PinkNews
Melania Trump forbidden from lighting the White House in rainbow colours for Pride Month


Patrick Kelleher
Tue, 24 November 2020

Melania Trump wanted to light the White House up in rainbow colours to celebrate Pride Month, but she was forbidden from doing so, according to two Republican sources.

The White House was famously lit up in the rainbow colours in 2015, when Barack Obama was president, in the wake of the landmark Supreme Court ruling that made equal marriage the law of the land.

And Melania Trump wanted to repeat that incredible show of solidarity in June, Republican sources told the Washington Blade – but the plan never came to fruition.

The first lady’s plans were scrapped when Mark Meadows, as chief of staff, was blocking any attempt to show support for the LGBT+ community within the Trump administration, reports suggest.

According to one unnamed Republican source, Meadows ensured that the White House completely ignored Pride Month in June.

Meadows may also have played a part in Donald Trump’s failure to acknowledge Pride celebrations on Twitter. The US president tweeted about the event in 2019, but completely ignored it in 2020.

While it is unknown if Meadows directly interfered in Melania Trump’s efforts to light the White House in the rainbow colours, Republican sources believe he may have been instrumental.

Melania Trump later said she was ‘shocked’ that people think her husband holds anti-LGBT+ views.

Just months after the first lady’s alleged plans to mark Pride Month failed to materialise, she appeared in an election video for the Log Cabin Republicans, an LGBT+ conservative group, in which she claimed she was “shocked” that people think her husband is anti-gay.

“I was shocked to discover that some of these powerful people have tried to paint my husband as anti-gay or against equality,” Melania said.

“Nothing could be further from the truth.”

The first lady said her husband was an “outsider” and claimed he was the “first president to enter the White House supporting gay marriage”, despite the fact that he opposed marriage equality for years before he was elected.

Following the momentous Supreme Court ruling that made marriage equality a reality across the United States in 2015, Obama said: “All people should be treated equal regardless of who they love.”

The decision to light the White House in rainbow colours was met with widespread joy from LGBT+ people across the United States.

UPDATED

You're gonna need a bigger museum:

 'Jaws' shark installed

Issued on: 23/11/2020 - 

This image courtesy of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures(AMPAS) shows the sole surviving full-scale model of the 1975 Jaws shark 

Michael PALMA AMPAS/AFP


Los Angeles (AFP)

Over four decades after terrorizing beachgoers in "Jaws," the blockbuster movie's 25-foot shark model has been installed at Los Angeles' long-awaited Oscars museum, it was announced Monday.

"Bruce the Shark," rumored to have earned its nickname from director Steven Spielberg's razor-sharp lawyer, now lurks 30-feet (nine-metres) above the third floor of the Academy Museum, which is set to open in April.

The fiberglass predator is the only remaining version created for the classic 1975 movie, but with Jaws measuring nearly five feet wide, was too large for the building's elevators -- and had to be levered in by crane through the window.

"It's been a long journey for Bruce since he was acquired in 2016, and we couldn't be happier to welcome him to his new home," said museum president Bill Kramer.

Weighing more than 1,200 pounds (540 kilos), it is the largest object so far in the collection of the upcoming Academy Museum of Motion Pictures -- a project by the body organizing Hollywood's Oscars, first dreamt up nearly a century ago but beset with delays.

Billed as "the world's premier institution dedicated to the art and science of movies," the museum will showcase some 13 million photographs, scripts, costumes and props including Judy Garland's ruby slippers from "Wizard of Oz" and Bela Lugosi's cape from 1931's "Dracula."

The museum is due to open April 30, 2021, although all indoor Los Angeles museums are currently closed due to Covid restrictions.

The futuristic museum contains a 1,000-seat theater inside a seemingly-suspended glass, steel and concrete orb designed by Renzo Piano, connected by sky bridges to a converted department store housing the main galleries -- and the shark.

"We look forward to our opening when museum visitors can engage with our exhibitions, experience our beautiful Renzo Piano-designed building, and come face to face with one of the most iconic characters in film history," added Kramer.

© 2020 AFP

Bruce, the last ‘Jaws’ shark, docks at the Academy Museum

By LINDSEY BAHR

November 23, 2020

1 of 8

A fiberglass replica of Bruce, the shark featured in Steven Spielberg's classic 1975 film "Jaws," is raised to a suspended position for display at the new Academy of Museum of Motion Pictures, Friday, Nov. 20, 2020, in Los Angeles. The museum celebrating the art and science of movies is scheduled to open on April 30, 2021. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Bruce, the fiberglass shark made from the “Jaws” mold, is ready for his close-up. The 1,208 pound, 25-foot-long, 45-year-old shark, famous for being difficult to work with on the set of Steven Spielberg’s classic thriller, on Friday was hoisted up in the air above the main escalator of the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles where he will greet guests for the foreseeable future. And this time, he cooperated.

It is the culmination of years of planning, including a seven-month restoration by special effects and makeup artist Greg Nicotero. The shark is expected to be a major draw for the museum, which plans to open its doors to the public on April 30, 2021.

Super fans know that the “Jaws” crew started calling the shark Bruce after Spielberg’s lawyer Bruce Ramer. They’ll also know that the Bruce that will greet guests in the museum wasn’t technically in “Jaws.” He’s a replica and it’s the last of his kind. The three mechanical Great Whites designed by art director Joe Alves were destroyed when production wrapped. But once the film proved to be a box office phenomenon, a fourth shark was made from the original mold. For 15 years he hung at Universal Studios Hollywood as a photo opportunity for visitors until he wound up at the Sun Valley junkyard he would call home for the next 25. Nathan Adlan, who inherited his father’s junkyard business, donated him to the museum in 2016.

But Bruce wasn’t quite camera ready. A quarter century in the California sun, plus all the years of being re-painted at Universal had taken its toll on the poor creature, who badly needed care and attention. Nicotero, who has worked on “Day of the Dead” and “The Walking Dead,” said he got into the business because of “Jaws” and volunteered for the task of bringing him back to life.

(AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

“One of the great things about being the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is that we have access to Academy members in all craft areas of the industry,” said Academy Museum Director Bill Kramer. “We can call on our members and other members of the film industry who have either worked on the film that the artifact is from or know enough about the provenance and work that had been done to help us restore it. We’re in an incredibly privileged position.”

Restoration was one thing, but loading Bruce into the museum proved to be another ordeal. Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano made sure to account for large-scale objects in his restoration of the Saban Building, which was originally the May Company department store. But Bruce is their biggest piece to date and everyone soon realized that he wouldn’t be able to get into the building with his fins attached.

Last week Bruce was transported from a storage facility on a 70-foot flatbed to the museum at Fairfax Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard where engineers, construction workers and art handlers removed two panels of glass three stories up to get him into the building. Once inside with fins reattached and a final touching up, Bruce was hooked onto five cables, each of which could hold his weight if any were to fail, and hoisted up on a truss by remote control to get into position in the building’s “spine” where he faces East and is visible from Fairfax.

(AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Shraddha Aryal, Vice President of Exhibition Design and Production, described the years of painstakingly detailed modeling and work that went in to preparing for this moment, including full scale mock-ups and light tests to ensure that all of Bruce’s 116 teeth would be visible to tourists.

Seeing him lifted into the building was “such an exciting moment,” she said.

Kramer said they expect Bruce to be a huge draw for visitors, which is why he’ll be hanging in a public area where people can see him without having to pay for a museum ticket. Almost a half century after Bruce made generations of kids and adults scared to get in the water, he’s now beckoning film lovers into a museum.

“We plan on having Bruce greet our visitors for as long as we can keep him up there,” Kramer said. “It’s a free space and a free moment for our visitors to bring delight and hopefully inspire them to learn more about the movies, the history of visual effects and how this prop was made.”

Curious visitors can come and check out the massive great white, the restaurant and the Spielberg Family Gallery to see a 10-minute film on the history of cinema before even committing to purchasing a ticket.

There will also be a public programming series on conservation and restoration drawing on items from the collection that have been restored including the ruby slippers from “The Wizard of Oz,” the Aries-1B from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” the extra-terrestrial from “Alien” and, of course, Bruce.

“There are so many stories that can take you places just through this one object,” Kramer said.

___

Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ldbahr

Pandemic has taken a bite out of seafood trade, consumption

By PATRICK WHITTLE November 23, 2020

FILE - In this March 25, 2020, file photo, a worker weighs and sorts pollack at the Portland Fish Exchange in Portland, Maine. The coronavirus pandemic has hurt the U.S. seafood industry due to a precipitous fall in imports and exports and a drop in catch of some species. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)


PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The coronavirus pandemic has hurt the U.S. seafood industry due to a precipitous fall in imports and exports and a drop in catch of some species.

Those are the findings of a group of scientists who sought to quantify the damage of the pandemic on America’s seafood business, which has also suffered in part because of its reliance on restaurant sales. Consumer demand for seafood at restaurants dropped by more than 70% during the early months of the pandemic, according to the scientists, who published their findings recently in the scientific journal Fish and Fisheries.

Imports fell about 37% and exports about 43% over the first nine months of the year compared to 2019, the study said. The economic impact has been felt most severely in states that rely heavily on the seafood sector, such as Maine, Alaska and Louisiana, said Easton White, a University of Vermont biologist and the study’s lead author.

It hasn’t all been doom and gloom for the industry, as seafood delivery and home cooking have helped businesses weather the pandemic, White said. The industry will be in a better position to rebound after the pandemic if domestic consumers take more of an interest in fresh seafood, he said.

“Shifting to these local markets is something that could be really helpful for recovery purposes,” White said. “The way forward is to focus on shortening the supply chain a little bit.”

The study found that Alaska’s catch of halibut, a high-value fish, declined by 40% compared to the previous year through June. Statistics for many U.S. fisheries won’t be available until next year, but those findings dovetail with what many fishermen are seeing on the water.

Maine’s catch of monkfish has dried up because of the lack of access to foreign markets such as Korea, said Ben Martens, executive director of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association.

“The prices just went so low, they couldn’t build a business doing that this year,” Martens said.

The study confirms what members of the seafood industry have been hearing for months, said Kyle Foley, senior program manager for the seafood program at Gulf of Maine Research Institute. Foley, who was not involved in the study, said the findings make clear that the seafood industry needs more help from the federal government.

The federal government allocated $300 million in CARES Act dollars to the seafood industry in May. The government announced $16 billion for farmers and ranchers that same month.

“It helps to make the case for why there’s a need for more relief, which I think is our industry’s biggest concern across the supply chain in seafood,” Foley said.

The study concludes that “only time will tell the full extent of COVID-19 on US fishing and seafood industries.” Gavin Gibbons, a spokesman for the National Fisheries Institute in McLean, Virginia, said the short-term findings reflect the difficulties the industry has experienced this year.

“The closure of restaurant dinning has had a disproportionate effect on seafood and a pivot to retail has not made up for all of the lost sales,” Gibbons said.

Pope Francis meets with NBA players to talk inequality, injustice

A court at the HP Field House in Orlando, Fla.,pictured on August 27, includes a show of support for the Black Lives Matter movement. 

File Photo by John G. Mabanglo/EPA-EFE

Nov. 23 (UPI) -- Players in National Basketball Association met with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Monday to discuss social and economic injustices and inequalities, the players union said.

The National Basketball Players Association said a delegation of five players and three union officials met with the pontiff in the papal library of the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City. The meeting was noted on pope's list of audiences Monday.

Those who met with Pope Francis were Marco Belinelli of the San Antonio Spurs, Sterling Brown and Kyle Korver of the Milwaukee Bucks, Jonathan Isaac of the Orlando Magic and Anthony Tolliver of the Memphis Grizzlies, the union said.

NBPA Executive Director Michele Roberts, Foundation Executive Director Sherrie Deans and Chief of International Relations Matteo Zuretti also attended.

RELATED Jackie Robinson Day: MLB players pledge salaries for racial justice

Roberts said the pope sought the meeting and said it "demonstrates the influence of their platforms."

"We are extremely honored to have had this opportunity to come to the Vatican and share our experiences with Pope Francis," Korver said in a statement.

