Police investigate the scene of the car crash on El Camino Real and Sunnyvale Saratoga Roads in Sunnyvale, on April 23, 2019.
Police investigate the scene of the car crash on El Camino Real and Sunnyvale Saratoga Roads in Sunnyvale, on April 23, 2019.
Photo: Cody Glenn
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Police investigate the scene of the car crash on El Camino Real and Sunnyvale Saratoga Roads in Sunnyvale, on April 23, 2019.
Police investigate the scene of the car crash on El Camino Real and Sunnyvale Saratoga Roads in Sunnyvale, on April 23, 2019.
Photo: Cody Glenn
An Army veteran who faces eight counts of attempted murder after plowing his car into a crowd of people in Sunnyvale, critically injuring a 13-year-old girl, targeted the victims because he thought some of them were Muslim, police officials said Friday.
Isaiah Joel Peoples, 34, was ordered held without bail Friday at his first appearance in court since being arrested and charged with steering his black 2010 Toyota Corolla into eight pedestrians Tuesday evening. The defendant said nothing during the brief appearance in Judge Richard Loftus’ courtroom at the Santa Clara County Hall of Justice in San Jose.
“Based on our investigation, new evidence shows that the defendant intentionally targeted the victims based on their race and his belief that they were of the Muslim faith,” Sunnyvale Police Chief Phan Ngo said outside court. The chief didn’t explain what evidence led police to believe this and did not say whether any of the victims are Muslim.
The Santa Clara County district attorney’s office charged Peoples with eight counts of attempted murder, four of which have enhancement for causing great bodily injury. Prosecutors have not filed hate crime enhancements in the case, but are prepared to do so “if the investigation yields enough evidence,” Chief Assistant District Attorney Jay Borarsky said.
“There is very appalling, disturbing evidence that at least one or two of these victims were targeted based on the defendant’s view of what their race or religion may have been,” Borarsky said, adding that “we have zero tolerance for any sort of hate crime.”
Sunnyvale police Capt. Jim Choi said Peoples has made “no statements of remorse” since his arrest Tuesday evening.
Peoples’ attorney, Chuck Smith, challenged the accusations and said his client did not intentionally run down anyone and has been “praying for the victims injured from his actions.”
“This act was clearly the product of some mental disorder or mental defect,” Smith said after the hearing. “There is no explanation for this other than his service, the things he saw, and what happened to him mentally while serving our country.”
Peoples served in the U.S. Army from 2004 to 2006 and was honorably discharged before joining the Army Reserve in 2008. He was a civil affairs specialist who retained the rank of sergeant and was deployed to Iraq from June 2005 to May 2006, officials said.
His brother has told The Chronicle that Peoples was struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder after his return from the Middle East. He was on medication and spent nearly a year in a mental institution in 2015, his brother, Joshua Peoples, said.
Before he ran down the crowd, Peoples picked up food and was heading toward a Bible study group, police said. One witness told The Chronicle that he reached speeds up to 60 mph before striking the victims. Police later found a disassembled, inoperative shotgun in the Toyota, they said.
Peoples hit seven of the eight victims he targeted, police said. One of the victims pushed his 9-year-old son out of the car’s path. The father, however, was hit, along with his 13-year-old daughter, who authorities said is the most severely injured victim.
She remains in critical condition in a coma with swelling to her brain, police officials wrote in court papers. Doctors removed the left side of her skull to relieve pressure. She also has a broken pelvis.
“Our hearts are with her and her loved ones as we pray for her recovery,” Ngo said.
The six other victims have injuries ranging from broken bones to minor scrapes.
After crashing into the crowd at the intersection of El Camino Real and Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road, a witness said, Peoples got out of his car and repeatedly mumbled, “Thank you, Jesus,” before police came to the scene and arrested him.
The attack comes as many local Muslims have grown fearful and frustrated over recent anti-Muslim rhetoric and attacks around the country and world. Last month, a man suspected of having white nationalist ties gunned down 49 people at two mosques in New Zealand during Friday prayer.
In the United States, Muslims were the target of nearly 19% of religiously motivated hate crimes, according to FBI data released in 2018.
“My heart breaks for anyone who is an innocent victim of hate,” said Samina Sundas, founder of the American Muslim Voice Foundation, a Bay Area Muslim advocacy group. “People are just killing right and left. I don’t know when it will stop.”
Sundas said people shouldn’t focus on divisiveness when tragedies like the one in Sunnyvale happen.
“More of us need to dedicate ourselves to love, not hate,” she said.
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Estados Unidos y otros países guardan vastas reservas en barriles de petróleo de las que pueden echar mano en caso de desabastecimiento.
Estados Unidos ha estado guardando algo importante y valioso en la costa del Golfo de México.
En cuatro discretos puntos seguros yace una cantidad de petróleo equivalente a 700 millones de barriles.
Está enterrada en una red de 60 cavernas subterráneas talladas en roca de salina, en lo que constituye la enorme Reserva Estratégica de Petroleo (SPR, por sus siglas en inglés) de EE.UU.
La infraestructura fue creada hace 40 años y hoy existen varias reservas más alrededor del mundo.
De hecho, toda una serie de países han invertido miles de millones de dólares en desarrollar este tipo de instalaciones.
¿Por qué alguien vuelve a enterrar el crudo de nuevo bajo el suelo?
Lee también: Cómo cambiará al mundo la independencia energética de EE.UU.
Crisis de 1973
La respuesta se remonta a la crisis del petróleo de 1973.
Los exportadores de petróleo árabes habían cortado los suministros a Occidente como castigo por el apoyo de Estados Unidos a Israel durante la guerra del Yom Kippur.
Este conflicto, también conocido como la guerra árabe-israelí de 1973, fue librado por una coalición de países árabes liderados por Egipto y Siria contra Israel desde el 6 al 25 de octubre de 1973.
Image copyright Getty
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La guerra árabe-israelí llevó a que EE.UU. se quedara sin suministro de petróleo desde los países árabes.
En aquel entonces el mundo era tan dependiente del petróleo de Medio Oriente que los precios del carburante se dispararon.
Eso se tradujo en racionamientos en las estaciones de servicio de EE.UU.
La gente comenzó a temer que le robaran la poca gasolina que tenían, por lo que algunos comenzaron a proteger sus coches con armas de fuego.
Un par de años después EE.UU. comenzó a construir su SPR, la red de cavernas subterráneas llenas de crudo.
Gracias a estas reservas, aunque fallara el suministro, EE.UU. podría enfrentar el alza del precio y la presión de los mercados globales sin problemas.
“El formidable tamaño de la SPR la convierte en un importante factor disuasorio ante los cortes en la importación de petróleo y es una herramienta clave de la política exterior”, asegura el gobierno estadounidense en su página de internet.
No es por nada que el presupuesto del año en curso para el mantenimiento de esta reserva estratégica es de US$200 millones.
Guardados con sal
Bob Corbin, del Departamento de Energía de EE.UU., es la persona encargada de que ese dinero se gaste de forma inteligente.
“Todos nuestros puntos (en los que se guarda petróleo) están situados en lo que llamamos cúpulas de sal“, explica.
“La sal es impermeable al crudo. Así que ambas sustancias no se mezclan, y tampoco se crean fisuras, por lo que son un almacén perfecto”.
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Debido a la crisis de los años 70, lmuchos en Estados Unidos temieron que el poco combustible de que disponían les fuera arrebatado.
Corbin, quien sirvió como militar en la Guardia Costera durante 22 años, está orgulloso de los cuatro almacenes en que se distribuyen las cavernas.
