Category Archives: Abolition Of Work

Curio Theatres space at 48th and Baltimore will be home to a new production by Theatre in the X, the local Black theatre company known for their summer shows in West Phillys Malcolm X Park. Beginning Thursday, April 28, Theatre in the X will present their take on William Shakespeares famous play Richard III.

Theatre in the Xs interpretation of Richard III is an homage to The African Grove Theatre the first Black Theatre company in the recorded history of North America.

This company, founded 44 years before the abolition of slavery, at a time when few blacks were literate (because it was illegal) took on this Shakespearean language, and the powers that be, and triumphed, in their own way, reads a statement on the Theatre in the X website. They laid the track for us and through their work and now with this production of Richard III, we honor them.

The production is directed by Carlo Campbell, who is also starring in the lead role. Other featured actors are: Anthony Cooper (as King Edward IV), Zuhairah McGill (as Queen Margaret),Nancy Marie (as Queen Elizabeth), Ciera Gardner, Richard Bradford, Ron Lee Jones, Eric Carter, Walter DeShields, Kahlil Wyatt, Sterling Calhoun, Phoenix Campbell, and Edris Trawick.

Shows will run this and next week on Thursdays, April 28 & May (7 p.m.), Friday (8 p.m.) and Saturday (5 p.m.) Tickets are pay-what-you-can and can be reserved here.

For more information about the production, go here.

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Black theatre company, Theatre in the X, to present Richard III at 48th and Baltimore - westphillylocal.com

Kieran Hanley, left, and Keith Drover say wind energy has a lot of potential for the future in Newfoundland and Labrador. (CBC)

Companies in the renewable energy field are excited about the implications of Newfoundland and Labrador's abolition of a controversial moratorium on onshore wind energy production, although the provincialenergy minister is hesitant to say how quickly things will start moving.

A provincial moratorium on private wind farmshad been in place since 2007, which keptcompanies fromgeneratingand exporting onshorewind energy in the province.

Energy Minister Andrew Parsonssaid several companies had already expressed interest in developing wind farms in the province before the announcement on April5, adding government will create policy to make it possible for developers.

"We're kind of seeing it in real time, the foundation for a new industry in Newfoundland and Labrador," said EcoNext CEOKieran Hanley, who leads aassociation of businesses fostering clean energy development formerly known as theNewfoundland and Labrador Environmental Industry Association.

"This was one of the things they said they were going to do, and they've done it in fairly short order. So very very happy to see that happen and move forward."

Keith Drover, vice-president of project development for St. John's-based Growler Energy, said the province has potential to be a key player in the wind energy sector largely due to its trademark windy conditions.

According to Drover, up to 40 per cent of Canada's developable wind potential exists in Newfoundland and Labrador for comparison, the province only uses about one per cent of national consumption.

"I think the export potential for electricity and renewable energy production probably increases with this shift in thinking," Drover said Tuesday.

With themoratorium now lifted, Hanley said, the focusnow shifts to questions the industry has about how to move forward.Those questions include:

"We haven't really found a great way to get that outside of the province," he said.

"Increased interest in things like hydrogen and clean, heavy industry have really opened the doors to new renewable energy production and the export of not just the electricity but also the fuels that electricity can produce or the goods that that renewable energy can produce."

Drover said education for those looking to work in the field will be crucial in the coming years, and hopes the industry can get to a place where it overproduces resources similar to the oil and gas industry.

"There's a lot of potential for renewable energy in the province to help to diversify the economy and maybe bring some of the level of jobs that we do see in the oil sector," he said.

Parsons said Hanley'squestions will be answered as the province lays the groundwork to develop the industry. He said announcements could be made this year, but steps forlegislative change most likely won't start until the fall sitting of the House of Assembly.

"We're working with a sense of urgency, and we're certainly trying to expedite it.But I also don't want to in the rush to do thistake a step that is not going to assist us down the road," Parsons said.

"At the end of the day, this resourceand these opportunities belong to the people of the province. We have to work with everybody to ensure that we're getting the best return."

Parsons said many conversations still need to happen as plans develop, including working with other departments to see how Crown land can be used to develop wind farms and how the farms would fit into the provincial power grid.

Parsons said the province still also has to reckon with Muskrat Falls, acknowledging the province's current electricity infrastructure needs to be protected and paid for.

"We have a system that we have to pay for. Somebody has to pay for them," Parsons said. "So it's not about limiting, it's just acknowledging a system that's there that we have to find a way to continue to operate."

Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador

Read more here:

Everyone says N.L. has big potential for wind energy. But when will the industry get going? - CBC.ca

Welcome to Broadways fleurs-du-mal moment, a rare blossoming of funny plays on deeply unfunny subjects. At Circle in the Square, theres American Buffalo, about creeping criminality; at the Friedman, How I Learned to Drive, about pedophilia; at Studio 54, The Minutes, about white triumphalism. In all of them, comedy is a top note, perfuming the odor of rot underneath.

But no fleur is as mal right now as the one that opened on Thursday at the Golden Theater: Hangmen, Martin McDonaghs rip-roaringly hilarious yet profoundly horrific play about the abolition of capital punishment. Or rather its endurance. For in this deeply cynical tale, set in the final days of the death penalty in England, we see how justified murder, no longer state sanctioned, survives by other means.

Among those other means is Harry Wade (David Threlfall), the countrys second most famous executioner. We meet him, in a chilling prologue set in 1963, as he hangs a man named Hennessy, convicted of raping and killing a young woman. That Hennessy (Josh Goulding) goes to his death maintaining his innocence is neither here nor there to Harry, who sees his job as morally neutral. He merely wants to dispatch the man with dispatch and does so in an unnerving coup de thtre.

Threlfalls titanic performance in this Royal Court Theater and Atlantic Theater Company production offers the most terrifying incarnation yet of the authors acid misanthropy. Which is saying a lot after plays like The Beauty Queen of Leenane and The Lieutenant of Inishmore that portray the busy small-mindedness behind big ugly doings. His Harry is in some ways the flip side of Smike, the poor mangled wretch he played in The Life & Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby in the early 1980s. Harry, too, is Dickensian, but more like one of Dickenss monstrous, red-eyed lawyers: He is cruel, peremptory and, with his dyed hair and prissy bow tie, dandyish in his self-regard.

The act of Parliament that suspended the death penalty in 1965 does not erase those traits. Most of the play takes place that year, after Harry has retired from public service to the pub he runs, with an executioners charm, near Manchester. There he still cuts an imposing if thin-skinned figure, bullying everyone in sight: Alice, his keeping-up-appearances wife (Tracie Bennett); Shirley, his 15-year-old daughter (Gaby French); and a bevy of barflies who together form a composite idiot.

But do not pity the poor hangman with no one to kill; his self-pity is more than sufficient. Despite his protests of no comment, it therefore takes very little coaxing for a cub reporter (Owen Campbell) to get him talking for an article timed to the second anniversary of Hennessys execution. Out it all pours: the vainglory, the moral equivocation and especially the furious envy of Albert bloody Pierrepoint, the Number One hangman all them years, with hundreds more executions to his credit.

Somehow McDonagh sets these instigating events in motion and assembles the core characters without your even noticing the structural work going on. But now he plays two wild cards. One is a character we met in the opening scene but who returns unexpectedly: Syd (Andy Nyman), Harrys mousy and possibly pervy former assistant. Syd, too, burns with suppressed fury, Harry having ratted him out for some minor peccadilloes involving other peoples genitals.

The other is the menacing Mooney (Alfie Allen), a spiffy young devil (as Ben Brantley called the character in his review of the 2018 Atlantic production) and an obvious outsider with his mod clothes and inscrutable Oxbridge palaver. In Allens convincingly reptilian performance, Mooney is an anarchic force, deliberately jangling everyones nerves with non sequiturs and contradictions that invite an effort to pin him down. Is he a sociopath or merely an entitled toff?

But he is un-pin-down-able, making short work of those who try. When a suspicious detective named Fry (Jeremy Crutchley) does his best to scare him off, it goes nowhere:

Fry: You wanna watch yourself, lad. Were not all friendly up north.

Shirley: I am!

Mooney: She is.

Fry: Shes not everyone, is she?

Mooney: She could be if she tried harder.

Shirley, whose own mother calls her moody on the inside and mopey on the outside, knows this makes no sense but likes Mooney anyway and soon goes missing.

Having built its gallows, the play proceeds to hang someone on it. Or perhaps several people, for there is at least mild comeuppance all around. If Harrys attempts to promote a glorious history instead of his true one are thwarted, so too are almost everyone elses delusional hopes. Only the cronies come out ahead, having netted for their troubles some free beer and a lot of excitement.

Which makes the audience another crony, with beer available at the theater bar. And in Matthew Dunsters whirlwind production, we certainly get a lot of excitement, even if its the sickly kind laced with danger. (The fight direction, by J. David Brimmer, is superb.) Dunster also extracts every possible laugh from each dour situation; even as Hennessy resists the noose in mortal terror, Syd tells him, If youdve just tried to relax you couldve been dead by now.

Logic, for these characters, is a backward-flowing sewer, and ethics, likewise, are useful only to the extent they can be inverted into excuses for bad behavior. That Harry is loosely based on Harry Allen, Englands actual last executioner, a man who was indeed less famous than the real Albert Pierrepoint, suggests the plays diagnosis of the human propensity toward violence and revenge is neither fictional nor narrow; theres a reason the title is Hangmen, plural.