"Today's meeting was an incredible experience," added Anthony Tolliver. "With the Pope's support and blessing, we are excited to head into this next season reinvigorated to keep pushing for change and bringing our communities together."

RELATED NBA players agree to resume postseason after protest stoppage

After the NBA resumed its season in July after a COVID-19 hiatus, numerous players voiced and showed support for racial equality and protested the police shootings that killed George Floyd in Minnesota and Breonna Taylor in Kentucky.

The league even allowed players to put activist messages on the back of their jerseys, in place of their surnames. Many players did so.

In August, Bucks players even voted not to play a playoff game against the Magic as a show of protest following the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis.

RELATED LeBron James hopes NBA players 'made Kaepernick proud' with anthem kneel

Earlier this month, Brown received a $750,000 civil settlement from the city of Milwaukee after saying several police officers forced him to the ground and used a stun gun on him two years ago during a parking dispute.

NBA players hailed by pope at Vatican for demanding justice
By TIM REYNOLDS November 23, 2020


Pope Francis delivers his blessing during the Angelus noon prayer he recited from the window of his studio overlooking St.Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, Nov. 22, 2020. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Francis met with NBA players at the Vatican on Monday, lauding them as “champions” and saying he supported their work on social justice.

The five players — Marco Belinelli, Sterling Brown, Jonathan Isaac, Kyle Korver and Anthony Tolliver — were joined in the delegation by NBA players’ union executive director Michele Roberts and two other union executives, Sherrie Deans and Matteo Zuretti.

“We’re here because, frankly, we’re inspired by the work that you do globally,” Roberts told the pope during the meeting in the papal library.

The union said the players spoke about their “individual and collective efforts addressing social and economic injustice and inequality occurring in their communities.” Belinelli addressed the pope in Italian, and the group presented the pope with a commemorative basketball, a union-produced book highlighting efforts players have taken and an Orlando Magic jersey.

“You’re champions,” the pope said. “But also giving the example of teammork, you’ve become a model, giving that good example of teamwork but always remaining humble ... and preserving your own humanity.”

The audience was held days before a book comes out in which Francis supports demands for racial justice, specifically the actions taken following the killing of George Floyd, a Black man who died in May. A police officer in Minneapolis pressed a knee against his neck for minutes while Floyd said he couldn’t breathe.

The cover of Let us Dream, the book, due out Dec. 1, that was ghost-written by Francis’ English-language biographer, Austen Ivereigh. Pope Francis is supporting demands for racial justice in the wake of the U.S. police killing of George Floyd and is blasting COVID-19 skeptics and the media that spread their conspiracies in a new book penned during the Vatican’s coronavirus lockdown. In “Let Us Dream,” Francis also criticizes populist politicians who whip up rallies in ways reminiscent of the 1930s, and the hypocrisy of “rigid” conservative Catholics who support them. (Simon & Schuster via AP)

“I was there to support my colleagues in their daily struggle in the United States, and not just for that,” Belinelli said later Monday on Twitter. “I also went to show that athletes have an active responsibility in society and need to dedicate themselves toward changing things that don’t work. We athletes have a very big media platform and we’ve got to use it positively to reach where institutions are lacking.

“The pope had important words for us: We need to continue to be united, to operate as brothers, like a team, and to set an example for the younger generations,” Belinelli continued. “The key is to remain humble. I will never forget this experience.”

Roberts said Francis sought the meeting with the players, and that it “demonstrates the influence of their platforms.” Demands for social and racial justice have been paramount among players, especially in recent months following the deaths of Floyd and Breonna Taylor, among others.

Brown, in his remarks to the pope, told him about what he, Korver and the other Milwaukee Bucks went through in the NBA’s restart bubble — particularly when they decided to sit out a playoff game against Orlando in response to the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

“It was raw and emotional for our team,” Brown told the pope.

Brown sued officials in Milwaukee after getting taken to the ground, shocked with a Taser and arrested during an encounter with police in 2018, contending in that lawsuit that police used excessive force and targeted him because he is Black. A settlement where Brown would receive $750,000 plus an admission from the city that his civil rights were violated was agreed to this month.

“We are extremely honored to have had this opportunity to come to the Vatican and share our experiences with Pope Francis,” Korver said. “His openness and eagerness to discuss these issues was inspiring and a reminder that our work has had a global impact and must continue moving forward.”

The delegation did not wear masks during its papal visit. The union later said the group was required to undergo COVID-19 testing before meeting the pope and followed other Vatican protocols. Last month, the pope halted his public general audiences amid a surge of coronavirus cases in Italy and the Vatican.

___

More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

US agrees for now to stop deporting women who alleged abuse

FILE - In this Sept. 15, 2020, file photo, Dawn Wooten, left, a nurse at Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia, speaks at a news conference in Atlanta protesting conditions at the immigration jail. The U.S. government has agreed temporarily not to deport detained immigrant women who have alleged being abused by a rural Georgia gynecologist who was seeing patients at the detention center, according to court papers filed Tuesday, Nov. 24. (AP Photo/Jeff Amy, File)

HOUSTON (AP) — The U.S. government has agreed temporarily not to deport detained immigrant women who have alleged being abused by a rural Georgia gynecologist, according to court papers filed Tuesday.

In a motion that must still be approved by a federal judge, the Justice Department and lawyers for several of the women agreed that immigration authorities would not carry out any deportations until mid-January.

Dozens of women have alleged that they were mistreated by Dr. Mahendra Amin, a gynecologist who was seeing patients from the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia. The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation, and the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general is investigating as well. Amin has denied any wrongdoing through his lawyer.

Several women say they have faced retaliation by immigration authorities for coming forward. One woman has said that hours after she spoke to investigators, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement notified her that it had lifted a hold on her deportation. Another woman was taken to an airport to be placed on a deportation flight before her lawyers could intervene.

MORE STORIES:
– Lawyers: Children detained at border facing COVID exposure
– California inmate fought wildfires, now faces deportation
– Illegal border crossings rise for sixth straight month

The agreement filed in court Tuesday proposes that no deportations would take place until at least mid-January for women who have “substantially similar factual allegations.”