Estos se extienden desde Baton Rouge, en el estado de Louisiana, hasta Freeport, en Texas.
Es en este último punto donde se ubica el más grande de los cuatro.
Se refiere a las enormes cámaras de almacenamiento como “mis cavernas”.
“Son muy impresionantes”, añade.
Sin embargo, no es algo que se pueda apreciar desde la superficie, desde la que apenas se ven unos pozos y algunas tuberías.
Pero Corbin dice que gestionar estas infraestructuras tiene sus propios retos. Las cavernas de sal no son del todo estables, por ejemplo.
A veces se desprenden pedazos pequeños de las paredes, causando daños en la maquinaria.
Por eso los empleados no pueden acceder a estos almacenamientos.
Así que la única manera de reemplazar las máquinas estropeadas es remotamente.
Y hay varios instrumentos que ayudan a visualizar el área de trabajo.
“De forma periódica las cavernas se vacían, por lo que se pueden tomar imágenes de sónar del interior”, explica Corbin. “Eso te da una idea tridimensional” del espacio.
Recurso de política exterior
Algunas de estas cámaras tienen formas curiosas, añade.
Por ejemplo, una de ellas parece un platillo volador.
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Los acuerdos internacionales señalan que las naciones miembro de la OIEA deben guardar reservas de petróleo equivalentes a 90 días de importaciones.
Tal como señala la página web del gobierno, la SPR es un recurso para la política exterior.
Y en esa línea, ha ayudado a EE.UU. a salir airoso de varias situaciones difíciles.
Así ocurrió durante la primera Guerra del Golfo (2 de agosto de 1990 -28 de febrero de 1991), un conflicto entre Irak y una coalición de países liderados por Estados Unidos en respuesta a la invasión iraquí de Kuwait, cuando se interrumpió el suministro de petróleo desde Medio Oriente.
Y también cuando el huracán Katrina azotó el Atlántico en 2005.
Las peticiones de carburante de emergencia se aprobaron durante las 24 horas posteriores a que la tormenta tocó tierra.
Reservas mundiales
EE.UU. no es el único país que ha invertido grandes cantidades de dinero en reservas estratégicas de petróleo.
Japón, por ejemplo, tiene unas reservas equivalentes a 500 millones de barriles en enormes tanques.
Están en la superficie, eso sí.
La infraestructura de Shibushi, en el suroeste del país, está justo en la costa.
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Los tanques en Shibushi, en Japón, que algunos temen puedan ser vulnerables a terremotos.
Tras el terremoto y el tsunami que azotó el país en 2011, se pensó en ampliar las reservas por si volvía a ocurrir una catástrofe similar que pudiera obstaculizar la distribución de petróleo.
El Organismo Internacional de Energía (OIEA) supervisa la emisión de petróleo a partir de estas reservas.
“Cuando un país se subscribe a la OIEA adopta varias obligaciones”, explica Martin Young, director de la División de Políticas de Emergencia del organismo.
“Una de ellas es que debe mantener las reservas de petróleo en una cantidad equivalente a las importaciones de 90 días”.
Pero no todas las naciones tienen cúpulas de sal para almacenar crudo bajo tierra. Tampoco otro tipo de instalaciones que puedan utilizar con ese fin.
Reino Unido, por ejemplo, no tiene nada de eso. Así que su obligación es hacia la industria.
Debe lograr que las empresas petroleras tengan más petróleo del que tendrían normalmente para que el gobierno pueda disponer de él de forma inmediata, explica Young.
También China
Dos naciones que no son parte de la OIEA, India y China, han destinado fondos a sus reservas estratégicas en los últimos años.
Pekín, en particular, tiene planes muy ambiciosos, que prevén una gran variedad de lugares de almacenamiento, infraestructuras estatales y comerciales, que puedan albergar tanto crudo como EE.UU.
China no posee cavernas de sal, así que tiene que optar por una forma de almacenar mucho más cara: en tanques en la superficie.
Estos depósitos son fáciles de identificar con Google Earth y en fotografías satelitales: forman filas y filas de puntos blancos.
En Zhenhai, en el sureste del país, a día de hoy se almacena una cantidad de petróleo equivalente a 33 millones de barriles.
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Las cavernas de petróleo de Estados Unidos son preservadas con sal.
“Es grande”, dice Young, quien visitó la instalación hace varios años.
“Lo que ves es todos esos tanques de crudo colocados junto a un par de refinerías”.
Narongpand Lisapahanya, un analista de petróleo y gas del grupo de inversiones CLSA, dice que invertir en la construcción de estas reservas estratégicas forma parte del plan de China para ser tratada como una superpotencia a nivel internacional.
Así, “si en una situación de crisis otra potencia pidiera que se libere más petróleo, China también podría participar en ello”.
Manipulación del precio
Lo cierto es que ninguna superpotencia está completa hoy sin una SPR.
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Corea del Sur tiene acceso a las reservas de Japón en una emergencia.
Al mismo tiempo, existe la preocupación de que los países que no pertenecen a la OIEA podrían utilizar sus reservas para manipular los precios globales del petróleo.
“Cuando se creó en 1975, el propósito de la SPR era proteger la economía estadounidense de los fuertes aumentos de precio de los productos domésticos derivados del petróleo”, explica Carmine Difiglio, del Departamento de Energía de EE.UU.
Pero eso es diferente a utilizar esas reservas a propósito para manipular los mercados internacionales, asegura.
Y Martin Young es también enfático al respecto: “Las reservas de petróleo no existen para la gestión de precios”.
“Están ahí para corregir una escasez en el mercado debido a la interrupción del suministro”, asegura.
Pero más allá de estas opiniones, existe todo un debate sobre cómo deberían usarse estas reservas de emergencia.
Y es que hay expertos que dicen que EE.UU. siempre se ha aprovechado de su SPR, valorado en US$43.500 millones.
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El petróleo es un recurso estratégico para todos los países.
Mientras, otros creen que el petróleo de esas reservas debería salir al mercado de forma más agresiva.
“Algunos solo ven estos 700 millones como un montón de dinero”, comenta Sarah Ladislaw, del Centro de Estudios Estratégicos e Internacionales de Washington, EE.UU.
Juego de números
Según la experta, son pocos los que apoyan iniciativas para cambiar el uso que se hace de las reservas de emergencia en EE.UU. o en cualquier otro lugar.
Ladislaw insiste en que el énfasis debería ponerse en el planeamiento para las emergencias y en la mitigación de problemas de suministro.
Para prepararse para esas situaciones de crisis, los gobiernos y la OIEA planifican cómo y en qué condiciones extraerían el crudo de las reservas.
Incluso tienen empresas que los asesoran.
Una de esas compañías es EnSys y ha desarrollado un sofisticado modelo de computadora para simular las futuras fluctuaciones de precios de la industria petrolera.
Gracias a ésta puede aconsejar a los organismos que controlan las reservas de emergencia cuándo y por qué deberían considerar distribuir petróleo a las refinerías locales.
Tal como explica su director ejecutivo, Martin Tallett, es un juego de números.
¿Cuántos barriles menos tendrías en una situación de crisis, ante un corte de suministro? ¿Cuánto petróleo tendrías que sacar de las reservas para aliviar esa escasez?
“Lo que haríamos es sentarnos con alguien y decirle: ‘Bueno, se ha interrumpido el suministro en Medio Oriente, y puede que también en el norte de África’”, explica.
“Comencemos a hablar de números directamente en vez de gastar un montón de tiempo tratando de entender en profundidad las maquinaciones geopolíticas que pudieron haber causado la interrupción del abastecimiento”.
