas law to take effect in September. 

The court became more conservative under President Donald Trump, who appointed three justices to the nine-seat bench. Conservatives now hold a 6-3 majority.

The court scheduled oral arguments for December 1 to hear a case concerning a Mississippi state law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. That case directly asks justices to overturn Roe v. Wade. 

A poll released by Monmouth University in September found that 62% of Americans believe abortion should either always be legal or be legal with some limitations. Twenty-four percent said it should be illegal except in rare circumstances such as rape, while 11% said it should always be illegal.

Some information in this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters. 

 
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First doses, pending approval, will be administered this week
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NOTE:  The discovery in June 2021 of 215 unmarked graves by Canada’s Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation at the Kamloops Indian Residential School prompted the U.S. Interior Department to launch a federal  investigation into hundreds of similar boarding schools in the United States.

Investigators are expected to submit a final report in April 2022, identifying the location of school facilities and possible student burial sites, as well as the names and tribal affiliations of those children who died there.

This is the first of a four-part series examining the history of the federal off-reservation boarding school system and its long-term impact on Native Americans and Alaska Natives.

It was in an abandoned Spanish fortress in Florida that a U.S. cavalry officer hatched an idea for how to solve the so-called “Indian question” — whether and how to assimilate Natives into American society.

Richard H. Pratt, a low-ranking cavalry officer, spent eight years on the Western frontier in charge of enlisted African American soldiers and Native American Army scouts, both of whom he believed deserved the citizenship and equal opportunities guaranteed by the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

But Pratt saw no value in African or Native cultures, as he made clear in an 1892 speech during a conference on social reform.

“Left in Africa, surrounded by their fellow-savages, our seven millions of industrious black fellow-citizens would still be savages,” he said. “They became English-speaking and civilized because [they were] forced into association with English-speaking and civilized people.”

By contrast, he continued, Indians had been forced onto remote reservations, far from the “civilizing” influence of English-speaking peoples. And it was in this speech that he cited a quote popular during the Indian wars: “The only good Indian is a dead one.”

“In a sense, I agree with the sentiment,” he said, “but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him and save the man.”

The experiment

Stationed in 1875 at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, Pratt wanted “a change,” as he wrote in his memoir, “Battlefield and Classroom: Four Decades with the American Indian, 1867- 1904,” on which VOA has relied for much of this report.

Hearing that the Army was planning to send 72 Arapaho, Caddo, Cheyenne, Comanche and Kiowa war prisoners to Fort Marion in Florida, he wrote his commander, volunteering to escort them.

“Much can and should be done to reform these young men while under this banishment,” he noted.

It was a 1,000-mile journey by wagon, rail and steamboat that took nearly a month. Two prisoners died along the way — one by suicide, and the other shot while attempting escape.

Fort Marion, a grim stone citadel built by the Spanish in the 1600s, had been a U.S. Army outpost since the early 1800s. The prisoners arrived in chains and shackles and were forced to sleep on dirt floors inside dark vaulted chambers. After several prisoners became sick or died, Pratt decided to make some changes.

“The 19th century was a time of social reform in America,” said Sarah Hayes, professor of Philosophy and English at Seminole State College in Florida. “A large new social ideology was taking form.”

Hayes outlined in her 2015 doctoral dissertation “Penitential Education” that America had transitioned from an agricultural economy to an industrial one. The factory system brought thousands into the nation’s cities, leading to overcrowding and rising crime rates.

Until the early 19th century, education was only available to elite Americans, mostly boys. Now, public school systems, funded by the taxpayer, dotted the country, opening up education to all.

In 1870, members of the National Congress of Penitentiary and Reformatory Discipline met in Ohio to discuss ways in which prisons could focus on inmate reform by educating and incentivizing criminals. They concluded that prisoners should work to earn their keep, and good behavior should be rewarded with extra privileges and shortened sentences.

“What I found in my archival research — and in looking at Richard Pratt’s autobiography — is that he was heavily influenced by both the prison and educational reform movements,” Hayes said.