This is bracing, yet something nevertheless bothered me about the play, even aside from a few logical holes and untied knots, when I saw it downtown. Though, like most of McDonaghs earlier work, it trades in the comedy of human pride in awfulness a bottomless resource the contrast between its profoundly serious subject and its baroque construction is more unsettling here than usual. Something about a hanging (let alone two) is hard to let go of, and if you laugh as much as I did at Hangmen, you may later find yourself asking whatever for.

That this feeling of disproportion is fainter in the Broadway production than in 2018 may provide a clue to the answer. The cast, with just four holdovers, is certainly better tuned now, and Threlfall makes a big difference. Also successfully amped up for Broadway are the sinister sets and pinpoint costumes by Anna Fleischle.

But its more than that. Four years later, the world feels coarser perhaps it always does and not just because death has become much more visible in streets and wards and wars. So has peoples indifference to it, and to all kinds of suffering and unfairness. McDonaghs cynicism feels closer to our own, or rather we to it. Hangmen now plays less like a clever exercise and more like news, with an unnerving headline. Garden-variety amorality is not a far throw from violent psychopathology, it reports, or for that matter from what we call justice.

HangmenThrough June 18 at the Golden Theater, Manhattan; hangmenbroadway.com. Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes.

Continue reading here:

Review: Hangmen, Offering the Last Word in Gallows Humor - The New York Times

Paul Cornely moved around a lot before being drawn to Ann Arbor.

He was born in the French West Indies to a Chilean mother and West Indian father. The Cornelys moved to Puerto Rico in 1909, when Paul was 3, and stayed for a dozen years. Next came a year in New York City before settling in Detroit when Paul was 16. His dad, Eleodore, went to work in a foundry and his mother, Adrienne, stayed home raising Paul and his younger siblings, Antoine and Lily.

After graduating from Detroits Central High School, Cornely took two years of classes at the College of the City of Detroit, a precursor to todays Wayne State University. He enrolled at U-M in 1926, attracted by its low costs and location close to home. His father had talked him out of studying engineering and pushed him toward medicine, saying a career as a doctor would be more lucrative and sustaining for a Black man.

Cornely joined Omega Psi Phi, the African American fraternity that had a house on Catherine Street. And he became one of the earliest members of the Negro-Caucasian Club, created in 1926 by African American and white students with the ambitious commitment to the abolition of discrimination against Negroes.

Of some 13,000 students at U-M, fewer than 100 were African Americans. Campus swimming pools, dances, residence halls all were off-limits to Black students. Racism was rampant in many areas of the city and the University, Cornely said years later.

With several club members, Cornely sat down at Ann Arbor lunch counters whose owners refused to serve African American diners, claiming their presence would drive out paying white patrons.

Nothing happened.

We sat in, not to wait for service, but to count the number of whites who walked out because they saw Negroes sitting there, recalled club member Lenoir B. (Smith) Stewart. The total count was NONE. This convinced the business people that they had not a leg on which to stand.

Stewart, Cornely and other club members invited prominent African Americans to campus to speak, knowing administrators would never do so. The writer Alain Locke, the first African American Rhodes scholar, said young Black people were preparing to challenge racism and fight for equal rights by showcasing their abilities. Robert W. Bagnall, an executive with the NAACP, appeared at Lane Hall. The poet Jean Toomer drew a crowd to the Natural Science Auditorium.

Civil rights leader W.E.B. DuBois called for white Americans to accept Black people as equals, saying there was no redeeming quality to racial segregation.

There is no place where he can go and still have a feeling of friendliness toward the white man, for wherever there is segregation, there is a constant hatred brewing on each side, DuBois told a crowd in the Natural Science Auditorium. There is no remedy by segregation which is possible, and the countries of the world have their eyes on the manner in which the United States solves the problem, so it is indeed an important one to be considered in our life of today.

This was the intellectual swirl surrounding Paul Cornely as he worked his way through pre-med studies.

Original post:

The Dignity of Man - University of Michigan ...

To meet this moment of climate crisis with anything other than despair demands so much of us: motivation, imagination, and action on a global scale. We reached out to some of the writers whose work has touched this crisis to ask them where they locate hopeor what passes for itin their day-to-day existence.

Their answers, like the climate crisis itself, are intensely personal: they call upon past generations of activism; they question the usefulness of hope except as an impetus to action; they recognize that community sustains and saves lives; they describe what it looks like to care for the living things that surround each of us. Above all, they argue for attentionto the damage that humans have already caused, the ways that we know we can curb it, and the people working to do just that.

Corinne Segal, Lit Hub senior editor

*

I rarely look for hope, but when I need reassurance, I look to the past: the abolition of slavery, the overthrow of colonization and apartheid. Hard things have been done, and darkness has been turned to light, right here on this planet by people just like us.

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I focus past the frozenness by being attuned to the lifespans of the organisms in the yard and know that I can be of use to creatures, like opossums, for whom three years is a generation and who know nothing of the time beyond that.

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Im hopeful because weve learned to use energy from heaven (the sun and the wind) to supplant energy from hell, and because theres now a movement of people around the world determined to push us to that transition, even over the dead weight of the fossil fuel industry.

*

I locate hope in the fact that for a new generation born in this era of ecological disaster, the smiling, fraudulent face of capitalismthe one that promises endless growth without downsidecan no longer launder the reality of what this insatiable greed has done to our planet, and exposed for what it is, can finally be dismantled.

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We will overcome, if we face the truth.

*

I live in western New England, where the spring peepers still make a marvelous racket. When the peepers start to call, with that inimitable, high-pitched screech of theirs, it is as if life itself has been resurrected. The peepers just started calling the other day, and thatjustifiably or notgives me hope.

*

I have no hope that we will avoid the 2C maximum set by the Paris Agreement and therefore anticipate great damage for the least well off, but I have hope for mitigation and adaptation on two scales: progressive leaders and activists are working to mitigate and adapt at the local level, and financial institutions, which have long funded climate crisis, are pulling out of fossil fuel investments.

*

Sometimes writing seems futile these days, but lately Ive been thinking what if writing isnt about communication so much as it is about agency building? Instead of just using my expertise to better communicate the impact of rising seas on frontline communities, I have been working within those communities to help them share their stories themselves. Hope for me dwells in the possibility that climate change demands that the authorship become a right, not a privilege.

*

My greatest hope lies in the people who only recently rolled their eyes at the tree-huggers but are now beginning to care, for the only real way forward is for climate change to stop being be a divisive political issue and become universally recognized for what it already is: a question of global survival.

*

I train myself to find solace in beauty, even damaged beauty, and think of this quote from Allan Gurganus: Despite our constantly poisoning this planet, who can deny its stayed stubbornly beautiful. Beauty gives itself so readily, if only were un-depressed enough to accept its latest offer.

*

If not hope, then sense of purposethats what the plants and animals in my own backyard inspire in me, with their scurrying and flapping and calling out with life, reminding me that theres much we can protect and care for now at the local level, as we push for and demand global change.

*

Every so often, when they seem no longer to speak to me, I blame my books for the worlds problems and go through a whole purge, and as I survey the remaining few, I take hope in the thought that I might one day become old and only one book will be left on the shelf and inside it will be all the answers.

*

I dont mean to sound glib, but hope is beside the point, as always. This world is beautiful, and worth fighting for.

*

I am not sure I hold hope in my body these days. What I do hold is space and time for the people around me who are actively caring for the earth. Smack in the middle of dirty, gritty East London, where I now live, I tend two small patches of land alongside some bats, newts, foxes, and a community of dedicated locals. It is this, along with writing about the environment and spending time with fellow activists, that keeps me going. Hope itself feels like a placeholder word. It stands for so much.

It often makes me think of an essay Derrick Jensen wrote for Orion magazine many years ago in which he says, You dont simply hope your beloved survives and thrives. You do what it takes. If my love doesnt cause me to protect those I love, its not love. This is what it boils down to for me. Getting soil under my fingernails and tending the eartheven the smallest patches of itand loving the non-humans I live among. Truly loving them. Thats it. That is what hope looks like for me.

*

I lose and regain hope several times a day, so I try to rely less on hope and more on purpose. I dont mean that in a glib, channel your despair into action kind of wayour times are hard and likely to get harder, and we need to take care of ourselves and each other. What I try to remember is that both hope and despair are just guesseswhats certain, right now, is that theres useful work to be done. All we can do is keep doing what were best suited to do.

*

What gives me hope? Its not a question I think about often. Hope is beside the point. If I think about it at all, I think there is no hope, there is only love. There is love and there is work. I dont stop loving someone when theyre sick. I dont stop working. Its the same with the world. My questions are, is there still work to be done? Is there still a world to love? The answer to both of these questions is yes. And that will be true as long as we are alive and belong to the earth. And we do belong to the earth. And we belong to each other. I know the tradition I want to join, and its the tradition of those who fight despite long odds, who fight because there is no other option. You can call that a platitude. To me, its practical.

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I have been trying hard to turn my despair into a talisman for returning to the present moment. Spring peepers, passing clouds, a dandelion in a sidewalk crackthe simple awareness of such things sees me through.