Elora Mukherjee, a Columbia University law professor working with several of the women, said the agreement gives the women “a measure of protection for trying to expose the abuses there.”

“ICE and others at Irwin thought they could silence these women,” she said. “They thought they could act with impunity and nothing would ever happen. But the women have organized and had the audacity to speak out.”

ICE said Tuesday that it “complies with all binding court orders.” The agency has previously denied allegations that it tried to deport women to silence them, saying in a written statement: “Any implication that ICE is attempting to impede the investigation by conducting removals of those being interviewed is completely false.”

Scott Grubman, a lawyer for Amin, did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

Full Coverage: Immigration

The allegations were originally revealed by a whistleblower complaint. Further investigations have found several examples of Amin performing surgeries on women who later said they didn’t consent to the procedures or didn’t fully understand them.

Grubman has denied any wrongdoing by the doctor and previously described Amin as a “highly respected physician who has dedicated his adult life to treating a high-risk, underserved population in rural Georgia.”

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Purdue Pharma formally enters guilty plea in opioid case

The Purdue deal, however, does not include any prison time for company officials or members of the Sackler family.

Nov. 24 (UPI) -- Drugmaker Purdue Pharma formally entered its guilty plea Tuesday to federal charges accusing the company of fueling the United States' opioid crisis.

The deal was first agreed to in October, but Purdue board Chairman Steve Miller officially entered the plea during a virtual hearing before U.S. District Judge Madeline Cox Arleo in New Jersey.



"Having our plea accepted in federal court, and taking responsibility for past misconduct, is an essential step to preserve billions of dollars of value for creditors and advance our goal of providing financial resources and lifesaving medicines to address the opioid criss," the company said in a statement to CNN.

As part of the arrangement, Purdue agreed to pay more than $8 billion in fines and plead guilty to three felony counts -- including one count of dual-object conspiracy to defraud the United States and violate the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, and two counts of conspiracy to violate the federal Anti-Kickback Statute.

RELATED Law change allowed greater access to opioid addiction treatment, study finds

Prosecutors said the penalties are the largest ever imposed on a pharmaceutical company, and that Purdue will pay a criminal fine of $3.5 billion and $2 billion in criminal forfeiture.

The drugmaker will also pay a $2.8 billion civil penalty and Purdue's owners, the Sackler family, will separately pay $225 million in damages.

The Justice Department announced the settlement after a lengthy investigation into how Purdue marketed the addictive painkiller OxyContin for years after its introduction in 1995. Since then, it's estimated that Purdue has made more than $35 billion in revenue from the blockbuster drug.

RELATED OxyContin maker Purdue seeks approval of $8B deal to settle opioid case



The department said Purdue made the opioid crisis worse by aggressively marketing narcotic drugs and downplaying the risks of overdose and addiction. The crisis is believed responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of Americans over the last 25 years.

Purdue filed for bankruptcy last year as part of a deal valued at $10 billion that included $3 billion from the Sackler family to settle more than 2,000 lawsuits from various governments seeking to recoup taxpayer dollars lost to the epidemic.

Generic drugmaker Mallinckrodt filed for bankruptcy earlier this month and allocated $1.6 billion for opioid-related legal claims.

The Purdue deal, however, does not include any prison time for company officials or members of the Sackler family.

The Sackler family also doesn't have to admit to any wrongdoing.

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma pleads guilty in criminal case


FILE- In this Oct. 21, 2020, file photo Purdue Pharma headquarters stands in Stamford, Conn. Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty Tuesday, Nov. 24 to three criminal charges, formally admitting its role in an opioid epidemic that has contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths over the past two decades. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)


Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty Tuesday to three criminal charges, formally taking responsibility for its part in an opioid epidemic that has contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths but also angering critics who want to see individuals held accountable, in addition to the company.

In a virtual hearing with a federal judge in Newark, New Jersey, the OxyContin maker admitted impeding the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s efforts to combat the addiction crisis.

Purdue acknowledged that it had not maintained an effective program to prevent prescription drugs from being diverted to the black market, even though it had told the DEA it did have such a program, and that it provided misleading information to the agency as a way to boost company manufacturing quotas.

It also admitted paying doctors through a speakers program to induce them to write more prescriptions for its painkillers.

And it admitted paying an electronic medical records company to send doctors information on patients that encouraged them to prescribe opioids.

The guilty pleas were entered by Purdue board chairperson Steve Miller on behalf of the company. They were part of a criminal and civil settlement announced last month between the Stamford, Connecticut-based company and the Justice Department.

READ MORE:
– Bankruptcy judge OKs federal settlement with Purdue Pharma

The deal includes $8.3 billion in penalties and forfeitures, but the company is on the hook for a direct payment to the federal government of only a fraction of that, $225 million. It would pay the smaller amount as long as it executes a settlement moving through federal bankruptcy court with state and local governments and other entities suing it over the toll of the opioid epidemic.

Members of the wealthy Sackler family who own the company have also agreed to pay $225 million to the federal government to settle civil claims. No criminal charges have been filed against family members, although their deal leaves open the possibility of that in the future.

“Having our plea accepted in federal court, and taking responsibility for past misconduct, is an essential step to preserve billions of dollars of value” for the settlement it is pursuing through bankruptcy court, the company said in a statement.

“We continue to work tirelessly to build additional support for a proposed bankruptcy settlement, which would direct the overwhelming majority of the settlement funds to state, local and tribal governments for the purpose of abating the opioid crisis,” the statement read.

Purdue’s plea to federal crimes provides only minor comfort for advocates who want to see harsher penalties for the OxyContin maker and its owners.

The ongoing drug overdose crisis, which appears to be worsening during the coronavirus pandemic, has contributed to the deaths of more than 470,000 Americans over the past two decades, most of those from opioids both legal and illicit.

Full Coverage: Opioids

Cynthia Munger, whose son is in recovery from opioid addiction after being prescribed OxyContin more than a decade ago as a high school baseball player with a shoulder injury, is among the activists pushing for Purdue owners and company officials to be charged with crimes.

“Until we do that and we stop accusing brick and mortar and not individuals, nothing will change,” said Munger, who lives in Wayne, Pennsylvania.