The experiment at Fort Marion, she believes, mirrored what was going on in schools and prisons across the country.

Not long after they arrived in St. Augustine, Pratt unshackled the men and began work to “transform” them into soldiers, cutting their hair and issuing them military uniforms. He put them through all the rigors of military life, including daily inspections, drills and marches.

Local women set up makeshift classrooms inside the casemates, where they taught the prisoners to read, write and speak English. And, on Sundays, Pratt delivered religious sermons.

Eventually, he gave them freedoms unheard of in other prisons: he organized prisoners into a military company “with sergeants and corporals,” and armed them with rifles so that they could guard themselves. After some time, he allowed them to stroll armed into town.

“They were being watched constantly, not just by Pratt but by everyone in St. Augustine,” Hayes said. “Pratt knew they had nowhere to go.”

St. Augustine was a popular tourist designation, and Pratt encouraged prison visitors. The prisoners were soon polishing “seed beans,” large seed pods from island plants that washed ashore and selling them as souvenirs, along with the many pencil drawings they produced on army ledger books.

The men performed dances for spectators, and the Smithsonian Institute sent a sculptor to cast life masks of more than 60 prisoners, including the wife and 9-year-old daughter of Comanche Chief Black Horse, who had chosen to come with him to Florida.

Pratt’s memoir downplays the harshness of incarceration by emphasizing what Hayes describes as “endearing anecdotes” of camping, shark fishing and foot races, which he cited as evidence that hard work, discipline and Christianity could “civilize” the Indian.

But this was no summer camp, and discipline could be harsh. In 1876, after learning that four Kiowa inmates were planning an escape, Pratt rounded them up and ordered the fort surgeon to drug them via “hypodermic syringe.”

He then instructed guards to place the unconscious men into a cart and wheel them out of the fort, in full view of the other prisoners, who believed that the men were dead.

“Not one of these men will ever take up arms against the Government unless driven by the grossest bad treatment,” he later wrote to his commander.

From prison to school

The prisoners completed their sentences in spring 1878. While most looked forward to going home, about two dozen of the younger men asked to continue to study in the East.

Pratt arranged for a handful to live with benefactors in New York and Minnesota. He enrolled the remaining 17 at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute — now Hampton University — a school in Virginia founded by Army General Samuel Armstrong to educate newly freed slaves.

The Interior Department had Pratt recruit another 50 students and put him in charge of Hampton’s Indian program.

But Pratt and General Armstrong clashed: while both men agreed that schooling was the answer to the “Indian question,” Armstrong wanted to separate Native students from Black students, which Pratt strongly opposed.

“Segregating any class or race of people apart from the rest of the people kills the progress of the segregated people or makes their growth very slow,” Pratt would state in 1902. “Association of races and classes is necessary to destroy racism and classism.”

Pratt left Hampton and spent much of 1879 lobbying for a school of his own. He asked the Interior and War department secretaries to turn over abandoned Army barracks in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, for that purpose.

Washington, still grappling with the “Indian problem,” did not need much convincing. In September, Pratt made two more trips West, bringing back more than 135 youths — boys and girls — from several tribes. 

And on November 1, 1879, still waiting for shipments of food, clothing and supplies, the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, the government’s first off-reservation boarding school, formally opened.

In the next article in this series, VOA will examine the Carlisle School’s Outing Program by which Pratt placed students in white homes and farms, to learn farming and domestic skills and be exposed to “good, wholesome, civilized life.”
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President Joe Biden said he is disappointed that China and Russia have yet to come up with new commitments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, as the U.S. approaches a major climate summit with what his administration says are strong new goals. 

Those include a set of new U.S. climate commitments that build on previous global agreements; the unveiling of plans for a $3 billion President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience to tackle climate awareness, financing and adaptation efforts; and a raft of domestically focused legislation that aims to shore up American infrastructure while also cutting greenhouse gas pollution by well over one gigaton in 2030. That legislation has occupied the U.S. Congress for months, with members of the legislative body negotiating fiercely throughout — but ultimately, failing to bring the matter to a vote before Biden left for the summit last week. 