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The other day, I took a walk along the beach afflicted with red tide where the sand was strewn with aquatic corpsesbloated pufferfish, nurse sharks, a regal sea turtletheir mouths and eyes pinned open as if perfectly stunned by what had befallen them. Despair is the easy way out, Im realizing; hope is what we must muster as we honor the dead and dying, the righteous fight and those fighting it, and as we figure out, again and again and again, how to manifest our own best efforts into the world.

*

Hope is action and action is hope!

Read more:

What Passes for Hope: 19 Writers on Finding Meaning in the Face of the Climate Crisis - Literary Hub

Good Monday morning.

U.S. Rep. Charlie Crists campaign to retake the Governors Mansion this November gained an endorsement from Sen. Shevrin Jones, who cited Crists record and message as his motivation.

Jones said Crists leadership is needed now, particularly considering recent actions by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican-dominated Legislature.

We in Florida cannot continue going in this dangerous direction, which is not the direction the rest of the country is going, Jones told Florida Politics.

The events of last weeks Special Session most notably the Legislatures party-line approval of a DeSantis congressional map, which, among other things, halved the number of Black performing districts in Florida to two also factored heavily in the decision.

As someone who represents the largest Black district in the (state), sitting on the sidelines for too long is just not an option, he said. And what you see right now is Charlies message is resonating in my community of Miami Gardens.

They know him. They know the name. They know the work.

Crist, who began his political career as a Republican and served as Florida Governor from 2007 to 2011, said Jones support means the world to him.

This is one of the brightest political young stars in Florida politics today, and having the opportunity to receive his endorsement is humbling, he said. I am honored by it, and Im enormously grateful to Shev and to God.

Read the full story about Jones endorsement here.___

DeSantis already has three Democrats vying for his seat, but Roger Stone might not be making empty threats.

Someone, presumably in Stones camp, has registered the domains RogerforGovernor.com and StoneforGovernor.com, another sign the longtime Donald Trump ally could be serious about taking down DeSantis.

Stone threatened late last year to run for Governor as a Libertarian unless DeSantis vows to not run for President in 2024. And last weekend, Stone released a clip in which he whispers to Trump, Ron DeSantis is a piece of sh*t.

The latest move, registering the domain names, took place on Wednesday, as the Legislature met to pass bills targeting Disney over the companys opposition to Floridas anti-LGBTQ education law. Meanwhile, this week, former Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis offered to represent Disney over the retaliation, which has put DeSantis back in the limelight.

Although nothing is hosted yet at the two domains, the recent actions from Trump world could be a sign of more 2024 posturing to come.

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With three games left in the 2022 regular season, the Tampa Bay Lightning are skating to the White House to celebrate their back-to-back Stanley Cup victories in 2020 and 2021.

President Joe Biden will be the first President to host the Bolts, even though the team has won three championships. The COVID-19 pandemic had delayed celebrations for their recent titles. But lightning struck twice because the team also couldnt celebrate its 2004 title during the 2004-05 NHL lockout.

The Lightning, who have already clinched their third consecutive Stanley Cup playoff appearance, beat the Florida Panthers 8-4 in Sunrise Sunday night before leaving for Washington. Next, the team will continue north to Ohio to play the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Biden could honor a host of Bolts, like defensemen Victor Hedman and goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy, the most valuable players in the 2020 and 2021 Stanley Cup championships. Of course, theres owner Jeff Vinik, general manager Julien BriseBois, and head coach Jon Cooper.

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Spotted A whos who of elected officials from Manatee and Sarasota counties who turned out to celebrate Grimes Galvano crossing the century mark.

The guest list included U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, former Senate President Andy Gardiner, and former Sens. David Simmons and JD Alexander. Sarasota Countys turnout included County Commissioner Mike Moran and Sarasota Mayor Erik Arroya. Manatee County electeds included County Commissioners Carol Whitmore, George Kruse, Misty Servia, Vanessa Baugh and Reggie Bellamy, County Administrator Scott Hopes, Clerk of Court Angel Colonneso, Superintendent Cynthia Saunders, Property Appraiser Charles Hackney and School Board member Chad Choat. The list continues with Bradenton Mayor Gene Brown and Police Chief Melanie Bevan as well as City Councilmembers Marianne Barnebey, Pam Coachman, Bill Sanders and Jayne Kocher. And Palmetto the town Grimes Galvanos founders first put up their shingle was represented by Mayor Shirley Groover-Bryant.

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Fred Piccolo joins Jackie Toledos CD 15 bid as campaign manager Piccolo will serve Toledos campaign as both campaign manager and senior adviser. Piccolo had previously been campaign manager to then-candidate Dennis Ross from 2008 to 2010 and as Chief of Staff to then-Congressman Ross from 2010 to 2012.

Ive known Jackie Toledo since I worked with her on her first campaign for the statehouse, Piccolo said in a statement. No one works harder or cares more deeply about her constituents than Jackie does. Shes demonstrated a unique ability to move legislation and articulate our conservative principles to a wide audience and expand our party into diverse communities throughout the Tampa Bay area.

Toledo added: Fred and I worked together for over a decade in my campaigns and in his time in the speakers office in Tallahassee. I value his advice and his experience, and his knowledge of the district is second to none.

This not a Polk County seat, Piccolo continued. As the only candidate in this race who grew up, went to public school, graduated from college, and raised a family in Hillsborough County, Jackie knows that the citizens of District 15 can easily distinguish between their neighbor and politicians who cant give up power. That choice is becoming crystal clear.

___

If you want to arrest me, f**king arrest me, said a defiant Charlie Adelson in April 2016, covertly recorded by the FBI in a noisy Miami restaurant, talking with co-conspirator Katherine Magbanua about the murder of his former brother-in-law, FSU law professor Dan Markel.

Come back with a warrant.

That challenge was finally accepted last week, almost six years later to the day.

The long-awaited arrest has drawn renewed international attention to the Tallahassee murder-for-hire and has cracked open possibilities for the resolution of a case that has become woven into Floridas political landscape in various ways in the years since. FloridaPolitics.com has followed the case extensively, diving deep through the aftershocks of a murder that rocked Floridas capital city and left a trail of victims in its path.

Charlies arrest is a major milestone and reflects the tireless work put into this case by law enforcement and prosecutors, said Markel family friend, Karen Cyphers on behalf of the grassroots group Justice for Dan.

But how did this arrest come to be, nearly eight years later? And what does it mean for the pursuit of justice moving forward? Cyphers walked me through some details of the case that are public but often left undiscussed.

For more must-read details, get the full story here.

SITUATIONAL AWARENESS

@EricGeller: What a weird system France has, where the presidential candidate who gets the most votes wins the election.

@NikkiFried: Its been 30 hours since I called for 5 televised debates. Charlies been awfully quiet.

@TPFabricio: Hialeah is brimming with pride! Congratulations to our soon-to-be Commissioner of Education @SenMannyDiaz! You have been Floridas strongest excellence in education advocate. This is a much-deserved appointment.

@RichLowry: Corporations as institutions have been corrupted, very often through bullying and fear, and theres a chance that the Disney controversy will free them simply to fly planes, sell soda, etc. again, which would be good for these companies and good for the countrys cultural health

@ChristinaPushaw: Thought experiment for liberals: What if your childs teacher was religious & used a slideshow to tell class, some people think they were born in the wrong body, but thats impossible; God doesnt make mistakes? You wouldnt like it. Let parents teach their kids as they see fit

@ErinInTheMorn: The last 3 months, we have seen trans people: referred to as pedophiles/groomers called an infection need to be morally mandated out of existence Parents of trans people are investigated. Health care may be pulled. The eugenics/genocide language is turned up to 11.

@AGHamilton29: Im reading this NYT deep dive into the books that FL rejected from their math curriculum and its only making me think that FL actually did a good job vetting. This admits the books have a lot of nonsense that has little to do with teaching kids math.

@ChrisDorworth: I have read so much how the abolition of the Reedy Creek is going to lead to all manners of mayhem. It is much ado about nothing. The Gov/Leg definitely smacked them around, but its just paperwork. All the land will be annexed into Bay Lake or Lake Buena Vista. Those 2 cities have pops of 42 and 19 and are controlled by Disney selected people just like RCID was. 1 of those cities will gobble up the Orange County land and be about the size of San Francisco. The LBV Wikipedia says people wonder why you needed a city in the RCID.

@AGGancarski: People are really slacking on detailed accounts of how many masks they are seeing/not seeing on planes. Thats all I want in my newsfeed at this point and for months and months and months to come.