The attorneys general for about half the states opposed the federal settlement, as well as the company’s proposed settlement in bankruptcy court. In the bankruptcy case, Purdue has proposed transforming into a public benefit corporation with its proceeds going to help address the opioid crisis.

The attorneys general and some activists are upset that despite the Sacklers giving up control of the company, the family remains wealthy and its members will not face prison or other individual penalties.

The activists say there’s no difference between the actions of the company and its owners, who also controlled Purdue’s board until the past few years.

Last week, as part of a motion to get access to more family documents, the attorneys general who oppose the deals filed documents that put members of the Sackler family at the center of Purdue’s continued push for OxyContin sales even as opioid-related deaths rose.

The newly public documents include emails among consultants from McKinsey & Corp. hired by the company to help boost the business. One from 2008, a year after the company first pleaded guilty to opioid-related crimes, says board members, including a Sackler family member, “‘blessed’ him to do whatever he thinks is necessary to ‘save the business.’”

Another McKinsey internal email details how a midlevel Purdue employee felt about the company. It offers more evidence of the Sacklers being hands-on, saying, “The brothers who started the company viewed all employees like the guys who ‘trim the hedges’ — employees should do exactly what’s asked of them and not say too much.”

The documents also describe the company trying to “supercharge” opioid sales in 2013, as reaction to the overdose crisis was taking a toll on prescribing.

RIP

New York City’s first (AND ONLY) Black mayor, David Dinkins, dies at 93

PHOTOS 1 of 13
FILE - In this Monday, Jan. 2, 1990, file photo, David Dinkins delivers his first speech as mayor of New York, in New York. Dinkins, New York City’s first African-American mayor, died Monday, Nov. 23, 2020. He was 93. (AP Photo/Frankie Ziths, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — Few American leaders have faced the battery of urban ills that confronted David Dinkins when he became New York City’s first Black mayor in 1990.

AIDS. Crack cocaine. A soaring murder rate. Rampant homelessness. Racial discord.

Dinkins was elected with high hopes of turning things around, but he became a lightning rod for criticism in his one tumultuous term in office, especially for his handling of a riot in Brooklyn.

It wasn’t until years later that he started getting credit for his efforts to reduce crime, heal divisions and lay the groundwork for the prosperous, tourist-friendly place that New York City became.

Dinkins died Monday night at age 93, according to his assistant at Columbia University, where he taught after leaving office, and by Mayor Bill de Blasio, his onetime staffer. The former mayor’s death came just weeks after the death of his wife, Joyce, who died in October at age 89.

“David Dinkins believed that we could be better, believed we could overcome our divisions,” de Blasio said at a news briefing Tuesday. “He showed us what it was like to be a gentleman, to be a kind person no matter what was thrown at him. And a lot was thrown at him.”

A calm and courtly figure with a penchant for tennis and formalwear, Dinkins was a stark departure from both his predecessor, Ed Koch, and his successor, Rudy Giuliani — two combative and often abrasive politicians in a city with a world-class reputation for impatience and rudeness.

In his inaugural address, he spoke lovingly of New York as a “gorgeous mosaic of race and religious faith, of national origin and sexual orientation, of individuals whose families arrived yesterday and generations ago, coming through Ellis Island or Kennedy Airport or on buses bound for the Port Authority.”

– Joyce Dinkins, wife of former NYC Mayor David Dinkins, dies

FILE - In this Oct. 15, 2015, file photo, former New York City Mayor David Dinkins, right, and his wife, Joyce Dinkins, stand at attention as they listen to "The Star-Spangled Banner," during a ceremony renaming the Manhattan Municipal Building to the David N. Dinkins Building, in New York. Dinkins, New York City’s first African-American mayor, died Monday, Nov. 23, 2020. He was 93. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)

But the city he inherited had an ugly side, too, and Dinkins’ low-key, considered approach quickly came to be perceived as a flaw. Critics said he was too soft and too slow.

“Dave, Do Something!” screamed one New York Post headline in 1990, Dinkins’ first year in office.

Dinkins did a lot at City Hall. He raised taxes to hire thousands of police officers. He spent billions of dollars revitalizing neglected housing. His administration got the Walt Disney Corp. to invest in the cleanup of then-seedy Times Square.

In recent years, he has gotten more credit for those accomplishments, credit de Blasio said Dinkins should have always had. De Blasio, who worked in Dinkins’ administration, named Manhattan’s Municipal Building after his mentor in October 2015.

Dinkins took office during a time of racial discord following the 1989 shooting death of Yusuf Hawkins, a Black teenager who was attacked by youths in a predominantly white Brooklyn neighborhood.

“In that climate, he preached a gorgeous mosaic and proved that we could achieve the highest levels of municipal power in the nation’s largest city, and he did it when the city was torn apart, the Rev. Al Sharpton said in an interview Tuesday. “He did it by having a balance of understanding the community’s needs and the needs of the city.”

Dinkins didn’t get fast enough results, though, to earn a second term.

After beating Giuliani, a Republican, by only 47,000 votes out of 1.75 million cast in 1989, Dinkins, a Democrat, lost a rematch by roughly the same margin in 1993.

Political historians often trace the defeat to Dinkins’ handling of the Crown Heights riot in 1991.

The violence began after a car in the motorcade of an Orthodox Jewish religious leader struck and killed 7-year-old Gavin Cato, who was Black. During the three days of anti-Jewish rioting by young Black men that followed, a rabbinical student was fatally stabbed. Nearly 190 people were hurt.

A state report issued in 1993 cleared Dinkins of the persistently repeated charge that he intentionally held back police in the first days of the violence — but criticized him for not stepping up as a leader.

In a 2013 memoir, Dinkins accused the police department of letting the disturbance get out of hand, but also took a share of the blame, on the grounds that “the buck stopped with me.” He also blamed his election defeat on prejudice: “I think it was just racism, pure and simple.”

Giuliani, now President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, tweeted his condolences to Dinkins’ family.

“He gave a great deal of his life in service to our great City,” the former mayor wrote. “That service is respected and honored by all.”