China, the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that cause global warming, announced last Thursday it has no new significant goals to reduce climate-changing emissions. Nor is the nation sending its head of state to the U.N. Climate Change Conference, in Glasgow. On Monday, China’s government announced that President Xi Jinping will only address the summit in the form of a written statement. 

Biden said late Sunday that he found it “disappointing” that China and Russia have not made any new climate commitments.  

“The disappointment relates to the fact that Russia and — and — and including not only Russia, but China, basically didn’t show up in terms of any commitments to deal with climate change,” Biden said.  “And there’s a reason why people should be disappointed in that. I found it disappointing myself.”

This year’s summit builds on a legally binding agreement that 196 parties — including the U.S., Russia and China — signed in 2015, in Paris. The international treaty commits those countries to embark on emissions cuts that aim to limit the planet’s warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. 

The U.S. has previously faltered on its own climate commitments, with former President Donald Trump announcing in 2017 that he was withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement. That took effect in November 2020, but Biden rejoined the deal on his first day in office. And critics note that some of his administration’s climate commitments are not as large as those promised by other developed nations.  

“We go into (the summit) with roughly 65% of the world’s economy in line with a 1.5 degree commitment, with still some significant outliers, one of those significant outliers being China, who will not be represented at the leader level at COP-26,” said U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Monday. “And who we do believe has an obligation to step up to greater ambition as we go forward.”

Administration officials have repeatedly described China as the U.S.’ biggest adversary and said the relationship between the two powers is a challenging one. But, Sullivan said, that should have no impact on this globally important issue. 

“They are perfectly well capable of living up to their responsibilities,” he said. “It’s up to them to do so. And nothing about the nature of the relationship between the U.S. and China, structurally or otherwise, impedes or stands in the way of them doing their part.”

The summit continues through Tuesday.
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Former U.S. ambassador and former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is heading to Myanmar on a private humanitarian mission that will focus on pandemic support, his spokesperson said Sunday.

Myanmar has been mired in violence and civil unrest since a military coup seized power in February. Protesters have faced beatings and arrests. The United States suspended a trade deal with Myanmar until a democratic government is restored in the Southeast Asian country.

Richardson said his center has a long history of supporting the people of Myanmar, but he didn’t mention the coup in his trip announcement or detail who he planned to meet with while there.

“In coordination with our contacts in Myanmar, we are visiting the country to discuss pathways for the humanitarian delivery of COVID-19 vaccines, medical supplies, and other public health needs,” he said in a news release.

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres was aware of the mission, said Richardson spokesperson Madeleine Mahony.

The U.S. State Department did not immediately comment on the trip.

Mahony declined to say whether Richardson would also be working for the release of an American journalist who has been jailed since May 24.

Danny Fenster was detained at Yangon International Airport as he was about to board a flight to the United States. He is the managing editor of Frontier Myanmar, an online magazine based in Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city.

Fenster was charged with incitement — also known as sedition — for allegedly spreading false or inflammatory information. The offense is punishable by up to three years in prison.

Richardson last visited Myanmar in 2018 to advise on the Rohingya crisis. He ended up quitting an international panel set up to work on findings from a previous commission after armed forces were accused of carrying out rapes and killings of Rohingyas.

Myanmar has denied the allegations.

He has made trips to Bangladesh to visit Rohingya refugee camps. The Richardson Center has supported the distribution of personal protection equipment to Rohingya refugees following the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

Richardson’s official statement on this latest trip also focused on public health.

Richardson believes, his statement said, that “in moments of crisis and instability such as this one, we must ensure that humanitarian aid is delivered to those most in need.”

Joining the governor on the trip are Cameron Hume, former U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, South Africa and Algeria; and two officials from the Richardson Center. 