DAYS UNTIL

2022 Florida Chamber Transportation, Growth & Infrastructure Solution Summit 3; The Godfather TV series The Offer premieres 3; 2nd half of Ozark final season begins 4; White House Correspondents Dinner 5; Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness premieres 11; Florida TaxWatchs Spring Meeting 17; Obi-Wan Kenobi starts on Disney+ 31; Top Gun: Maverick premieres 32; Platinum Jubilee for Queen Elizabeth II 38; California, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota hold midterm Primaries 43; Jurassic World Dominion premieres 46; Pixars Lightyear premieres 53; Thor: Love and Thunder premieres 74; San Diego Comic-Con 2022 87; Michael Mann and Meg Gardiner novel Heat 2 publishes 106; House of the Dragon premieres on HBO 118; The Lord of the Rings premieres on Amazon Prime 130; 2022 Emmys 130; Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse sequel premieres 164; Cormac McCarthys The Passenger releases 183; Jon Meachams And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle releases 183; Black Panther 2 premieres 200; Captain Marvel 2 premieres 200; The Flash premieres 206; The World Cup kicks off in Qatar 210; The U.S. World Cup Soccer Team begins play 210; McCarthys Stella Maris releases 211; Avatar 2 premieres 235; 2023 Legislative Session convenes 316; John Wick: Chapter 4 premieres 333; 2023 Session Sine Die 375; Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse premieres 403; n and the Wasp: Quantumania premieres 459; Dune: Part Two premieres 543; Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Part 2 premieres 704; Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games 823. TOP STORY

Eric Holder-backed group sues Florida over Ron DeSantis congressional map via Jacob Ogles of Florida Politics Minority advocacy groups filed a lawsuit Friday challenging Floridas congressional map approved this week by the Legislature. The National Redistricting Foundation, led by Holder, will fund the case. Plaintiffs represented by prominent Democratic voting rights attorney Marc Elias filed suit claiming a map (P 0109) submitted by DeSantis violates Floridas Fair Districts provisions in the state constitution. An analysis shows the map draws Florida with 20 congressional districts where Trump won the 2020 Presidential Election and just eight seats where Biden won. The targeting of Black voting districts also plays prominently in the complaint filed in Leon County circuit court.

Voting rights groups sue Florida over new congressional map via Gary Fineout of POLITICO

Floridas congressional map: An about-face in GOP strategy and a setback for Blacks via Mary Ellen Klas and Ana Ceballos of The Miami Herald

Al Lawson responds after DeSantis upends district: My plan right now is to be on the ballot via James Call of the Tallahassee Democrat

Tour every Congressional District on Floridas new map via Jacob Ogles of Florida Politics Its official. After a veto, a Special Session, and a sit-in protest on the House floor, a congressional map drawn by DeSantis has been signed into law. So, what does the political terrain in Florida now actually look like? Florida Politics presents a short tour of P 0109, Floridas now-28 congressional districts from Pensacola to Key West. The tour starts here.

DATELINE TALLY

DeSantis tests limits of his combative style in Disney feud via The Associated Press DeSantis deepening feud with Walt Disney World is testing the limits of his combative leadership style while sending an unmistakable message to his rivals that virtually nothing is off-limits as he plots his political future. DeSantis has repeatedly demonstrated an acute willingness to fight throughout his decade-long political career. He has turned against former aides and rejected the GOP Legislatures rewrite of congressional maps, forcing lawmakers to accept a version more to his liking and prompting voting rights groups to sue. Hes also leaned into simmering tensions with Trump, notable for someone seeking to lead a Party where loyalty to the former President is required.

Floridas Disney district crackdown may violate First Amendment, legal experts say via Emily L. Mahoney and Bianca Padr Ocasio of the Tampa Bay Times At DeSantis urging, Florida legislators sped this week to pass two bills stripping The Walt Disney Co. of certain special privileges, which DeSantis signed Friday. The ultrafast maneuver was a whiplash response to Disneys public opposition to Floridas recently passed Parental Rights in Education law, or the so-called dont say gay bill. It was also, experts said, legally dubious. The more high-profile of the two Disney bills eliminates the companys Reedy Creek Improvement District, which for more than 50 years has granted it broad powers of self-governance over its Disney World property, similar to being its own county. The new law dissolves that special district, and five others, on June 1, 2023.

Disneys $578 million tax break left untouched in DeSantis feud via Christopher Palmeri of Yahoo News DeSantis may have put a bulls-eye on special perks that The Walt Disney Co. has enjoyed in his state for more than 50 years, but hes keeping his hands off hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks recently lavished on the entertainment giant. For now, at least, DeSantis is leaving alone another valuable perk: $578 million in credits Disney can use to reduce its state income taxes through 2040. Christina Pushaw, a spokesperson, said DeSantis hasnt asked the legislature to repeal the tax credits because its not a carve-out for a specific corporation.

Fitch says possible downgrade in store for Reedy Creek bonds after anti-Disney bill passes via Gray Rohrer of Florida Politics Fitch Ratings Inc. placed some bonds held by the Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID) on negative watch, meaning a downgrade is possible in the future. The move comes one day after the Legislature passed a bill to dissolve the Walt Disney Company-controlled enclave in Central Florida. The affected bonds are $79 million in outstanding utility revenue and refunding bonds currently rated as A and $766 million in property tax-backed bonds rated at AA-. The districts utility credit profile rating of A and its issuer default rating of AA- were also placed on negative watch status. The bill (SB 4C), which DeSantis has yet to sign, first emerged only Tuesday. The issue was added to the already-scheduled Special Session to deal with redistricting and passed a little over 48 hours after it was filed.

DeSantis signs Stop WOKE Act as legal challenge looms via Renzo Downey of Florida Politics Florida has become the latest state to ban woke ideology associated with critical race theory with legislation DeSantis signed Friday. The measure (HB 7), which is already being challenged in court over First Amendment concerns, would prohibit lessons and training which tell students and employees that they are inherently racist, sexist or oppressive because of their race, color, sex or national origin. It would also ban instruction that they are personally responsible and should feel guilty for the past actions of members of their race, color, sex or national origin. We are not going to use your tax dollars to teach our kids to hate this country or to hate each other, DeSantis said before signing the bill in Hialeah.

How Floridas anti-woke bill could impact public universities via Ana Ceballos of the Tampa Bay Times Floridas cultural clashes over what to teach about race are not isolated to K-12 education. They are also spilling into the states higher education system. For about a year now, DeSantis and Florida Republicans have been fighting the influence of critical race theory and what they call woke ideologies in the classroom. Their latest effort is legislation that would place new restrictions on race-related instruction in public universities and colleges, and would threaten institutions with funding cuts and lawsuits if they violate the new regulations. These regulations are packaged in House Bill 7, titled Individual Freedom, and are tied to the proposed state budget for the upcoming fiscal year. DeSantis, who has championed his own anti-woke agenda, is expected to approve both items.

He fuels the rights cultural fires (and spreads them to Florida) via Trip Gabriel of The New York Times Christopher Rufo is the conservative activist who probably more than any other person made critical race theory a rallying cry on the right and who has become, to some on the left, an agitator of intolerance. A senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, he has emerged at the front of another explosive cultural clash, one that he sees as even more politically potent and that the left views as just as dangerous: the battle over LGBTQ restrictions in schools. Rufo aimed at opponents of a new Florida law that critics call Dont Say Gay. He declared moral war against the statutes most prominent adversary, The Walt Disney Co. And he used the same playbook that proved effective in his crusade on racial issues: a leak of insider documents.

Property insurance reserves vs. Chris Sprowls patience: Which will run out first? via Brian Burgess of the Captiolist Two opposing data sets are being carefully monitored by Sprowls and his insurance reform point man, State Rep. Jay Trumbull: mounting bad news about Floridas property insurance market, versus the slow but steady reduction in Floridas out-of-control insurance litigation. Any residual resistance from Sprowls toward more drastic action can be directly laid at the feet of insurance company advocates who promised that last years reforms would make a positive impact on the number of lawsuits within about 18 months. Sprowls, insiders say, is carefully weighing the speed of the collapse of Floridas insurance market with the reductions in litigation that are slowly, but surely starting to manifest themselves thanks to those already passed reforms.

Assignment editors Sprowls will join the Florida Sheriffs Association for its annual memorial ceremony to honor those who have given their lives in the line of duty, 1:30 p.m., Memorial Wall at the Florida Sheriffs Association Headquarters, 2617 Mahan Drive, Tallahassee. The event will be livestreaming on the FSA Facebook page.

Randy Fine: Republican lawmakers fight with Disney is only his latest battle in culture wars via Eric Rogers of Florida Today No matter what your beef with Fine, his attacks against you are calculated to hurt. Fine has gone after tech companies DeSantis accused of barring conservative viewpoints and school districts that bucked the Governors mask policy. He has called for legislation ending specific treatments for transgender children and co-sponsored DeSantis Stop WOKE Act that limits race-related discussions in classrooms and workplaces, which backers hailed as a blow to critical race theory. Fine is steadily gaining ground on the national scene, thanks to frequent headlines and network appearances in recent years for his audacious political style and a string of controversial legislation that has helped launch Florida to the front lines of the culture wars.

Bless his heart Fine threatened Special Olympics funding over school board member feud, texts show via Eric Rogers of Florida Today Rep. Fine threatened to interfere with state funding for the Special Olympics and the city of West Melbourne last week over a personal feud with Brevard County School Board member Jennifer Jenkins. A city leader said Fine later tried to block the release of the text messages through a public records request and wanted a city attorney overseeing the request to be fired. Fine denied he threatened to get the funding pulled or that he ever spoke about firing the city attorney.

Randys always been this way Scandal before service via Stephen E. Frank of The Harvard Crimson

2022

Marco Rubio talks 2022 with Bay News 9 U.S. Sen. Rubio discussed his re-election bid and more in a sit-down with Bay News 9 Tampa Bays Holly Gregory. Rubio hit U.S. Rep. Val Demings on her comments on rising gas prices, immigration and crime. Despite Demings history as Orlandos Police Chief, Rubio said his challenger had joined the chorus of attacking and second-guessing law enforcement. On Disney, Rubio said the broader argument is not just about the companys woke positions or not standing up to China but about whether companies should get special treatment in Florida.