FILE - In this Feb. 18, 1992, file photo, jazz great Cab Calloway, center, jokes with New York City Mayor David Dinkins, left, and Grammy organizer Jonathan Tisch while riding a specially designated subway train from Harlem to Radio City Music Hall as part of the Grammy Week festivities in New York. New York's subway system was immortalized in the Duke Ellington classic "Take the 'A' Train." Dinkins, New York City’s first African-American mayor, died Monday, Nov. 23, 2020. He was 93. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

New York Attorney General Letitia James, who herself shattered barriers as the state’s first Black woman elected to statewide office, said the example Dinkins set inspired her throughout her own political career.

“I was honored to have him hold the bible at my inaugurations because I, and others, stand on his shoulders,” she said in a statement.

Born in Trenton, New Jersey, on July 10, 1927, Dinkins moved with his mother to Harlem when his parents divorced but returned to his hometown to attend high school. There, he learned an early lesson in discrimination: Black people were not allowed to use the school swimming pool.

During a stint in the Marine Corps as a young man, a Southern bus driver barred him from boarding a segregated bus because the section for Black people was filled.

“And I was in my country’s uniform!” Dinkins recounted years later.

While attending Howard University, the historically Black university in Washington, D.C., Dinkins said he gained admission to segregated movie theaters by wearing a turban and faking a foreign accent.

Back in New York with a degree in mathematics, Dinkins married his college sweetheart, Joyce Burrows, in 1953. His father-in-law, a power in local Democratic politics, channeled Dinkins into a Harlem political club. Dinkins paid his dues as a Democratic functionary while attending Brooklyn Law School, then went into private practice.

He was elected to the state Assembly in 1965, became the first Black president of the city’s Board of Elections in 1972 and went on to serve as Manhattan borough president.

Dinkins’ election as mayor in 1989 came after two cases under Koch exacerbated racial tensions: the rape of a white jogger in Central Park — for which five Black teenagers were convicted and later exonerated — and Hawkins’ killing.

Dinkins defeated Koch, 50% to 42%, in the Democratic primary. But in a city where party registration was 5-to-1 Democratic, Dinkins barely scraped by Giuliani in the general election, capturing only 30% of the white vote.

His administration had one early high note. Newly freed Nelson Mandela made New York City his first stop in the U.S. in 1990. Dinkins had been a longtime, outspoken critic of apartheid in South Africa.

In that same year, though, Dinkins was criticized for his handling of a Black-led boycott of Korean-operated grocery stores in Brooklyn. Critics contended he waited too long to intervene. He ultimately ended up crossing the boycott line to shop at the stores — but only after Koch did.

During Dinkins’ tenure, the city’s finances were in rough shape because of a recession that cost New York 357,000 private-sector jobs in his first three years in office.

Meanwhile, the city’s homicide toll soared to an all-time high, with a record 2,245 during his first year as mayor. There were 8,340 New Yorkers killed during the Dinkins administration — the bloodiest four-year stretch since the New York Police Department began keeping statistics in 1963.

In the last years of his administration, homicides began a decline that continued for decades. In the first year of the Giuliani administration, they fell from 1,946 to 1,561.

One of Dinkins’ last acts in 1993 was to sign an agreement with the United States Tennis Association that gave the organization a 99-year lease on city land in Queens in return for building a tennis complex. That deal guaranteed that the U.S. Open would remain in New York City for decades, and tennis aficionado Dinkins was a regular attendee.

After leaving office, Dinkins was a professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

He had a pacemaker inserted in August 2008 and underwent an emergency appendectomy in October 2007. He also was hospitalized in March 1992 for a bacterial infection that stemmed from an abscess on the wall of his large intestine. He was treated with antibiotics and recovered in a week.

Survivors include his son, David Jr.; daughter, Donna; and two grandchildren.

___

Associated Press writers David B. Caruso and Karen Matthews and former AP writer Larry McShane contributed to this report.

RIP
Bruce Boynton, who inspired 1961 Freedom Rides, dies at 83

In this Thursday, May 3, 2018 photo, Bruce Carver Boynton speaks at his home in Selma, Ala. Boynton, a civil rights pioneer from Alabama who inspired the landmark “Freedom Rides" of 1961, has died. He was 83. Former Alabama state Sen. Hank Sanders, a friend of Boynton’s, confirmed his passing Friday, Nov. 20, 2020. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves, file)


SELMA, Ala. (AP) — Bruce Carver Boynton, a civil rights pioneer from Alabama who inspired the landmark “Freedom Rides” of 1961, died Monday. He was 83.

Former Alabama state Sen. Hank Sanders, a friend of Boynton’s, on Tuesday confirmed his passing.

Boynton was arrested 60 years ago for entering the white part of a racially segregated bus station in Virginia and launching a chain reaction that ultimately helped to bring about the abolition of Jim Crow laws in the South. Boynton contested his conviction, and his appeal resulted in a U.S. Supreme Court decision that prohibited bus station segregation and helped inspire the “Freedom Rides.”

Despite his pivotal role, Boynton was not as well known as other civil rights figure. Yet both his mother and father were early civil rights activists. His mother, Amelia Boynton Robinson, was savagely beaten while demonstrating for voting rights in 1965 and was honored by then-President Barack Obama 50 years later.

“He did something that very few people would have the courage to do. He said no,” U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson said of Boynton in 2018. “To me he’s on a par with Rosa Parks,” the Black woman who refused to give up her bus seat to a white man.

Boynton described his arrest in a 2018 interview with The Associated Press.

Boynton was attending law school at Howard University in Washington, D.C., when he boarded a bus bound for Alabama in 1958. Public facilities including bus stations were separated by race across the South at the time, despite federal laws banning segregation in interstate travel.

The bus pulled into a station in Richmond, Virginia, for a break, and Boynton went inside to eat. Seeing that the part of the restaurant meant for blacks had water on the floor and looked “very unsanitary,” Boynton said he sat down in the “clinically clean” white area. He told the waitress he would have a cheeseburger and tea.

“She left and came back with the manager. The manager poked his finger in my face and said ... move,’” using a racial slur, Boynton recalled in the interview. “And I knew that I would not move, and I refused to, and that was the case.”