Así que, mientras los gobiernos y los organismos de energía sigan preparándose para lo peor, las reservas de crudo van a seguir aumentando.
Image copyright Getty
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El mundo todavía depende en gran medida de los combustibles fósiles.
Es obvio que EE.UU. y otros países creen que sus SPR son una buena inversión.
Pero a pesar de toda la preparación, aún es posible que, durante una crisis de abastecimiento, el crudo no se distribuya lo suficientemente rápido desde las reservas a las refinerías.
¿Podría entonces repetirse una crisis como la de 1973?
“No quisiera especular sobre qué puede o no puede ocurrir”, dice Corbin.
“Nosotros estamos preparados para distribuir (petróleo) siempre que lo necesitemos“.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) – An Austin-East High School student accused of shooting a Knoxville police officer died Monday afternoon.
Officers with the Knoxville Police Department responded to a report of someone possibly armed with a gun at Austin-East Magnet High School around 3:15 p.m. Monday, according to the TBI.
Upon arrival, officers located the student inside a school restroom. TBI officials said that officers ordered the student out, but he refused to comply.
As officers entered the restroom, the student reportedly fired shots, striking an officer. Officials said one officer returned fire.
No information was released about whether the returned fire struck the student.
The officer who was shot was taken to University of Tennessee Medical Center with a leg injury where he was last listed in serious condition and in surgery.
Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon confirmed she met with the officer who was conscious and alert, “He’d rather he be hurt than anyone else and he’s in very good spirits.”
Knoxville Police Chief Eve Thomas said it was chilling to learn an officer had been hit and that it had happened at a school. She said the school was initially placed on lockdown while officers ascertained who was involved. She said officers then worked to reunite students with their loved ones.
Multiple law enforcement agencies responded to the incident including Knoxville Fire Department, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives in Nashville (ATF Nashville) and TBI. The Knoxville Fire Department said its crews were some of the first on the scene. Fire officials said officers worked as shields for paramedics who worked to find injured individuals.
“ATF will be working with the Knoxville PD as well as focusing on the tracing of firearms and the recovery of shell cases which will be entered into NIBIN to see if there are any connections to previous shootings,” said ATF in a statement.
KPD said a reunification site had been established at the baseball field behind Austin-East High School near Wilson and South Hembree.
Following the shooting, Knox Co. Schools Superintendent Bob Thomas notified the public regarding the school building being secured. “The school building has been secured and students who were not involved in the incident have been released to their families,” said KCS Superintendent Bob Thomas.
Mayor Kincannon commended Austin-East School staff for their work to protect students. She also praised the officer who was shot on the scene for risking his life for the safety of the students.
“We all need to work together to stop the violence,” Kincannon said. “It’s a big challenge and we’re going to need the whole city to work together.”
Austin-East Behavior Interventionist, Quana Fields, told WVLT’s Ashley Bohle she and other staff members were inside the school building around 4:00 p.m. while police continued their investigation.
Knox Co. Mayor Kincannon and KCS Superintendent Bob Thomas released a statement in a media briefing Monday night following the fatal shooting at Austin-East High School.
“Let’s work together to stop the violence in Knoxville,” said Mayor Kincannon. “We lost someone particularly close to the community,” says Mayor Kincannon KCS Bob Thomas says Austin-East will have counselors available at the school on Tuesday, April 13.
Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs released a statement expressing his condolences:
I am as troubled and frustrated about this as everyone else. I want to thank the officer for risking his life to protect everyone in the school and encourage everyone to remember how hard these last few months have been on our Austin-East families. I also want to reiterate that my office is committed to working with the city, KPD, KCSO and KCS to find solutions to these tragic situations.
Mayor Kincannon commended Austin-East School staff for their work to protect students: She also praised the officer who was shot on the scene for risking his life for the safety of the students.
“We all need to work together to stop the violence,” Kincannon said. “It’s a big challenge and we’re going to need the whole city to work together.”
Four teenage Austin-East High School students have been killed as the result of multiple shootings in Knoxville since the beginning of 2021. Here is a timeline of events:
A suspect was arrested and charged in the January shooting, but no other suspects have been identified and no charges have been filed in relation to the other shootings.
On March 8, Austin-East High School released a new bag policy to deter students from bringing unwanted items onto campus. The approved bags for students include clear backpacks, mesh backpacks and small clutch purses no larger than 4.5″x6.5″. School officials say prohibited bags include solid backpacks, fanny packs, purses, reusable grocery totes, duffle/gym bags and large solid bags.
New bag policy at Austin-East High School(Captured from Austin-East Safety Update Manual)
The City of Knoxville announced a city-wide prayer meeting, starting at 6 p.m., Tuesday April 13 at the Overcoming Believers Church located on 211 Harriet Tubman St, Knoxville, TN 37915.
A prayer circle is scheduled for Tuesday, April 13 at 12:00 p.m. across from Austin-East High School.
The TBI will lead the investigation. WVLT is continuing to update with the latest information.
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São Paulo – The government of the state of São Paulo has devised a strategy for offering leisure options other than football games to foreign and domestic visitors expected in the namesake capital São Paulo during the FIFA World Cup. This Wednesday (9th) saw the launch of a travel guide listing attractions available in the capital and the rest of the state. São Paulo is expecting 1.2 million visitors during the Cup, 300,000 of which will be foreigners.
Luis Daniel Molinari
Ilhabela: an option in-between matches
“Our job is to showcase what our state has to offer,” says Carolina Fontes, the events manager of Comitê Paulista 2014 (the 2014 São Paulo State Committee), an organization linked to the state government in charge of handling World Cup-related affairs. Past experiences have shown that World Cup tourists want to do other things as well, hence the guide, according to the events manager.
Another important piece of information on crafting the guide is the fact that World Cup tourists don’t travel farther than 300 kilometres or longer than 3 days, because they take their trips in between games. The guide has 236 pages and features 55 routes in 49 municipalities, with options lasting one, two or three days. It is divided into four sections – beach and sun, culture and leisure, food and beverage, adventure and nature – and there are versions available in English, Portuguese and Spanish.
The guide will be distributed to travel agencies and organizations, airlines, consulates, football federations in World Cup participating countries, city halls, and the press. It features information on destinations, but not complete travel packages. According to Fontes, agencies will be allowed to based their packages around it, and tourists will be able to refer to the guide with no need for a travel agency, if they choose to travel by themselves. The information is expected to reach foreigners via the press, agencies and consulates as well.
Fontes believes the most successful routes among foreigners will be beach and sun and adventure and nature. “The profile of the World Cup crowd, mostly young men, they will be seeking leisure,” says the manager. The majority of foreigners travelling to Brazil will be actual national teams’ members. There are fans who will travel alongside their national teams. Algeria is the sole Arab country playing the 2014 World Cup. The Algerian team will stay in Sorocaba, in the state of São Paulo.
The guide is fairly didactical and comprehensive. It includes information on the state and the services available, such as airports, roads, how to make telephone calls, a section with information on the World Cup in São Paulo, profiles of football players born in the state, and then the routes. One-day tour suggestions include a visit to Santos; two-day tours include gastronomical tours in Campos do Jordão and Santo Antônio do Pinhal; the three-day options include trips to the waterfalls and beaches of Ilhabela and São Sebastião.
The city of São Paulo is hosting six World Cup matches. The first one is the opening match, on June 12th, between Brazil and Croatia. The second match is due on June 19th, Uruguay vs. England, the third one is on June 23rd, Netherlands vs. Chile, and the fourth one will be played on June 26th, Belgium vs. South Korea. The last two matches will be played on July 1st and 9th, the former being a part of the round of sixteen, and the latter a part of the semi-finals. The teams playing these matches will depend on the results of prior matches.