 
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A highly sensitive trial is set to open Monday in the United States in the case of a young man accused in the shooting deaths of two people during one of the tumultuous anti-racism protests that swept the U.S. in the summer of 2020.

Kyle Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time, has said he wanted to help vigilante groups trying to protect the city of Kenosha, Wisconsin, following riots over a police shooting that left a Black man paralyzed.

Carrying a semiautomatic rifle, he had opened fire in confusing circumstances, killing two men, Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, and badly wounding a third, Gaige Grosskreutz. All three were white.

Arrested not long afterward, Rittenhouse was charged with five felony counts, including first-degree homicide, before being freed on bail of $2 million.

That large sum had been quickly raised by supporters across the country, including a prominent Donald Trump backer, the pillow company executive Mike Lindell, as well as actor Ricky Schroder.

If convicted during the trial in Kenosha County Circuit Court, Rittenhouse faces a possible life sentence.

The trial, beginning Monday with jury selection, seems certain to underscore the deep fractures in American society over gun rights and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Prosecutors are expected to depict Rittenhouse as a right-wing extremist who had come to Kenosha with the specific intention of clashing with anti-racism demonstrators.

His own lawyers will say he acted in self-defense, shooting only to protect himself from rioters pursuing him.

‘Very big trouble’

On Aug. 23, 2020, Kenosha was in flames amid protests spurred when white police officers grievously wounded a Black man, Jacob Blake, shooting him in the back repeatedly during an arrest attempt.

On the third night of rioting, Rittenhouse, who had posted numerous online messages supporting the police, drove the 30 kilometers from his home in northern Illinois to Kenosha, just across the Wisconsin border.

Several videos captured his movements that night.

On one of them, Rittenhouse seems to flee just before another young man falls to the ground with a gunshot wound to his head.

On another, he is seen being chased by a small group of protesters. He falls down, then points his weapon. The sound of shots being fired is clearly audible.

“I guess he was in very big trouble” after protesters “violently attacked him,” then president Trump said during a Kenosha visit in early September. “He probably would have been killed.”

Since then, Rittenhouse has become a sort of poster boy in some right-wing circles, where the widespread protests of 2020 were blamed on violent radicals, the anti-fascist group known as “antifa” or anarchists.

The judge overseeing the trial, Bruce Schroeder, has vowed to keep politics out of the trial.

But he has raised questions by his refusal to allow prosecutors to refer to those killed or wounded by Rittenhouse as “victims,” while ruling that they can be referred to as “rioters,” “looters” or “arsonists” if defense attorneys can show they had engaged in such acts. 

 
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The U.S. Air Force said Sunday it flew a B-1B strategic bomber over key maritime chokepoints in the Mideast with allies including Israel amid ongoing tensions with Iran as its nuclear deal with world powers remains in tatters. 

The B-1B Lancer bomber flew Saturday over the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of all oil traded passes. It also flew over the Red Sea, its narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait and Egypt’s Suez Canal. 

The Strait of Hormuz has been the scene of attacks on shipping blamed on Iran in recent years, while the Red Sea has seen similar assaults amid an ongoing shadow war between Tehran and Israel. The Islamic Republic has denied being involved in the attacks, though it has promised to take revenge on Israel for a series of attacks targeting its nuclear program. 

Fighter jets from Bahrain, Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia flew alongside the bomber. 

Iranian state media did not immediately acknowledge the flyover. Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.  

The flyover comes after a pattern of such flights by nuclear-capable B-52 bombers since the Trump administration as a show of force to Iran. President Donald Trump in 2018 unilaterally withdrew America from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal, which saw Tehran agree to drastically limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. 

In the time since, Iran has abandoned all the limits of the deal and drastically reduced the ability of international inspectors to keep watch over their program. While Iran insists its program is peaceful, the U.S. intelligence agencies, Western inspectors and others say Tehran had a structured military nuclear weapons program through the end of 2003.