Convicted of trespassing, Boynton appealed and his case wound up before the Supreme Court. Thurgood Marshall, then the nation’s leading civil rights attorney and later on to become the first Black Supreme Court justice, was his counsel.

Boynton contested his conviction and the Supreme Court ruled in 1960 that federal discrimination prohibitions barring segregation on interstate buses also applied to bus stations and other facilities linked to interstate travel. The next year, dozens of black and white students set out on buses to travel the South and test whether the ruling in the case, Bruce Boynton v. Virginia, was being followed.

The “Freedom Riders” were arrested or attacked in Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina, and a bus was burned. Then-President John F. Kennedy ordered stricter enforcement of federal anti-discrimination laws.

“He was a pioneer,” said Sanders. “All of the Freedom Rides sprung from this particular action.”

Sanders said Boynton paid a price for what he did, and initially wasn’t able to get a law license in Alabama. He spent most of his career as a civil rights attorney before retirement.

Thompson said in 2018 that Boynton’s life “is a teaching lesson for all of us about how we can make a difference.”

“All he wanted was a cheeseburger, and he changed the course of history.”

Transgender Pakistanis find solace

 in a church of their own


Nisara Gill, right, leads a prayer service at Pakistan's first church for transgender worshippers, in Karachi, Pakistan, Friday, Nov. 13, 2020. Transgender Pakistanis are often mocked, abused and bullied, and Christians among them are a minority within a minority, often shunned even in churches. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan’s Christian transgender people, often mocked, abused and bullied, say they have found peace and solace in a church of their own.

Shunned by other churches, they can raise their voices high here.

During a recent service, transgender women, flowing scarves loose over their long hair, conducted Bible readings and raucously sang hymns, accompanied by the rhythms of a drum played by a transgender elder in the church.

The church, called the First Church of Eunuchs, is the only one for transgender Christians in Pakistan. “Eunuch” is a term often used for transgender women in South Asia, though some consider it derogatory. The church’s pastor and co-founder Ghazala Shafique said she chose the name to make a point, citing at length verses from the Bible saying eunuchs are favored by God.

In Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, on the Arabian Sea coast, it sits in the shadow of towering brownstone cathedral, where the congregation says they don’t feel welcome.

“People looked at us with eyes that are laughing at us,” said Nena Soutrey, a transgender woman whose life has been a tragedy of beatings, bullying and abuse.

“No one wants to sit near us and some even say we are an abomination. But we’re not. We are humans. We are people. What is wrong with us? This is who we are,” she said, a bright red scarf over her shoulders.

Transgender women and men of all faiths are often publicly bullied and humiliated or even face violence in deeply conservative Pakistan, though the government has recognized them officially as a third gender. Often disowned by their families, they resort to begging and work as wedding dancers. They often are sexually abused and end up as sex workers.

Transgender Christians are a minority within a minority in the overwhelmingly Muslim country. Christians and other religious minorities often face discrimination and feel their place is tenuous. While the community can find support among themselves, transgender Christians are most often rejected.

At churches, they are told to sit at the back and sometimes told not to dress as a woman. Arsoo, a transgender woman, said that in churches with separate women’s and men’s sections, she was bounced back and forth, told by the women to sit with the men and told by the men to sit with the women.

“I found myself in such a confusing situation,” she said.

Arzoo said she loved to sing the hymns or recite the Bible, but in churches she attended they asked her not to sing.

“I would try to come in front but the others, they considered it a dishonor if we participate,” she said. “I don’t understand why they feel like this. We are human too, born of our parents. The way God created them, God also created us.”

At their new church, the pastor Shafique celebrates the nearly three-hour service, but it’s the transgender congregation that takes the lead.

The church is set up in the courtyard outside Shafique’s home. Brightly colored carpets give warmth to the cement yard. Pale blue plastic chairs, many of them dirty and cracked, serve as pews. It’s located in the same sprawling compound as the cathedral, protected by high walls and a steel gate.

But there’s no mistaking that the humble church belongs to them: A giant six-foot billboard emblazoned with a large cross proudly announces in English, “The First Church for Eunuchs.” An Urdu translation underneath uses the term transgender Pakistanis more often use for themselves, “khwaja sira.”

Shafique, a rare female pastor in Pakistan, was first approached about starting the church by an unexpected advocate, a Muslim — Neesha Rao, Pakistan’s only transgender lawyer. Rao tells with pride how she begged on the streets for 10 years to put herself through law school.

Rao said she was moved by her transgender Christian friends who were often afraid to announce their faith, fearing a further abuse, but also couldn’t find solace among fellow Christians.


“I am a Muslim child and a Muslim transgender, but I had a pain in my heart for the Christian transgenders,” said Rao as she attended a Friday evening service. She attends every week, she said, standing behind the worshippers.

Shafique belongs to the Church of Pakistan, a united Protestant Church of Anglican, Methodist and Reform Churches. So far, her efforts with the hierarchy to get her church recognized have been rebuffed.

“They tell me there are theological issues,” Shafique said. “I am still waiting to hear what those theological issues are.”

She is sharply critical of clerics who would rather their transgender congregants were invisible or stayed away all together and of parents who reject their transgender children.

“Church elders have told me they are not clean, ... that they are not righteous,” she said. “We reject them ... and then they become so broken and then they get into all bad things. I say we are to be blamed, the church and the parents.”

Pakistan’s recognition of a third gender was a remarkable move for the conservative country. It was life changing for many because it allowed them to acquire identity cards, needed for everything from getting a driver’s license to opening a bank account.

“This is a great step,” Shafique said. But she added it doesn’t change attitudes. Parents often refuse to give their transgender children their birth certificates needed to get an ID card or forbid them to use their family name.

For Soutrey, the church is a refuge from a lifetime of pain.

Tears welled up and her voice cracked as she told of how her mother died when she was just 12, and her brothers beat and insulted her. Finally, she fled to live on the streets and found acceptance within the transgender community. She has stopped going out at night because of harassment and abuse.

“First thing I want to say is no one should have to suffer as transgenders suffer,” said Soutrey, between her tears. “People treat us worse than dogs,” she said, even in mainstream churches she attended.