To watch highlights of the interview, click on the image below:

New Rubio ad bashes Val Demings cringe-y Spanglish Demings Senate campaign reaches out to Hispanic voters with a new slogan: Todos con Demings. Rubios campaign says its about as authentic as an arrivederci delivered by Brad Pitt. Demings is transparently following Bidens lead with every decision she makes even in her attempts to reach Floridas Hispanic communities. She copied his coalition name (Todos con Biden) and Obamas yes we can, with some cringe-y Spanglish, She Se Puede, a news release from Team Rubio says, emphasis in original. But her kitschy sayings are just at the surface of a larger issue: Demings is totally out of touch on the key issues that are affecting Hispanics in Florida.

Nikki Fried calls for five statewide debates among gubernatorial candidates via Kelly Hayes of Florida Politics Fried is calling for five statewide debates among candidates in the 2022 Governors race following the withdrawal of fellow candidate U.S. Rep. Crist from a forum in Homestead Saturday. The call for debate comes as Crist leads the Democratic field in fundraising, becoming the first to collect more than $1 million in a month. Since entering the race in May, Crists haul now comes to $8.2 million. He closed last month with $5.3 million in cash on hand after expenses. On the other hand, Fried has collected more than $3.6 million. Crist previously served a term as Governor as a Republican. He later ran as a Democrat in 2014 against then-Gov. Rick Scott.

Fried endorses all House Democrats Fried issued an endorsement to all Democratic members of the state House who protested the new congressional map that heavily favors Republicans. Sometimes, you have to make difficult decisions in politics. This is one of the easiest decisions Ive ever made, she said in a news release from her gubernatorial campaign. Any Member of the Florida House who stayed on the floor in protest of the racist, unconstitutional maps proposed by Ron DeSantis will receive an automatic endorsement from me. These brave members of the legislature will receive funding from my political action committee, as well as any support I can provide, no matter who they run against, no matter the dynamics of their race.

Chuck Nadd locked and loaded for campaign to be states next Agriculture Commissioner via Jim DeFede of CBS Miami A graduate of West Point and a former Black Hawk helicopter pilot who served two tours in Afghanistan, Nadd is challenging Senate President Wilton Simpson for the Republican nomination. Why are you running? I really grew up around water. I grew up kayaking Mosquito Lagoon. I grew up kayaking up in North Central Florida, and I saw that theres this really emerging important issue of water quality and clean water. And I think everyone watching can really attest that this is one of the critical issues that our state faces, not only now, but over the next five 10 years.

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Rory Diamond moves closer to Jax-area congressional run via A.G. Gancarski of Florida Politics Potential candidates continue to explore running for Congress in a new Jacksonville-area seat that favors Republicans. Diamond is considering a run for the new district in Northeast Florida that includes Clay, Nassau, and northern and western Duval County, which was passed by the Legislature this week (P 0109). Diamond represents the District 13 seat on the City Council, including the Jacksonville Beaches. If he does get in the race in the new 4th Congressional District, it will be with big-name national backing. Diamond, who runs the K9 for Warriors charity, said he has had a lot of good calls in the last 48 hours. Weve got what we need to win, Diamond said.

Vern Buchanan highlights re-election bid to packed Manatee Tiger Bay Club audience via Jesse Mendoza of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune Hours after U.S. Rep Buchanan announced that he would be running for re-election in District 16, he explained why he chose to run for the district that primarily represents Manatee County over Sarasota to a packed Tiger Bay Club audience. Buchanan currently represents District 16, but his home was drawn out of the districts boundaries by a new congressional map by DeSantis. Yet, he chose to run for re-election out of the district that primarily encompasses Manatee County and parts of Hillsborough. It looks like the Governors maps are going to prevail, Buchanan said. It was an easy decision for me. I selected Manatee.

Bonnie Jackson embraces parental rights advocacy in HD 42 contest via Scott Powers of Florida Politics Jackson is staking out a campaign platform in the House District 42 race that could make her a diametrical alternative on culture war issues compared with Democratic Rep. Anna Eskamani, the incumbent Jackson seeks to replace. Take two social issues that divided Florida along cultural lines over the past couple of Legislative Sessions: parental rights in schools and immigration. Jackson is offering hard-line conservative positions that might even go beyond those many Republicans are willing to espouse, let alone whats advocated by Eskamani. For Jackson, such issues are paramount. She is also distancing herself a bit from some of the more establishment Republican positions on things like the roles businesses might play in public policy and lawyers might play in society.

Andres Althabe tops four-person HD 113 field in March fundraising via Jesse Scheckner of Florida Politics

Robert Gonzalez debuts with $84K in four-way GOP contest for HD 119 via Jesse Scheckner of Florida Politics With nearly $84,000 added in March, Gonzalez moved into second place in overall funds raised in what is now a four-way Republican contest to determine who will represent House District 119 later this year. Gonzalez, a personal injury, labor and homeowners insurance attorney was one of two people to file for the race in March. He was the only candidate in the field whose gains reached five digits last month. More than 100 people gave Gonzalezs campaign donations ranging from $10 to $1,000. In keeping with his expertise, most of the corporate contributions came from local legal and health care businesses.

Dan Horton-Diaz welcomes wave of South Miami-Dade County endorsements via Jesse Scheckner of Florida Politics Horton-Diaz announced 13 new personal endorsements and the support of Miami-Dade Countys southernmost Democratic organization Friday in his bid to take the House District 120 seat this November. The endorsers, including elected officials, Democratic Party leaders, and community leaders in Miami-Dade, joined one of the nations largest communications and media unions in backing Horton-Diaz over the last month. These are people that I have worked with for years, and they have proven records of service in our community, Horton-Diaz said in a statement. I am humbled by their support. He received several nods from current South Bay Community Council members, including Chair Marjorie Murillo and members Enid Demps and Christina Farias.

Palm Beach police union backs Michelle Oyola McGovern in County Commission race via Ryan Nicol of Florida Politics

STATEWIDE

A look inside the textbooks that Florida rejected via Dana Goldstein and Stephanie Saul of The New York Times After the Florida Department of Education rejected dozens of math textbooks last week, the big question was, Why? The department said some books contained prohibited topics from social-emotional learning or critical race theory, but it has released only four specific textbook pages showing content to which it objects. The New York Times reviewed 21 of the rejected books and saw what may have led the state to reject them. Because Florida has released so few details about its textbook review process, whether these examples led to the rejections is unknown. But they illustrate how these concepts appear and dont appear in curriculum materials.

Everywhere Babies, a picture book celebrating infants, just got banned via Caitlin Gibson of The Washington Post The inspiration for the popular childrens picture book Everywhere Babies came to author Susan Meyers more than 25 years ago after the birth of her first grandchild. Since its publication in 2001, Everywhere Babies has become a staple of family bookshelves, a common recommendation in new parent groups, and a celebrated title on Best Books lists. The book was among dozens of works recently banned from public school libraries in Walton County, School district officials confirmed the removal of the books to WJHG-TV in Florida. Walton County School Superintendent Russell Hughes told the outlet that it was necessary (at) this moment for me to make that decision, and I did it for just (the) welfare of all involved, including our constituents, our teachers, and our students.

Ratings downgrade imperils another Florida insurer via Drew Wilson of Florida Politics Theres trouble on the horizon for another company that writes homeowners insurance policies in Florida. FedNat Holding Company, which offers insurance under the name FedNat Insurance Company, had its stability rating downgraded from A to S by Demotech, a consulting company that rates the financial health of insurance companies. Demotech defines an A rating as exceptional and says it indicates a company expects to have a positive surplus regardless of the severity of a general economic downturn or deterioration in the insurance cycle. An S rating, or substantial, is one rung down and companies in earning the rating, while not on the brink of collapse, are less able to handle turbulence in the market or the broader economy.

Floridas COVID-19 hospitalizations are rising again as BA.2 subvariant starts to spread via Chris Persaud of The Palm Beach Post Coronavirus-positive patients are filling up Floridas hospitals once again, but their numbers remain smaller than before the original omicron wave engulfed the state. Medical staff statewide tended to an average of 738 COVID-19-positive patients this week, data released Friday by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department shows. Thats higher than the week before but still lower than the four-digit levels recorded in late November and early December. HHS also reported an average of 92 adults per day this week in intensive care units in Florida, the lowest level on record.

As inflation rises, Floridians say its hard to pay their bills via Natalie Weber of the Tampa Bay Times Nearly half of Floridians included in a recent survey say inflation has impacted their ability to pay essential bills. The finding comes from a study conducted by the University of South Florida, asking 600 Floridians how price hikes have impacted their spending and attitudes on various related policy issues. The study was conducted between March 31 and April 12, using a sample of state residents whose demographics closely reflected those of the states population. The survey found that inflation has impacted Floridians spending on everything from food to housing. About 77% of those surveyed said inflation had affected their grocery spending, while nearly a quarter said theyve had difficulties paying their rent or mortgage payments in the past year.