President Joe Biden has said he’s willing to re-enter the nuclear deal, but talks in Vienna have stalled as a hard-line protégé of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei took over as president. 

Biden sending a B1-B bomber into the region allows him to send “a clear message of reassurance” to regional allies, as the U.S. Air Force’s Central Command put it on Twitter. But it doesn’t involve a nuclear-capable bomber. 

The B-1B came from the 37th Bomb Squadron based at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. 
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 Facing staff shortages, public schools in Nebraska’s largest city have turned to bilingual high school students to interpret when families talk with teachers during report card conferences.

The Omaha school district has some full-time bilingual liaisons, but students and their families speak more than 100 different languages, and more than 18,000 students have received services for limited English speakers at some time while in the district. 

Lisa Utterback, the district’s chief student and community services officer, told the Omaha World-Herald that the district has about 20 students contracted as interpreters.

The students are paid $18 an hour to help with middle and elementary school conferences.  

Utterback said the student interpreters are going through the same application process and training as non-student interpreters.  

Three of the translators who are high school seniors have been used to translating for others.

Hser Kmwe, who speaks Karen, the language spoken widely in parts of Thailand and Myanmar, has helped translate in the grocery store after seeing someone struggle to communicate. She often translates for her parents.

Families in Pu Meh’s community often offer to pay her for her help in translating from Karen to English, but she always has refused payment.

Karen Soto translates for her Spanish-speaking family and volunteers to help other parents.
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Surrounded by a few hundred Uyghur, Tibetan, and Hong Kong activists, NBA player Enes Kanter led a rally in front of Capitol Hill on Saturday, calling on China to stop Uyghur forced labor and urging the U.S. Congress to pass “The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.”

The Boston Celtics center also called on U.S. officials to take “tangible” steps to end the forced labor of Uyghurs in China.

“We need action. Not just words. We have to make human rights a priority in both U.S. and foreign policies,” he said. “Only then can we help stop the Uyghur genocide.”

The U.S. Senate unanimously passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in July.

If passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and signed into law by President Joe Biden, it would ensure that goods made with forced labor in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region do not enter the U.S. market, and it imposes sanctions related to such forced labor.

The bill states that since April 2017, China has arbitrarily detained more than one million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and members of other persecuted groups in a system of extrajudicial mass internment camps, and has subjected detainees to forced labor, torture, political indoctrination, and other severe human rights abuses.

Beijing denies accusations of both internment camps and forced labor of Uyghurs while saying that the complexes are “vocational education and training centers” which provide Uyghurs courses on Chinese language, legal knowledge, professional skills and deradicalization. China claims Uyghurs’ freedoms have never been restricted and they have the freedom to choose their occupation.

One of the sponsors of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, Senator Marco Rubio, applauded Kanter for his courage to stand up, in a written statement delivered by a representative at the rally.

“Courageously, my friend Enes Kanter has used his platform to shine a light on the horrors committed at the hands of the Chinese Government and Communist Party,” Rubio said in his written statement.

In the past weeks, after Kanter expressed his support for Tibetans, Uyghurs and Hong Kong, calling on Beijing to stop its “brutal” policies, Chinese media platforms in China stopped streaming Boston Celtics games.

At the rally, Kanter also accused firms such as apparel company Nike for being complicit in Uyghur forced labor in China.

“As an NBA athlete, it is saddening, disgraceful, disgusting to see them remain silent about China,” Kanter said.

Last year, the Australia Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) said in a report that 83 brands including Nike were linked to Uyghur forced labor in China.

And later that year, The New York Times reported that Nike and soft drink manufacturer Coca-Cola were among the major companies and business groups lobbying Congress to weaken the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.

Nike said on its website that the company is committed to ethical and responsible manufacturing and that it upholds international labor standards. 

“We are concerned about reports of forced labor in, and connected to, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Nike does not source products from the XUAR and we have confirmed with our contract suppliers that they are not using textiles or spun yarn from the region,” Nike said in its statement.
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