A federal judge on Friday struck down a Kentucky law that would have effectively ended abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
U.S. District Judge Joseph H. McKinley Jr. ruled that the 2018 law, which required women seeking an abortion at or beyond 15 weeks of pregnancy to first undergo a “fetal demise” injection, was “unconstitutional.” He also issued a permanent injunction against the law.
“The court finds that under the Act, all women seeking a second-trimester abortion at and after 15 weeks would have to endure a medically unnecessary and invasive procedure that may increase the duration of an otherwise one-day standard D&E abortion,” McKinley wrote.
A Dilation and Evacuation (D&E) abortion is the standard second-trimester method of abortion used nationally.
Dylan Lovan/AP, FILE
Escort volunteers line up outside the EMW Women’s Surgical Center in Louisville, Ky., July 17, 2017.
The law had been signed by Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin, a Republican, whose office immediately told the Associated Press it would appeal McKinley’s decision. His office did not immediately respond to an ABC News request for comment.
The injection, which would kill the fetus, would not evacuate the fetus from the woman’s body, so an abortion would still be necesary. The law was challenged by the state’s only abortion clinic and the two doctors — Ashlee Bergin and Tanya Franklin — who practice there, on the day it was signed.
Moreover, Bergin and Franklin said they would “stop performing standard D&E abortions altogether due to ethical and legal concerns regarding compliance with the law, thereby rendering abortions unavailable in the Commonwealth of Kentucky starting at 15.0 weeks from the date of a woman’s last menstrual period,” according to the ruling.
“The Commonwealth’s legitimate interests do not allow the imposition of an additional required medical procedure—an invasive and risky procedure without medical necessity or benefit to the woman—prior to the standard D&E abortion. Here, Kentucky’s legitimate interests must give way to the woman’s right,” McKinley wrote.
Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who represented the abortion clinic and its doctors, praised the judge’s ruling.
“It is a huge victory for women and families in Kentucky,” Kolbi-Molinas told ABC News. “Not only can women get the care they need, because it would have ended abortion at 15 weeks, but [it said] that women who wanted an abortion, starting at 15 weeks, would have had to go through unnecessary, painful, and, in some cases, experimental medical procedures just to get an abortion.”
Despite a growing number of laws limiting abortion in several U.S. states, Kolbi-Molinas said she was confident that McKinley’s ruling would not be overturned.
“The only court of appeals that has addressed one of these [fetal demise injection] cases so far has found it unconstitutional and we’re optimistic that the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals would do the same,” she said.
In practical terms, the law had been blocked by a consent decree, so there has been no change for women seeking to have an abortion in Kentucky throughout the past year.
“There is no change. Abortion remains safe and legal in Kentucky,” Kolbi-Molinas said.
John Tully, commissioner of the city’s Department of Streets and Sanitation, said crews hope to turn their attention to the city’s side streets Tuesday evening, but added the arrival of new snow could force plows and salt spreaders to stay on arterial streets and Lake Shore Drive.
“We will be moving into all 50 wards provided there is no additional snow,” Tully said at a Tuesday news conference to update the city’s response to the snowfall and cold.
Tully also said so much snow has fallen, the city will use backhoes and semis to haul it to huge piles around the city, including the parking lots at Guaranteed Rate Field. He warned parents to keep kids away from the piles, noting it is hard for truck drivers to see children playing there — and the piles are filled with debris, including lawn chairs from displaced dibs.
“Crews are working around the clock relocating the snow to predetermined” areas around the city, he said. Moving it out of neighborhoods will help keep plows from burying parked cars when they eventually turn to side streets, he said.
Building owners and property management companies are also being asked to shovel bus stops around the city to help the CTA get back on schedule. Heavy snow on switches at the Howard Terminal, meanwhile, caused Yellow and Purple line disruptions.
As for the city’s snow-clogged alleys, don’t expect city plows to come to the rescue.
“If we start plowing in alleyways, you start collapsing garage doors ‘cuz there’s nowhere for that snow to go,” Tully said.
Instead, Streets and San will have garbage trucks “tracking” the alleys, creating paths through the alleys. They’ll also work to get back on schedule for garbage collecting, including working overtime on Saturday. Many of the garbage truck drivers are the same people driving plows, so crews have fallen behind during the storm, Tully said.
Credit: Kelly Bauer/Block Club Chicago A man blows snow in Logan Square.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Tuesday that he would ease the state’s restrictions on barbershops and hair salons for some counties in the state that meet certain health criteria.
The state, which issued one of the earliest statewide stay-at-home orders in mid-March, has been reopening its economy statewide in phases. The state is currently in phase two of its reopening plan, which has allowed for the resumption of retail businesses and manufacturing jobs with modifications.
Counties in the state that meet certain health criteria, including less than 25 new cases per 100,000 residents in the past 14 daysor less than 8% testing positive in the last week, are allowed to move further into the state’s reopening plan.
Newsom said 47 of the state’s 58 counties have “self-attested” to meeting the state’s criteria to move further into phase two, and starting Tuesday they will be allowed to reopen barbershops and hair salons with modifications, he said, including enhanced cleaning protocols and face covering requirements.
“Those counties will begin to allow for those kind of operations with meaningful modifications, with the appropriate protective gear, particularly face coverings that are so essential in that environment, sanitation requirements and the like,” Newsom said.
So far, those 47 counties have been allowed to reopen dine-in restaurant services with enhanced sanitation practices and modifications. Newsom has yet to lift restrictions on nail salons, bars and wineries, nightclubs and theme parks, among other businesses.
“We are advancing conversations with the legislature in particular supporting efforts to put out guidelines on nail salons and personal care, personal services,” Newsom said. “The issues there require, I think, a little bit more specificity, a little bit more nuance and details in terms of the guidance to satisfy our health experts.”
Some of California’s largest counties, however, like San Francisco and Los Angeles County, have yet to move further into the state’s reopening plan. Newsom has allowed cities to follow their own stay-at-home orders and ease restrictions when officials felt it’s safe to do so.
Both the Bay Area and Los Angeles have issued their own stay-at-home orders. Barbara Ferrer, director of the Los Angeles County department of public health, has indicated that the county’s stay-at-home restrictions will likely remain in place in the county through August, according to reports from NBC Los Angeles.
Newsom said that the hospitalization rate for Covid-19 cases in the state has remained stable and there’s now more intensive-care unit beds available, although he said the number of people in the ICU remains “stubborn but stable.”
“All of these numbers are part of those indicators that have to turn yellow to green so we can continue to march forward and indeed, they are turning yellow to green and we are marching forward as it relates to these modifications to the stay-at-home order,” Newsom said.
Paul Manafort was placed in solitary confinement leading up to his sentencing; Doug McKelway has the details.
With the release of the “Mueller Report” reportedly just around the corner, the sentencing Thursday of one-time Trump presidential campaign manager Paul Manafort to 47 months in prison offers a timely reminder that the whole Russia collusion narrative was never more than a fantasy of the Democrats and the mainstream media.
As numerous investigations and witness testimonies have already demonstrated, there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to elect Donald Trump as president. The entire justification for the Mueller probe was a farce, invented by former Hillary Clinton presidential campaign manager Robby Mook and the rest of the Clinton brain trust to justify their humiliating defeat in the 2016 presidential election.
Even U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III acknowledged that Manafort’s convictions were completely unrelated to the Russia collusion, about which the judge had previously expressed skepticism in open court.
“He is not before the court for anything having to do with colluding with the Russian government,” Ellis said in court.