D.C. MATTERS

Theyre going after Mickey Mouse: Joe Biden criticizes Florida GOPs rift with Disney via Jillian Olsen of WTSP Biden wasnt shy about commenting on the apparent rift between the Republican Party in Florida and Walt Disney World during two Democratic National Committee fundraisers Thursday. While speaking at the Portland Yacht Club, Biden said todays Republican Party is not the one your parents likely grew up with, saying, this is not your fathers Republican Party, by any stretch of the imagination. This is the MAGA Party. Not a joke.

Its time to head for the lifeboats: Democratic fatalism intensifies via Blake Hounshell of The New York Times The collective mood of Democratic insiders darkened appreciably in recent weeks. Pollsters and prognosticators are forecasting increasingly dire results for their party in the November midterm elections. Inflation, the No. 1 issue on voters minds, is accelerating. And despite a booming job market, the Presidents average approval rating hadnt budged since January, when it settled into the low 40s. Are you calling to ask me about our impending doom? one Democratic strategist quipped at the outset of a recent phone call. The vibes just feel very off, said Tr Easton, a progressive consultant.

Some Republicans fear party overreach on LGBT measures via Annie Linskey and Casey Parks of The Washington Post Republican lawmakers around the country are pushing an array of bills that limit the discussion of gay rights in schools under the auspices of parental rights, leading some party strategists to worry that the initiatives may backfire with moderate voters by making the party seem anti-gay. Legislation includes a recent law passed in Florida that limits what kindergarten to third grade teachers can talk about in the classroom regarding sexual orientation and gender identity, a measure dubbed the dont say gay law by critics. Several other state legislatures, including Alabama, Louisiana and Ohio, are considering or have passed similar bills.

Donald Trump says Kevin McCarthy relationship not damaged via Alex Leary and Lindsay Wise of The Wall Street Journal Trump said Friday evening his relationship with McCarthy remains good after a recording emerged of McCarthy telling other top GOP lawmakers that he would advise Trump to resign, several days after rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump said he wasnt pleased to learn of McCarthys comments in the House leadership call, but the California Republican ultimately never advised him to quit. He noted that McCarthy quickly changed his stance when he found out the facts and embraced him fully a few weeks after the Jan. 10, 2021, call. He made a call. I heard the call. I didnt like the call, said Trump.

Coach Joe Kennedy gets day in the Supreme Court Monday, drawing national floodlight to local dispute over school prayer via Andrew Binion of the Kitsap Sun Kennedy believes his rights were violated when, in 2015, he lost his position as a Bremerton High School football coach for praying on the field after games. For the former Marine and devout Christian, the prayers are a personal matter that, if given a chance to coach again, would amount to a solitary, seconds-long prayer of gratitude at midfield. I dont want to buck the school; I just want to coach football and be able to thank God for it, Kennedy said. On Monday, the controversy that started in 2015 is scheduled for argument 2,700 miles east in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, casting a nationwide floodlight on a local front in the culture wars.

LOCAL NOTES: N. FL

Should Escambia allow economic tax breaks for new business developments? Voters to decide via Jim Little of the Pensacola News Journal Escambia County voters will decide in November whether the county should be allowed to provide economic tax breaks for new business developments. On Thursday, Escambia County Commissioners unanimously approved placing a countywide referendum on the ballot in November to extend the authorization for economic development ad valorem tax exemptions, otherwise known as an EDATE. Commissioners had signed off on the concept in February, but the action Thursday confirms that a referendum will occur.

Continued here:

Sunburn The morning read of what's hot in Florida politics 4.25.22 - Florida Politics

Back in 2011, Mavis Staples and her band visited Woodstock, N.Y., to perform at the barn-studio-theater of the Bands drummer Levon Helm; they had appeared together at the Bands The Last Waltz, in 1976. Helms band joined hers, which included her sister Yvonne Staples on backup vocals, and they recorded the show. More than a decade later, an album, Carry Me Home, is due May 20. Staples gave You Got to Move, a gospel standard, her full contralto commitment; the guitarists Rick Holmstrom and Larry Campbell traded blues twang and bluegrassy runs. It was just another good-timey show in two long careers, but it would be their last together; Helm died in 2012. JON PARELES

Nostalgia is not a concept often associated with Pusha T; even when hes mining his coke-dealing past for material (and best believe, he usually is), his rhymes have the vivid immediacy of the present tense. But the classic, Old-Kanye production heard on Dreamin of the Past revolving around a sped-up sample of John Lennons Jealous Guy gives the song a halcyon glow thats playfully at odds with his unrepentant flow. As ever, on this highlight from his latest solo album Its Almost Dry, Pushs lyrics pop with poetic detail (We hollowed the walls in back of bodegas) and riotous cleverness: At one point, he boasts of keeping people on the bikes like Amblin. LINDSAY ZOLADZ

Robot love, funky bass lines, Rauw Alejandros head in a refrigerator: Welcome to Shakira and the Puerto Rican reggaeton stars first collaboration. Te Felicito is a bitter send-off to a paramour whose love has been a charade that marries some of the superstars signature gifts: the Colombian singers eccentric choreography and Rauws penchant for funk-infused reggaeton. The Shak stamp of approval is a sought-after trophy for young artists ascending the ranks of the industry just another sign that Alejandro is here to stay in all his freaky glory. ISABELIA HERRERA

Marijuana anthems abound on April 20. Heres a lighter-than-smoke one from Nigeria, sung by the always-masked female songwriter Midas the Jagaban and a guest, Liya. The tapping, airborne polyrhythms of Afrobeats, topped by labyrinthine echoed vocals, provide just enough propulsion and haze as the women declare, Whatever I do/I do it better when I smoke my marijuana. PARELES

PinkPantheress featuring Willow, Where You Are

To capture the way a breakup can upend everything, PinkPantheress enlisted two beat experts Skrillex and Mura Masa to share production on Where You Are, along with Willow (Smith), who delivers full-throated hooks. They sing about the limbo between wanting to move on and longing to stay together: I know it will never be the same, Willow wails. The song is a vortex of obsession, with a brisk beat, a fingerpicking pattern (sampled from Paramores Never Let This Go) and vocals that diffuse into echoes and wordless syllables as PinkPantheress (breathy) and Willow (desperate and dramatic) toss around all the possibilities of separation, confrontation and wishing for a reunion. PARELES

Laura Veirs has been a folk-rock fixture since the early aughts, but over the past few years shes experienced a great deal of personal and professional change. Shortly before the pandemic, she divorced her longtime collaborator Tucker Martine, who had produced many of her albums including My Echo from 2020, which was partially about their split. Her forthcoming album Found Light, due July 8, is her first album without Martine and the first she co-produced herself. Veirs sounds fittingly reinvigorated and inspired on the lead single Winter Windows, an antsy, guitar-driven meditation on motherhood and moving on. I used to watch them watch you light up every room, she sings, a gritty resilience in her voice. Now its up to me, the lighting I can do. ZOLADZ

On the London group Sorrys charming Theres So Many People That Want to Be Loved, Asha Lorenz sings with the sort of sweet, earnest guilelessness that Mo Tucker brought to the Velvet Undergrounds After Hours. See them in the nightclubs, barking up the walls, head in their hands in the bathroom stalls, she notes of all the lonely people she observes. But as the song gradually builds from unassuming to epic, Theres So Many People becomes less a lament and more a celebration of communal human longing a feeling to be cherished, and, ironically, shared. ZOLADZ

Ravyn Lenae, M.I.A.

Its been four years since the Chicago R&B singer Ravyn Lenae dropped her Crush EP, a Steve Lacy-produced release that stitched her sky-high vocals with funky bass lines and delicious electro-soul textures. For M.I.A., her first single from her debut album Hypnos, Lenae pairs with the producer Sango for something a little more breezy. Over a buoyant, syncopated Afrobeats production, a gleaming synth expands and contracts under Lenaes airy falsetto, as she coos about finally making it: Im gonna run the town, aint nothing in my way. HERRERA

Is it easy to start over? Ruth Radelet wonders on the chorus of her debut solo single, and its safe to assume thats an autobiographical sentiment. For nearly two decades, Radelet was the frontwoman of the moody electro-pop group Chromatics, who disbanded last summer amid drama surrounding a mysterious (and possibly nonexistent) final album. On the glassy, synth-driven Crimes, though, Radelet sounds ready to wipe the slate clean. The verses have a bit of a steely bite (I know what theyre telling me is true/I know I could never be like you), but the lush chorus is awash in her signature, dreamy melancholy. ZOLADZ

Helado Negros music may be dreamlike and crepuscular, but dont confuse his songs for simple lullabies. Ya No Estoy Aqu, his latest single, revisits the celestial meanderings that have defined his work: soft, pulsing drum loops and wobbling, echoing synths. The Ecuadorean-American artist sings about isolation and melancholy alongside harmonic melodies from the Chicago singer-songwriter Kaina. Ojal me estoy volviendo loco/Por lo menos tengo con quien puedo hablar/alucinaciones, he intones (Hopefully Im going crazy/At least I have someone to talk to/Hallucinations). Underneath that soothing exterior, Helado Negros music holds a special power: the capacity to engage difficult feelings. HERRERA