“This church is important for us because we are free and happy sitting here, worshipping the God who created us.”

___

Associated Press writer Zarar Khan in Islamabad contributed to this report.

CLIMATE REFUGEES 

Punishing hurricanes to spur more Central American migration

By CLAUDIO ESCALON and MARÍA VERZA

1 of 7

FILE - In this Nov. 6, 2020 file photo, a resident walking through a flooded street looks back at storm damage caused by Hurricane Eta in Planeta, Honduras. Flooded out Honduran and Guatemalan families stranded on rooftops in the most marginalized neighborhoods after the passage of hurricanes Eta and Iota portend a new wave of migration, observers across the region say. (AP Photo/Delmer Martinez, File)

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras (AP) — At a shelter in this northern Honduran city, Lilian Gabriela Santos Sarmiento says back-to-back hurricanes that hit with devastating fury this month have overturned her life. Her home in what was once a pretty neighborhood in nearby La Lima was destroyed by flooding.

The 29-year-old woman who never finished middle school had managed to build a life for herself, most recently cleaning COVID-19 wards at a local hospital. Now, having lost everything, she says she sees no future in Honduras at her age and with her level of education.

“I think that in Honduras it is very difficult to do again what it took me 10 years to do,” Santos said. So her plan is to leave for the United States.

“If there’s a caravan, I’m going,” she said, referring to the large groups of migrants who make the arduous journey together, often on foot.

Inside shelters and improvised camps across Central America, families who lost everything in the severe flooding set off by the two major hurricanes are arriving at the same conclusion.

According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, more than 4.3 million Central Americans, including 3 million Hondurans, were affected by Hurricane Eta alone. Those numbers only rose when Iota, another Category 4 storm, hit the region last week.

The hurricanes’ destruction comes on top of the economic paralysis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the persistent violence and lack of jobs that have driven families north from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador in great numbers during recent years. Add an element of hope from the incoming government of President-elect Joe Biden, and experts predict the region is on the verge of another mass migration.

“This is going to be much bigger than what we have been seeing,” said Jenny Arguello, a sociologist in San Pedro Sula who studies migration flows. “I believe entire communities are going to leave.”

“The outlook is heartbreaking.”

It’s still early. Tens of thousands remain in shelters, but those along the migration route have already started to see storm victims begin to trickle north.

Eta made landfall Nov. 3 in Nicaragua, leaving a path of death and destruction from Panama to Mexico. Iota hit the same stretch of Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast Nov. 16, pouring more rain on still flooded countries. At least 150 people were killed and more than 100 remain missing.

The same day Eta landed, U.S. voters elected Biden amid a pandemic that has devastated the continent for more than eight months. The Democrat has promised a more compassionate approach to immigration even as desperate families weigh their options inside mud-filled Central American homes.
ADVERTISEMENT



Among the hardest-hit areas was Honduras’ north, the country’s most productive agricultural region. The Sula Valley reported massive crop losses raising fears of food shortages. Damaged businesses mean fewer jobs.

Thousands of homes were destroyed and the infamous gang violence has not relented. Some residents around San Pedro Sula reported gangs charging a tax to boats trying to rescue people from flooded neighborhoods.

Mauro Verzeletti, director of the Casa del Migrante in Guatemala City, said the storms will increase poverty on top of the violence people already faced, forcing more to migrate.

“They’ve already started to come, it has begun,” he said, adding that a group of eight Hondurans driven out by the storms had arrived last week, stayed the night and continued on their way.

Jarlin Antonio Lorenzo has been living for days under a San Pedro Sula overpass in an encampment without any bathrooms after being flooded out of his home. He said there was no other option but to migrate.

“You’re going to see all of these faces in the caravan,” he said, pointing to those around him. “We’re going because we can’t stand the poverty, the hunger.”

Felipe Del Cid, Americas chief of operations for the Red Cross, described a “triple emergency” in countries like Honduras and Guatemala, referring to Eta, the pandemic and the years-long drought that has made even subsistence agriculture impossible across a long swath of the region. He said the Red Cross was preparing for internal displacement, as well as migration to other countries.

Honduras’ Red Cross was just finishing up its search and rescue phase after Eta when Iota hit, said Mauricio Paredes, vice president of the Honduras Red Cross in San Pedro Sula.

“There’s a lot of flooding again in some cities that had flooded before, but this time it has been more severe and faster because the levees that protect the cities had been damaged by Eta,” Paredes said.

Meanwhile, big expectations are building for the incoming Biden administration. A dramatic change in tone toward migrants is the most immediate expectation, followed by hopes for the elimination of the Trump administration policy that made asylum seekers wait out their cases from Mexico.

Still, changes, particularly to the U.S. asylum process, could take time.

Last week, U.S. Rep. Nydia Velázquez, a Democrat from New York, introduced a bill that would grant Temporary Protected Status to Guatemalans, Hondurans and Nicaraguans already living in the United States. Trump had sought to end so-called TPS, potentially sending thousands of families back to their native countries, in some cases decades after they left.

But experts caution that Biden will be careful not to make changes that could attract a new wave of migrants.

They also warn that policies in Mexico and Guatemala to stop migrant caravans are unlikely to change. Guatemala dissolved a caravan of mostly Hondurans in early October before it reached Mexico.

“The change of government doesn’t mean the United States is going to weaken its borders so that there would be a massive migration. All of the families in the region have to take this into account,” said César Ríos, director of the non-governmental Salvadoran Migrant Institute.

“The fact that (Biden) has committed to a respectful approach to human rights doesn’t mean they’re going to make immigration easier.”

At the same time, Ríos sees only growing necessity. “We are going to enter a very painful reality in the region. Poverty is going to increase in our countries in Central America and families are going to have more needs.”

For Santos, back at the San Pedro Sula shelter, losing everything has reinforced why so many of her countrymen have left.

“When they go, it’s that the anguish has already overwhelmed them, they can’t anymore,” she said. “I’m headed there too.”

__

Verza reported from Mexico City. AP writer Christopher Sherman in Mexico City and Sonia Pérez D. in Guatemala City contributed to this report.