It’s near-universally assumed by now that Mueller’s final report, however much of it the public eventually sees, will fail to show any evidence of collusion. So the same talking heads who’ve spent nearly two years whipping half the country into a frenzy about Russian collusion have to cling to what they do have: Manafort.
Manafort, plain and simple, is going to prison for things completely outside the original scope of Mueller’s investigation. All of his convictions stem from the shady lobbying businesses he ran with his associate Rick Gates long before joining the Trump campaign in 2016.
The problem for them is that Manafort’s convictions illustrate just how empty Mueller’s net has come up after more than 21 months in this putrid fishing hole.
Paul Manafort was found guilty of tax fraud, bank fraud, and failure to report a foreign bank account. In addition to the 47-month prison sentence that Ellis gave him Thursday, Manafort will serve even longer because the judge in his other criminal trial threw out his guilty plea after determining he lied to Mueller’s investigators.
This is all very serious — and all very irrelevant to Russian election interference.
Manafort, plain and simple, is going to prison for things completely outside the original scope of Mueller’s investigation. All of his convictions stem from the shady lobbying businesses he ran with his associate Rick Gates long before joining the Trump campaign in 2016.
The same could be said about any of the myriad other indictments Mueller has brought against Americans who were unfortunate enough to have ties to the Trump campaign. The only illegal conduct Mueller uncovered either predates the Trump campaign or involves “process crimes” directly linked to Mueller’s investigation, such as those of George Papadopoulos, the former Trump aide who got a whopping 14 days in jail after he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.
The fact is that after nearly two years of work, we still have no indication that the Mueller probe found so much as a single instance of actual Trump-Russia collusion. Cases such as Manafort’s are typically relegated to no more than a moment’s mention on the nightly news, but not this time.
The fake collusion narrative is simply too important to the media. They’ve invested too much of their capital and credibility, so they have no choice but to present Manafort’s crimes as evidence not only of Donald Trump’s supposed culpability but of Mueller’s efficacy.
For their part, the president’s detractors on Capitol Hill, particularly Democratic committee chairmen Jerry Nadler and Adam Schiff, need the artificial stench of the Manafort sentencing to hang in the air as long as possible so that they can prepare to launch the second wave of their vile, politically motivated attack.
With the Mueller probe’s long reign as “The Resistance’s” best hope for overturning the 2016 presidential election quickly coming to a close, the Democrats hope to simply transition to their own witch hunts.
As Manafort’s sentencing on charges unrelated to the 2016 election reminds us, the coming congressional investigations will fare no better than Mueller did in the hunt for evidence of the collusion that never was.
Este lunes en Mis Tres Marías: Leo será sentenciado a 25 años de cárcel y enloquecerá al no poder ver a sus hijas, sin embargo una inesperada noticia encederá una luz de esperanza en su trágica vida.
La esposa de Leo le enviará un misterioso video. ¿Será que regresará finalmente? ¿Dónde estuvo todo este tiempo? Muchas interrigantes y una sola verdad. ¡No te pierdas un infartante capítulo de Mis Tres Marías este lunes a las 9:30 p.m.
The university moved swiftly to recover. Mr. Nikias succeeded Steven B. Sample as president that same year and began building the school into a fund-raising powerhouse. For the last several years, it has been one of the top universities in annual fund-raising, along with Harvard and Stanford, raising $6 billion in a recent campaign.
Mr. Nikias used the N.C.A.A. sanctions as the impetus to clean house — firing the athletic director, Mike Garrett, himself a former Heisman Trophy winner. Mr. Nikias also beefed up the rules compliance office, hiring a prominent Los Angeles lawyer, and soon had a nine-person staff.
“We’re going to have a culture of compliance,” Pat Haden, the replacement U.S.C. athletic director, told The New York Times at the time. “We’re going to think about it in the morning, think about it before we go to bed. We’re going to have issues but we’ll fess up and be better than the way before.”
As part of the restructuring, one administrator was soon thrust into a more prominent role — Ms. Heinel, a former college swimmer.
Ms. Heinel now stands accused of collecting more than $1.3 million in payments directed from parents through Mr. Singer between 2014 and 2018, and drawing $20,000 per month from Mr. Singer since last July through a sham consultant agreement.
Ms. Heinel, who came to U.S.C. in 2003, was fired Tuesday along with Jovan Vavic, the hugely successful water polo coach who was charged in the current affidavit with accepting $250,000 from Mr. Singer. Two former U.S.C. soccer coaches — Ali Khosroshahin and his assistant, Laura Janke — have been charged with taking $350,000 from Mr. Singer. So, too, has Bill Ferguson, the Wake Forest women’s volleyball coach, who led the men’s team at U.S.C. for a decade before leaving in 2016. He is accused of accepting $100,000 from Mr. Singer.
The recent scandals haven’t appeared to dim the university’s powerful lure for prospective students. This year, U.S.C. received close to 66,000 applicants, its largest pool ever, with the highest collective grade point averages and SAT scores ever recorded.
Already active in the local civil rights movement, he left for Mississippi after seeing scenes in the news of Black people picketing and sitting at lunch counters across the South. The images “hit me powerfully, in the soul as well as the brain,” he recalled in “Radical Equations.”
His natural confidence and calm demeanor drew people to him, and he soon became something of a civil rights celebrity. He was a hero of many books on the movement, and an inspiration for the 2000 movie “Freedom Song,” starring Danny Glover.
Eventually the fame got to be too much — not only because it added to the stress of an already overwhelming task, but also because he thought it was dangerous for the movement. He resigned from the Council of Federated Organizations in December 1964 and from S.N.C.C. two months later. He was, he said, “too strong, too central, so that people who did not need to, began to lean on me, to use me as a crutch.”
Mr. Moses grew active in the movement against the Vietnam War, and in April 1965 he spoke at his first antiwar protest, in Washington, D.C. “The prosecutors of the war,” he said, were “the same people who refused to protect civil rights in the South” — a charge that drew criticism from moderates in the civil rights movement and from white liberals, who worried about alienating President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Not long afterward, he received a notice that his draft number had been called. Because he was five years past the age limit for the draft, he suspected it was the work of government agents.
Mr. Moses and his wife, Janet, moved to Tanzania, where they lived in the 1970s and where three of their four children were born. After eight years teaching in Africa, Mr. Moses returned to Cambridge, Mass., to continue working toward a Ph.D. in the philosophy of mathematics at Harvard.
In addition to his wife and daughter, Mr. Moses is survived by another daughter, Malaika; his sons Omowale and Tabasuri; and seven grandchildren.
“Yes,” Miles replied, according to a screenshot, “it’s based on evidence of actual fraud in PA, AZ, Michigan, and other states and violations of election laws and the Constitution. You will see in the next few weeks.”
On early Sunday morning, President Trump retweeted a video of a white man yelling “white power” to protesters in a Florida seniors community called The Villages. Beyond its shocking reflection of the President’s current state of mind, the now-deleted Tweet also reflects a frightening observation of America in the summer of 2020:
White nationalism is no longer in the shadows of America’s towns and villages — it is uncomfortably out in the open for all the world to see.
The troubling early morning Tweet, in which the President referred to the protestors as “great people,” is another instance of Trump using social media to flirt with white nationalism. It continues his string of comments that seemingly endorse the tacit racism of white supremacists. For example, following the 2017 “Unite the Right” in Charlottesville, Virginia, after a white nationalist rally turned violent, Trump said: “You had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.”