The Los Angeles songwriter Lou Roy regularly juggles euphoria and disillusionment. Her debut album, Pure Chaos, is due April 29, and in U.D.I.D. You dont I dont she probes a relationship that seems about to fissure. I always want you here/but Im starting to get the deal, she sings. The track, which she co-produced with Sarah Tudzin of Illuminati Hotties, has an upbeat 4/4 pop thump, but some sonic elements vocals, keyboards, guitar chords linger like contrails, hinting that the romance may already be a memory. PARELES

One heavy day in 1973, Columbia Records dropped every jazz musician on its roster besides Miles Davis. The bassist and composer Charles Mingus (whose 100th birthday would have been on Friday) was among them. So were Ornette Coleman, Keith Jarrett and Bill Evans. But just months before that, the label had arranged to have a performance by Minguss new sextet recorded at Ronnie Scotts Jazz Club in London. The tapes were ultimately shelved. Theyll finally be released on Saturday, Record Store Day, as the triple-disc set The Lost Album From Ronnie Scotts. On The Man Who Never Sleeps, Mingus is lit up by the antic virtuosity of the young trumpeter and Dizzy Gillespie protg Jon Faddis, barely 19, who had just joined the band. Just before Columbia would press a final symbolic seal on an entire jazz generation, you can hear a torch being passed. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO

Freedom is too close to slavery for us to be easy with that jailed imagining, the poet and theorist Fred Moten says in a coolly controlled voice, speaking over the rustle of Gerald Cleavers drums and the dark pull of Brandon Lpezs open bass strings. Theres a doom-metal energy here, and Sun Ras relationship to darkness as a substance. Lpez hangs on the high strings for a moment at the end of Motens phrase, aware that the thought needs time to settle and land, then comes home to the root of the minor key. In the past 20 years Moten has become perhaps the leading thinker on Black performance, writing volumes of poetry and theory that dance with the ways in which Diasporic expression resists definition and capture. The Abolition of Art is the first track from a new album, Moten/Lpez/Cleaver, putting that engagement directly to music and sacrificing none of its complexity or wit. RUSSONELLO

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Mavis Staples and Levon Helms Last Show, and 12 More New Songs - The New York Times

For some advocates, those numbers suggest the organization is falling short of its mission to investigate complaints of police misconduct in a city of 700,000 and that more needs to be done to ensure the new watchdog is not a toothless bureaucracy that quietly accepts the status quo.

But the agencys director says that the last year has helped us start to lay the foundation to ensure transparency and accountability within the Boston Police Department. One city councilor suggests it will take time for the community to trust the new office. And a top police union official says the low number is indicative of the forces high level of professionalism.

Jamarhl Crawford, who served on the task force that recommended OPAT to then-Mayor Martin J. Walsh, is among the critics. He described the new organization as being very lackluster in its execution. Calling the number of cases OPAT has processed thus far disappointing, Crawford said, It speaks to the fact that they didnt understand the charge from the beginning.

It has been, you know, certainly not what we envisioned or intended, said Crawford, a local police reform advocate.

However, Joseph D. Feaster Jr., another police reform task force member, gave a more generous assessment of OPATs performance. He said he was willing to give the city officials the benefit of the doubt, acknowledging that OPAT started to form in earnest under an acting mayor last year and that Michelle Wu just became mayor in November.

I will give them a passing grade, he said.

But Feaster did say, Would I have hoped for a greater number of resolutions? Absolutely.

OPAT fields and reviews complaints from the public about law enforcement officers and has subpoena power to investigate police affairs. It operates independently of the Police Department, which was crucial for those who supported its creation. The agency was charged with monitoring police and community relations, reviewing Police Department policies, and encouraging accountability and transparency within the department.

Two boards fall under OPAT: a nine-member Civilian Review Board and five-member Internal Affairs Oversight Panel. Those two boards only became fully staffed this January, seven months after they were created. The umbrella organization, which has a proposed $1.4 million budget for next fiscal year, provides research and administrative support to those boards.

Under the ordinance that created OPAT, the agencys staff is charged with reviewing and classifying each complaint and making recommendations, which can include dismissal, referral for mediation, or referrals to either of the two boards. The Civilian Review Board is charged with reviewing and investigating certain complaints against BPD. True to its name, the Internal Affairs Oversight Panel is tasked with providing external oversight for the departments internal probes, to help ensure they are thorough and fair.

OPATs executive director, Stephanie L. Everett, a Mattapan attorney, started in her role on May 3. OPAT has had the ability to receive complaints since that date, according to Wus office.

Everett said in a statement, Now that the two boards are fully seated and the board members have received the required training, we are looking forward to working with the community to continue our offices important work.

A city dashboard offers a brief summary of the five complaints that have made it through the intake process. One complainant alleged two officers improperly served a warrant. Another person said an officer vandalized a car belonging to a relative. A third alleged an assault by an officer. Another said police mistakenly responded to their home multiple times. Lastly, someone alleged an officer used excessive force and entered a home without a warrant. The dashboard does not identify the officers.

Of the five, three of the complaining parties were white and two were Black. All were women. The complaints came from across the city: Dorchester, South Boston, the North End, Roxbury, and Mission Hill.

Michael Cox, executive director of Black and Pink Massachusetts, a prison abolition advocacy group, said Friday he was disappointed but not surprised by the low number of OPAT cases that are pending. He thought it was a reflection of OPATs leadership. For him, it begged the question whether true police reform is possible.

Or do we want to be shrinking the scope of budgets as a different method of controlling police? he asked. It goes back to the defund conversation.

He added, You can create anything you want, if theres no enforcement, no accountability attached to it, its just useless.

In a statement, Larry Calderone, president of the Boston Police Patrolmens Association, said the low number of complaints is certainly indicative of what I have been saying all along, that the men and women of the BPPA answering the calls for service are some of the most professional officers in the nation.

And while no [department] is perfect, were incredibly proud of the work being done by our members every single day, he said.

Calderone added that when there is a complaint, and we fully expect there will be because complaints come in when officers are doing their jobs, we will continue to demand that our members be treated fairly and equitably against any allegations.

Councilor Julia Mejia, who is known as a supporter of police reform in the city, said in a statement that since Everett was appointed to lead OPAT, we have seen how this new office has begun establishing itself as a place where people can go for justice and accountability.

One of the biggest challenges we have ahead of us is working with the community to ensure that OPAT is worthy of the communitys trust, Mejia said.

City authorities, she said, are unpacking decades of abuse and mistrust in the system, and it is going to take time to make people feel comfortable relying on this office.

A previous civilian oversight board, the Community Ombudsman Opportunity Panel, existed within the Police Department and had no subpoena powers. It went three years without issuing a report, a year without meeting, and at one point its membership dwindled to a single person.

When then-mayor Walsh signed OPAT into law in early January 2021, it was considered the signature recommendation from the task force, and a hallmark of Walshs attempts at police reform.

Walsh left City Hall later that year to become the nations labor secretary and he was immediately succeeded by Kim Janey, who as City Council president became acting mayor. Janey is the one who appointed Everett to lead the new entity. Janey was eliminated from the mayoral race in Septembers preliminary contest, and Wu was elected the city chief executive and sworn in last November.

The Boston Police Department has been buffeted by scandal in recent years, even as the city enjoyed a downturn in street violence in 2021, including shootings and homicides, which bucked national trends. Dennis White, a former Boston police commissioner, was fired last year after decades-old domestic violence allegations resurfaced. White has denied wrongdoing. The city is currently searching for his permanent replacement.

Other controversies include an overtime fraud scandal at an evidence warehouse and revelations that the department allowed an officer, Patrick M. Rose Sr., to continue to serve on the force for years after investigators determined in the mid-1990s he had more than likely molested a child.

Danny McDonald can be reached at daniel.mcdonald@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Danny__McDonald.

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Almost a year on, new Boston police watchdog has processed only a few complaints of officer misconduct. Some advocates are disappointed. - The Boston...

Opinion Ian Powell

I have expressed my concerns in these postings and other media outlets about the Governments decision, without mandate or engagement with the health sector, to abolish district health boards (DHBs) in Aotearoa New Zealands public health system

I have expressed my concerns in these postings and other media outlets about the Governments decision, without mandate or engagement with the health sector, to abolish district health boards (DHBs) in Aotearoa New Zealands public health system (thereby abandoning the longstanding democratic principle of subsidiarity between central and local government).

I have also expressed concern about the Governments increasing drift towards a laissez-faire pandemic response since last October.

On 2 February I blended both concerns together in an email to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern arguing that it was dangerous to disestablish DHBs in the midst of a pandemic. These concerns have subsequently greatly intensified with the onslaught of the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

In addition to throwing our health system, both community and hospital, into crisis it has led to a massive increase in mortalities; from around 50 prior to this year (over 21 months) to a further nearly additional 600 deaths to date this year.

Below is the text of my email:

Dear Prime Minister

I am writing to you in respect of the decision to abolish DHBs by 1 July as provided for in the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Bill currently before Parliament. You are probably aware that I was the Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists from April 1989 to December 2019.

This has given me the opportunity to observe and analyse several restructurings in Aotearoa, including what I regard as the best conducted and most effective, the Public Health and Disability Act 2000 which established the district health board system.

During this employment I have also had the opportunity to look at health systems internationally including the United Kingdom, Germany and other parts of Europe, Australia, and the United States. It also enabled me to meet and engage with the OECD, WHO and the World Medical Association.

You may aware that I am presently a freelance health systems commentator and blogger. What I have had published includes matters relevant to what I discuss below.