In another example of his race-baiting language, in 2019, Trump tweeted about four Women of Color who serve in the Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna S. Pressley of Massachusetts, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, incorrectly suggesting they were not U.S. citizens. “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” the President tweeted. Trump also uses language such as “invasion” and “thugs” to describe immigrants to the United States, particularly with respect to those located near our southern border with Mexico. He does not shy away from violent rhetoric, recently tweeting that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” in reference to Minneapolis protests that turned violent following the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, by four police officers.
But it’s not just the President’s own Tweets that spark controversy. He regularly traffics in the racist and conspiratorial Tweets of others, seemingly using the words of others as proxies for his own beliefs. Given his large following, those Tweets are often shared by millions of others, which encourages the spread of hateful rhetoric. Many far-right activists see the President’s language as “dog whistles,” or signals that, despite his own vows that he is not racist, Trump is empathetic to their views.
Regardless of what Trump truly believes, one fact is certain: since Trump’s election in 2016, the nation has seen a rise in white nationalism. A recent Anti-Defamation League study showed a nearly 123 percent increase in white nationalist propaganda in a single year, surging from 1,214 incidents in 2018 to 2,713 in 2019. This is the highest level of white supremacist activity that the organization has ever recorded, the ADL said.
President Donald Trump delivers remarks on Medicare at the Sharon L. Morse Performing Arts Center, … [+] Thursday, Oct. 3, 2019, in The Villages, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The increase in activity is only exacerbated by the pandemic and the recent social protests that have gripped America in the wake of the killings of unarmed Black people, including George Floyd in Minneapolis, Breonna Taylor in Louisville, and Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta. Some white nationalists are aligning themselves with other groups that have surfaced over the past several months, such as the Boogaloo movement, that sees America as heading towards a new civil war.
Most disconcerting, however, is the way some white supremacist language is becoming mainstream, as Trump’s early Sunday morning Tweet suggests. For a nation that has been jolted to confront its history of systemic racism and discrimination, the video of a white man unabashedly yelling “white power” to protesters in an upper middle-class area in the heart of Florida is as chilling as it is worrisome. And in a country that is already deeply divided on many issues around race, the fact that such a troubling video was shared by a President shows a willingness to break all convention as he seeks reelection is disturbing.
How will America stem the troubling tide of white nationalism that is seemingly unencumbered by shame? It will not be an easy fix. Once the flames of hate are fanned, it is not so easy to extinguish them. But as America heads into an autumn of decision after a spring and summer of struggle, it is clear that more than election is at stake…
The Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll of 585 registered Democratic voters was conducted between July 31 and Aug. 1. The first night of this week’s Democratic debates took place on July 30 and the second night was July 31, so some of the respondents may not have viewed the second night of debate, when Biden appeared.
Biden’s lead is down some from the previous survey conducted in late May, before the Democratic debates. At the time, the poll showed Biden holding a 30-point lead over Sanders and registering 44 percent support among Democrats.
A plurality of Democrats, 47 percent, said they want to nominate a candidate with the strongest chance of winning. Only 12 percent said their first preference is a candidate who shares their positions, while 36 percent said they value both traits equally.
Biden also leads when voters are asked to name the top three candidates that best share their values, with 46 percent saying Biden, followed by Sanders at 34 percent, Warren at 27 and Harris at 24.
Health care is by far the top issue for Democratic voters, with 45 percent calling it their top priority, followed by immigration at 29 percent and jobs and the economy at 20 percent.
The Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll is a collaboration of the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University and The Harris Poll. The Hill will be working with Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll throughout 2019.
Full poll results will be posted online later this week. The Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll survey is an online sample drawn from the Harris Panel and weighted to reflect known demographics. As a representative online sample, it does not report a probability confidence interval.
Dos cuerpos, el de un hombre y una mujer, fueron encontrados ayer por habitantes del cantón Las Dispensas, en San José Villanueva, La Libertad, a orillas del río San Antonio.
Las autoridades informaron que las víctimas habrían sido privadas de libertad horas antes del hecho y sujetos las habrían llegado a asesinar a esa zona.
Aunque un agente policial no especificó las razones del crimen y tampoco brindó las identidades, dijo que los cuerpos presentaban lesiones de arma blanca.
En el lugar del crimen las autoridades encontraron un objeto cortopunzante, pero no especificaron si este fue utilizado por los asesinos para cometer el hecho.
Una persona que se acercó a la escena se presentó como hijo de María Esperanza Interiano, la mujer asesinada, y explicó que desde hace años ella mantenía una relación sentimental con Saúl Melara, la otra víctima. Ambos residían en La Dispensas.
Indicó que la última vez que vio a Interiano fue la tarde del domingo, a eso de las 3:30 p.m. Luego regresó a su casa, cercana a la de su madre y ya no supo de ella, porque desapareció al igual que Melara.
Señaló que con su familia no interpusieron denuncia a la Policía, pero se encargaron de buscarlos sin obtener resultados. Las personas aledañas a la casa de Interiano, según el familiar, no informaron si habían escuchado cuando la pareja fue raptada.
El pariente dijo desconocer si alguna vez Interiano o su pareja habían recibido amenazas de alguna persona del lugar; sin embargo, relató que la noche del domingo varios de los vecinos de Las Dispensas escucharon que un grupo personas pasaron de forma rápida por la calle principal del cantón -la que también lleva hacia el río San Antonio- y fue hasta ayer por la mañana que encontraron a su familiar en la ribera del río.
En lugar donde fueron encontradas las víctimas es la antigua carretera hacia San José Villanueva, la zona es desolada y boscosa.
De acuerdo con el hijo de Interiano, ella y Melara no se metían en problemas con la comunidad, por lo que desconocen las razones por las cuales fueron asesinados.
Las Policía tampoco dio detalle de las causas de las muertes.
Las alerta fue recibida a través de una llamada al 911 a eso de las 8:30 a.m. La escena terminó de ser procesada hasta el mediodía.
Asesinado en Guazapa
Por otra parte, la Fiscalía informó de otro crimen en el cantón San Jerónimo, en Guazapa. En el hecho fue asesinado un hombre. Las autoridades no lo identificaron.
Mientras que en un pozo del cantón Arenales, en Ciudad Delgado, las autoridades señalaron el posible hallazgo del cuerpo de joven que desapareció el miércoles, ya que cerca del lugar fue encontrada una yina de su pertenencia, según relató un familiar.
Su independencia. Su futuro. Su historia. Escocia se juega eso y más este jueves en un referendo que puede derivar en la separación de Reino Unido y la fractura de una unión política de 307 años. Les llegó la hora de la verdad.
“¿Debería ser Escocia un país independiente?”. Esa es la pregunta para los 4,3 millones de residentes en Escocia que se registraron para votar, el 97% de los posibles.
Apenas una muestra de la conciencia que hay aquí de que se trata de un momento histórico y extraordinario, quizá irrepetible.
Y una señal de la alta participación que se espera: en torno al 80%, más que cualquier elección o referendo en Reino Unido en las últimas décadas.
Nadie parece querer dejar de emitir su opinión en las urnas.
Atrás queda una campaña que empezó a fuego lento, cobró fuerza recién en las últimas semanas y dio paso a la incertidumbre.
Si hay algo claro en la votación de este jueves, es que no hay certeza de quién va a terminar celebrando.
El independentismo, impulsado por el ministro principal de Escocia, Alex Salmond –del Partido Nacionalista Escocés–, o el unionismo, defendido por el primer ministro británico, David Cameron, –del Partido Conservador–, por sus socios de coalición, los liberales-demócratas, y la oposición laborista.
Es la batalla entre las campañas del “Sí Escocia” (Yes Scotland) y del “Mejor Juntos” (Better Together).