To avoid any ambiguity, I am not opposed to the whole of the Pae Ora Bill. I strongly support the proposals to establish both the Maori Health Authority and the new crown public health agency. In both cases these have been discussed and advocated in various forms for some time. They have not come from left-field. The latter was not in the Heather Simpson review of the health and disability system but the need for a public health agency has been discussed and debated over many years. In both cases the argument is not new, and their time has come.

The same cant be said for the abolition of DHBs. It was not part of Labours election manifesto in 2020 (quite the opposite) and was not recommended by the Simpson review. Its announcement last April came as a complete surprise and there has been no opportunity for the public to be engaged with or sought a mandate from (the restrictive parliamentary process for the bill falls well short of this threshold).

It is important to recognise the role and purpose of DHBs. I say this as someone who has been more critical than most of some of their actions over two decades. Establishing DHBs meant establishing for the first time statutory bodies responsible for the health and well-being of geographically defined populations and integration between community (including general practice and aged residential care) and hospital care. [area health boards gradually established in the mid to late 1980s also had this objective but had insufficient time to develop it before being abolished by the National government in 1993]

This full responsibility across the spectrum of health has been a strength of our public health system since 2001. This includes the obligation to regularly investigate, assess, and monitor the health status of its resident population. Structurally, this has given New Zealand significant advantages over many other modern health systems where, for different reasons, community and hospital care are much less integrated by being more structurally separated.

The biggest difficulty has been uneven and inconsistent national leadership (structurally and politically) to provide the level of national cohesion needed. Much good has been achieved but much more potential unrealised. Responsibility for this rests much more within central government than DHBs.

In my assessment DHBs came under unfair criticism for the handling of the vaccine rollout. But I have looked closely at the international data which confirms that by they have done very well. Our fully vaccinated rate is one of the highest in the world. It was even higher than the European Union which had the massive advantage of being able to both negotiate as a powerful collective bloc with the monopolistic pharmaceutical companies and have within its membership vaccine producing countries.

The uniqueness of having statutory local structures responsible for geographically defined populations proved to be a major factor in this success. Despite having no control over supply DHBs were able to compensate for our big disadvantage as a small economy far away from vaccine producing countries.

Regrettably, earlier in the rollout, some DHBs were singled out for criticism. But the fact of the matter is that DHBs comparative milestone achievements ranked according to workforce size and population density. The bigger DHBs workforce and the denser their population, the sooner they achieved vaccination milestones. It was the DHBs with smaller workforces and lower population density because of rural communities that were comparatively slower.

As you will be acutely aware the effect of omicron is going to put the whole countrys health system under unprecedented dangerous pressure, especially our public hospitals. No longer will the impact be confined to a region. Transmission will be too high and fast to prevent increasing hospitalisations. This will likely increase mortality rates.

Hospitals are also likely to be bogged down by long covid where the effects of the virus continue for weeks or months beyond the initial illness. This will leave our public hospitals unable to do much else than do their best for Covid-19 patients (sadly with compromises). This is made worse by an already overstretched and fatigued workforce. It is much more likely than not that omicron wont be the last Covid-19 variant this year. Some of its successors will be less and others more virulent.

As you can see from my comments above, I believe abolishing DHBs is wrong and will be counter-productive. Losing statutory bodies that know their defined populations well compared with a national body (with or without regional branches) will set back the effectiveness of the health system. It is compounded by the fact that there is little idea other than prototypes what will be the replacement for the community care functions of DHBs.

But, in addition, to do this during a pandemic is dangerous. It is dangerous for patients, for those that work in the health system (especially those involved in treatment), and it is dangerous electorally.

I strongly urge you to reconsider this decision. Im confident that this could be messaged with integrity in a way that would not look like a backdown. In fact, the structure of DHBs is well-placed to better assist the effectiveness of both the Maori Health Authority and the crown public health agency.

I appreciate that you are far too busy to discuss this further directly with me but if one of your advisers or someone else on your behalf wish to do so I would welcome it

Kind regards

Ian Powell

I did receive a prompt courteous acknowledgement from the Prime Ministers office advising that this email had been forwarded on to Minister of Health Andrew Little who would reply to me directly.

Needless to say, nearly three months later, there has been no response from the Minister; not even a brief compilation of stock soundbites. Well, I tried. I have no sense of outrage because I had no sense of expectation. Back to the blogging.

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Community Scoop An Unresponsive Prime Minister And Health Minister To A Best Endeavour - Scoop

Defund should not be a dirty word.

In fact, defunding public police is a step towards choosing real safety for communities across Canada. Defunding means taking funds from police budgets, while shrinking the size and operations of police. At the same time, it means granting more power to community groups and dedicating more resources to community and social development. Defunding police is a necessary step toward social and economic justice.

Taking the time to cut through intimidating police rhetoric can help reveal ways police actually create harm.

Police rhetoric and intimidation push people away from thinking through the costs of policing. The rhetoric can be so overwhelming that it often prevents us from exploring alternative possibilities of non-punitive and community-led responses to transgression.

Ive recently helped to edit a collection of essays exploring the economic, political and social reasons for defunding, disarming and dismantling public police in Canada. After reflecting on the arguments, I am convinced that larger police budgets and greater police deployments will cause more harm than good.

One major reason to defund police is economic.

In some Canadian cities, public police budgets now account for more than 30 per cent of municipal budgets. The costs of policing are expected to surge even higher in the next decade.

These costs are creating structural deficits that municipalities will never escape from. On economic grounds alone, defunding police is an issue anybody interested in cities and public (and fiscal) policy should have at the front of mind. This money should be reinvested in social programs, community development, mental health, transportation and housing.

Still, its necessary to go beyond economic claims and look at the politics. The politics of police are another reason for defunding.

The politics of police forces are anti-democratic and contrary to social justice.

For example, this past February during the right-wing trucker protest, some police sided with the anti-vaccine convoy in cities like Ottawa, Winnipeg and Coutts, Alta.

Some officers used their cars as personal photo booths for the occupiers and acted as valet parking for the truckers, revealing differential treatment for mostly white settler protesters compared to, for example, Indigenous Wetsuweten land defenders and water protectors. Several officers across the country are under investigation for either donating to the trucker convoy or posting social media alerts cheering on the occupation of Canadian cities that were hurtful, disruptive and disrespectful to so many.

There are other examples of regressive police politics. Police have used public resources to support their own narrow, conservative political causes. In Edmonton and Lethbridge, Alta., police have been caught spying on their critics and circulating negative social media posts. In Toronto and Winnipeg, police unions have run attack ads against mayors when those politicians suggested police costs should be reined in.

Recently, Calgary police have indicated they will continue to wear thin blue line patches that have been called fascist and racist in the United States and in Canada too.

Some police like to suggest they are the thin blue line holding back forces of chaos in the world. This requires police to adopt an aggressive law-and-order ideology.

To mark their political stance and exceptional (some might call it extremist) posture, officers will adorn their uniforms with thin blue line patches or put blue line stickers on their cars.

These examples reinforce the idea that police are biased against left-wing political groups and embody a conservative political order.

In this conservative political police culture, critics must be neutralized. Police defunding becomes a dirty word.

A further reason to defund and abolish police is the violence they exact, especially on Black and Indigenous peoples.

Numerous studies and countless stories demonstrate the graphic violence police wantonly use against racialized people.

There are other groups suffering from police violence in ways that have become commonplace. People experiencing mental health crises are routinely shot to death by police instead of getting support.

Medical doctors and nurses in the U.S. and Canada tired of seeing the results of police violence on the bodies of their patients have formed groups calling for the defunding and abolition police.

Other groups are mobilizing for abolition and organizing workshops on alternatives to calling the police because they see police violence is causing tremendous harm.

That immediate violence is in addition to the slow violence that criminalizing people does to entire neighbourhoods. Every arrest by police can affect access to education and employment opportunities, and have a lasting impact on families. Imprisoning Communities by U.S. criminologist Todd Clear is a book everyone should read: it reveals how putting people in jail erodes social and familial bonds.

It might seem counter-intuitive, but criminalization undoes community and creates conditions for more transgression. The more police criminalize people, the less healthy our communities are. When you understand that, you start to see the harm that police do everywhere.

Do we want a society governed by a rock-em-sock-em mentality of reactive, violent responses to people in distress and need?

Or do we want to live in a generous society in which community development is the focus of government funding, and policing is no longer a major priority?

It is not a luxury to debate this for many people, especially Black, Indigenous and people of colour in Canada. Police abolition is a matter of survival.

For more discussions about defunding the police, check out the book Disarm, Defund, Dismantle: Police Abolition in Canada which confronts policing myths head on. The ideas in the book build on the work of many social movement groups calling for police defunding. The book examines the politics and economics of policing, the history of police violence, the colonial dimensions of Canada that public police continue to uphold, the police targeting of sex workers and migrants, and the need to put defunding on the agenda in every jurisdiction.

Reading these arguments may help communities envision alternatives to police while bolstering arguments to defund police and refund community.

We have decreased the power and scope or done away with harmful social institutions before. Continuing to accept the status quo by handing over massive budgets to public police institutions will not get us to a safe and healthy future. Bigger police budgets and greater police deployments are a recipe for more harm.

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Defunding the police is a move towards community safety - The Conversation