Entusiasmo en Edimburgo
El referendo ya es, para muchos, motivo de optimismo pues demostró el involucramiento de la sociedad en la vida política del país.
Alex Salmond, ministro principal de Escocia.
En las calles de Edimburgo este miércoles había clima de campaña, una energía especial y entusiasmo en las caras de la gente.
Sí.
Pero no un ambiente electrizante de un país que está a horas de definir su independencia.
Los actos más masivos en el último día de campaña tuvieron lugar en la principal ciudad, Glasgow, a 70km de la capital.
En torno al Parlamento en Edimburgo por momentos hubo más periodistas y curiosos que votantes manifestándose.
Qué está en juego en el referendo por la independencia de Escocia
00:02:16
El jueves 18 de septiembre los escoceses acuden a las urnas para decidir si quieren o no independizarse de Reino Unido. Si gana el “sí”, ¿qué pasará, por ejemplo, con la economía y con las fuerzas armadas? BBC Mundo te explica con gráficos.
Luego, al caer la noche, se empezaron a juntar en su mayoría seguidores del Sí, con un entusiasmo evidente.
Saben que sin importar el desenlace, Escocia se hizo sentir y generó un debate sobre la unidad británica, la identidad escocesa y cómo resolver cuestiones de soberanía bajo un proceso pacífico y democrático.
Lo que pase aquí, se verá con atención en el resto del mundo.
¿Disminuirá la influencia de Reino Unido si pierde a una de las naciones que lo constituye?
¿Qué impacto tendrá el resultado en los deseos soberanistas de Cataluña?
Interrogantes sin respuesta por el momento.
Sin claridad
Ha sido también una campaña de preguntas con definiciones poco claras, que variaban dependiendo de a quién se escuchaba.
Más de 4 millones de personas están registradas para votar en el referendo escocés.
Una campaña de debates apasionados, pero sin que el nivel se haya elevado de tal manera como para deslumbrar.
A los escoceses se les está pidiendo que tomen la decisión más trascendental de su historia y, en algunas cuestiones, lo harán casi a ciegas.
La moneda –la libra–, petróleo, economía, defensa, pertenencia a la Unión Europea y a la OTAN: algunas de los grandes temas de campaña que se aclararán recién tras una eventual independencia.
Desde un lado y otro, se hizo hincapié en las ventajas de permanecer unidos o de emprender un camino por separado.
Nunca un romance apasionado
Desde que en 1707, Inglaterra y Escocia firmaron el Acta de Unión, la concordia entre ambas naciones no fue necesariamente sinónimo de un incremento en el sentimiento de lo “británico”.
Fue una sana convivencia matrimonial, pero no un romance apasionado.
Tampoco un vínculo especialmente tormentoso.
Ahora, el divorcio es una posibilidad tan real como el seguir juntos.
Pero, ¿sería amistosa esa separación? Está por verse.
La integración a Reino Unido de Escocia no fue producto de la conquista ni de la opresión.
Esas huellas hubieran dejado un ánimo de revancha que quizá hubiera servido para propiciar antes un nacionalismo independentista.
Los escoceses siempre se vieron a sí mismos como orgullosos integrantes de la nación de Escocia.
Y aunque sí hubo batallas y enfrentamientos previos, la visión que imperaba era la del “unionismo nacionalista”.
Juntos en sus diferencias.
El avance nacionalista
La visión de la autodeterminación fue y vino, pero nunca terminaba de agarrar fuerza.
La iniciativa del referendo se lanzó en 2011.
A mediados del siglo pasado, el Partido Nacionalista Escocés, que lidera el gobierno escocés y la campaña de “Sí Escocia”, no llegaba al 1% de votos.
Con el tiempo, las cosas fueron cambiando.
La creciente sensación desde el nacionalismo escocés de que Londres no escuchaba sus demandas llevó a que Escocia comenzara a reclamar y a obtener más poderes para gobernarse.
Tras un referendo en 1997 estableció su propio Parlamento y comenzó a tener control sobre: salud, educación, vivienda, justicia y en algunas áreas de la recolección de impuestos.
Ahora sencillamente el independentismo quiere que Escocia goce de un control total sobre su destino.
Salmond prometió que de ganar las elecciones en 2011, convocaría un referendo por la independencia.
Casi dos años atrás acordó con Cameron su realización. Y aquí estamos.
Día de espera y tensión
Desde las 7:00 hora local (6:00 GMT) hasta las 22:00 (21:00 GMT), los residentes en Escocia, con la novedad de la primera votación con mayores de 16 años, pueden elegir entre Sí y No.
Escocia integra la Gran Bretaña desde hace 307 años.
No se espera que se conozca el resultado hasta las 7:00 del viernes (6:00 GMT).
Para Reino Unido será un día de espera y de tensión. De contener el aliento.
Se expone a perder casi un 10% de su población y un tercio de su territorio.
La herida emocional quizá sea todavía mayor.
Quizá por ello, pase lo que pase este jueves, luego de que millones de escoceses emitan su voto, habrá un espacio para analizar y redescubrir de qué está hecha esta unión de siglos.
Una oportunidad para determinar qué tipo de Reino Unido habrá de aquí en más, cómo será su presencia en las islas británicas, y qué rol tendrá en Europa y el mundo.
A growing number of public libraries across the country are revising their policies to eliminate overdue fines.
Connie Hanzhang Jin/NPR
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Connie Hanzhang Jin/NPR
A growing number of public libraries across the country are revising their policies to eliminate overdue fines.
Connie Hanzhang Jin/NPR
For nearly a decade, Diana Ramirez hadn’t been able to take a book home from the San Diego Public Library. Her borrowing privileges were suspended, she was told, because of a mere $10 in late fees, an amount that had grown to $30 over the years.
Ramirez, who is now 23 and stays in Tijuana with her mother, attends an alternative education program in San Diego that helps students earn high school diplomas. To her, the debt she owed to the library system was an onerous sum. Even worse, it removed a critical resource from her life.
“I felt disappointed in myself because I wasn’t able to check out books,” Ramirez said. “I wasn’t able to use the computers for doing my homework or filling out job applications. I didn’t own a computer, so the library was my only option to access a computer.”
In April, Ramirez finally caught a break. The San Diego Public Library wiped out all outstanding late fines for patrons, a move that followed the library system’s decision to end its overdue fines. Ramirez was among the more than 130,000 beneficiaries of the policy shift, cardholders whose library accounts were newly cleared of debt.
The changes were enacted after a city study revealed that nearly half of the library’s patrons whose accounts were blocked as a result of late fees lived in two of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. “I never realized it impacted them to that extent,” said Misty Jones, the city’s library director.
For decades, libraries have relied on fines to discourage patrons from returning books late. But a growing number of some of the country’s biggest public library systems are ditching overdue fees after finding that the penalties drive away the people who stand to benefit the most from free library resources.
From San Diego to Chicago to Boston, public libraries that have analyzed the effects of late fees on their cardholders have found that they disproportionately deter low-income residents and children.
“A form of social inequity”
Acknowledging these consequences, the American Library Association passed a resolution in January in which it recognizes fines as “a form of social inequity” and calls on libraries nationwide to find a way to eliminate their fines.
“Library users with limited income tend to stay away from libraries because they may be afraid of incurring debt,” said Ramiro Salazar, president of the association’s public library division. “It stands to reason these same users will also stay away if they have already incurred a fine simply because they don’t have the money to pay the fine.”
Lifting fines has had a surprising dual effect: More patrons are returning to the library, with their late materials in hand. Chicago saw a 240% increase in return of materials within three weeks of implementing its fine-free policy last month. The library system also had 400 more card renewals compared with that time last year.
“It became clear to us that there were families that couldn’t afford to pay the fines and therefore couldn’t return the materials, so then we just lost them as patrons altogether,” said Andrea Telli, the city’s library commissioner. “We wanted our materials back, and more importantly, we wanted our patrons back.”
The Chicago Public Library started looking at data that showed socioeconomic disparities within its system. Telli said low-income communities had more overdue fines than some of the more affluent neighborhoods of Chicago. It wasn’t that Chicagoans in poorer areas were necessarily racking up more fines, she said, but rather, those patrons were unable to pay the overdue balances.
According to Chicago Public Library’s internal analysis, some 30% of people living on the South Side of Chicago couldn’t check out materials because they had reached the $10 fine limit for overdue materials. That ratio, however, dropped roughly 15% among cardholders on the more affluent North Side. Nearly a quarter of blocked accounts belonged to children under 14.
Having library fines stand in the way of people searching for jobs and social services “just seemed counterintuitive to us,” Telli said.
The end of personal responsibility?
The fine-free movement isn’t without its detractors. Mark Mitchell, a longtime user of Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library, which eliminated fines last summer, worries that the end of fines removes the incentive to return library property.
“It encouraged me to return the books or the DVDs in a timely fashion rather than just keep them,” said Mitchell, who restores antique clocks and lives two blocks from a Pratt library branch. “As it stands now, you won’t be fined and you can return the DVD — or the book, or what have you — more or less whenever you want, I guess.”
Mitchell acknowledged that some people are not able to easily return books on time, but fears libraries will be shortchanged.
“The library deserves as much money as it can muster,” he said.
Yet many libraries can’t afford to collect most of the fines due. This month, Boston Public Library joined the 5% of public libraries to stop charging minors late fees after a year of receiving just 10% of its nearly $250,000 owed from those under 18.
And in San Diego, officials calculated that it actually would be saving money if its librarians stopped tracking down patrons to recover books. The city had spent nearly $1 million to collect $675,000 in library fees each year.
In some public library systems, dropping fines is part of a larger policy of moving away from a punitive model. Chicago’s cardholders have seven days past the due date to return items before their card is blocked from use. In the case of lost materials, patrons must pay to replace the book or provide a new copy of the same edition.
“We’re really putting the focus on the physical object that needs to come back to the library rather than the revenue stream — that really wasn’t a revenue stream,” Telli said.
Clean slates
Some libraries have successfully lured back patrons by offering fine-forgiveness days. During a 2017 amnesty campaign in San Francisco, the public library recovered nearly 700,000 of its items over six weeks and restored the accounts of more than 5,000 patrons. The recouped materials included a long-lost copy of F. Hopkins Smith’s Forty Minutes Late — which, despite its title, was a century overdue.
Back in San Diego, Ramirez is putting her renewed library card to use.
She has secured a job working events at the Petco Park baseball stadium after using the library computer to apply for the position. And she now frequents the library a few times a week for book talks or to check out works of young adult fiction.
“It’s like a second home,” she said.
Maybe one day, Ramirez hopes, other patrons will be checking out books that she herself wrote. She aspires to become a young adult novelist. But first, she wants to go to college — a dream inspired by the many pages she has turned among the library stacks.
LONDON — Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of Britain’s opposition Labour Party, announced Monday evening that his bloc in Parliament would support a second referendum to stop what he called “a damaging Tory Brexit.”
While Labour Party activists have been pushing their leader for months to back another public vote on Brexit, Corbyn had been cold to the idea. Many Labour voters — especially in Wales and the north of England — want Britain to leave the European Union.
Corbyn’s shift comes after he was battered by the abrupt resignations of nine Labour lawmakers last week. The defectors, who support remaining in the European Union, complained Corbyn lacked leadership on the greatest issue facing Britain in a generation, and they urged more Labour members to quit.
Corbyn’s late support for a second referendum does not mean another public vote will happen. Prime Minister Theresa May, her government and most of her Conservative Party remain opposed to a do-over.
Nor was it clear Monday what kind of second referendum Corbyn supports. Brexit opponents want voters to be given a clear choice of leaving or staying in the European Union. Others say a second referendum, if it ever took place, should be more limited — asking voters, for example, if they support the deal May has negotiated with the European Union.
This week will see lawmakers putting forward motions seeking to delay Brexit beyond the scheduled departure date of March 29. Other amendments will try to stop Britain from leaving the European Union with no deal — a scenario that could cause economic chaos.
Corbyn said Monday that Labour would also introduce its own amendment, laying out his party’s alternative deal for a much softer Brexit than May has negotiated with the Europeans. The Labour plan would keep Britain in an E.U. customs regime and single market. Such an arrangement probably would mean that Britain would have to continue to accept the free flow of immigrants from Europe.
Corbyn said that only if Parliament — and the government — rejects Labour’s vision for Brexit would he and his party rally around a second referendum to stop May’s deal.
Conservative Party Chairman Brandon Lewis charged that Corbyn seeks to “betray the will of the British people and ignore the biggest democratic vote in our nation’s history.” Lewis said, “A divisive second referendum that would take us back to square one. Once again, it’s clear: Jeremy Corbyn is using Brexit to play his own political games.”
May spent the weekend in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, at a meeting of the leaders of European and Arab states, seeking support for additional language to her Brexit deal that would make it palatable to her party.
Many Conservative Party lawmakers have rejected May’s Brexit deal because it could keep Britain too closely tied to Europe to guarantee that there would be no return of a hard border in Ireland.
While in Egypt, the British prime minister resisted calls to seek a delay for Brexit.
“A delay in this process doesn’t deliver a decision in Parliament, and it doesn’t deliver a deal,” she said at a news conference Monday. “What it does is precisely what the word delay says, it just delays the point in which we come to that decision.”
Corbyn’s spokesman said the Labour leader believes May is “recklessly running down the clock” in an attempt to “force MPs to choose between her botched deal and a disastrous no deal.”
Corbyn’s move toward backing a second referendum was applauded by Labour leaders who don’t like Brexit. Labour lawmaker David Lammy tweeted, “This is a big step towards uniting our party and most importantly our country. No Brexit deal meets the fantasy promised in 2016. So the only way any specific form of Brexit can be made legitimate is through ratification in a #PeopleVote which includes the option to remain.”
London Mayor Sadiq Khan said in a statement that a second referendum would be “the right decision for London — and for the whole country — to give the public their say for the first time on a final Brexit deal. I hope members of parliament will support this move, which is vital to protect jobs and growth. The prime minister must now withdraw article 50 to prevent Britain crashing out of the EU without a deal within weeks and to give us time to sort out her mess.”
Campaigners for a second referendum are hopeful that if the Labour leadership fully lines up behind the cause, they could have a fighting chance at a second vote.
But others said this seemed like a ploy by Corbyn to stop further splits in his party.
Tim Farron, a former leader of the pro-European Liberal Democrats, said, “This is so weak. Or utterly cynical. One or the other.”
Luciana Berger, one of the Labour lawmakers who defected, tweeted, “This. Is. Not. A. New. Announcement. And yet there are just 23 working days to go until #Brexit.”
The Labour Party officially endorsed a second referendum at the party conference in September, but until now it was not fully adopted by Corbyn.
Chris Leslie, another former Labour lawmaker and member of the new Independent Group, said: “Getting Labour to back a People’s Vote has been like extracting blood from a stone. There are no more excuses left — and the question should be put this week without any further prevarication. Let’s wait to see the detail though. We are too used to reading the small print and finding there’s more to this than meets the eye.”
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